29Apr

Sacraments and The Black Death in England

In the mid 14th century a pandemic raged through Europe that makes COVID-19 pale in comparison. The pestilence reached England, starting around June 1348 at the seaport of Melcombe Regis (Weymouth) and decimated the population of western England as the year progressed. By December, it is estimated that more than 30 percent of the population of England had died (some estimates place the death toll as high as 60 percent). Clergy were at particular risk of exposure due to their role ministering to the sick and dying.

So dire did the situation become by January, that Ralph of Shrewsbury, the Bishop of Bath and Wells wrote an extraordinary letter:

“The contagious nature of the present pestilence, which is ever spreading itself far and wide, has left many parish churches and other cures, and consequently the people of our diocese, destitute of curates and priests. And inasmuch as priests cannot be found who are willing out of zeal, devotion, or for a stipend to undertake the care of the foresaid places, and to visit the sick and administer to them the Sacraments of the Church (perchance for dread of the infection and contagion), many, as we understand, are dying without the Sacrament of Penance. These, too, are ignorant of what ought to be done in such necessity, and believe that no confession of their sins, even in a case of such need, is useful or meritorious, unless made to a priest having the keys of the Church. Therefore, desiring, as we are bound to do, the salvation of souls, and ever watching to bring back the wandering from the crooked paths of error, we, on the obedience you have sworn to us, urgently enjoin upon you and command you—rectors, vicars, and parish priests—in all your churches, and you deans, in such places of your deaneries as are destitute of the consolation of priests, that you at once and publicly instruct and induce, yourselves or by some other, all who are sick of the present malady, or who shall happen to be taken ill, that in articulo mortis, if they are not able to obtain any priest, they should make confession of their sins (according to the teaching of the apostle) even to a layman, and, if a man is not at hand, then to a woman. We exhort you, by the present letters, in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to do this, and to proclaim publicly in the aforesaid places that such confession made to a layman in the presumed case can be most salutary and profitable to them for the remission of their sins, according to the teaching and the sacred canons of the Church. And for fear any, imagining that these lay confessors may make known confessions so made to them, shall hesitate thus to confess in case of necessity, we make known to all in general, and to those in particular who have already heard these confessions, or who may in future hear them, that they are bound by the precepts of the Church to conceal and keep them secret; and that, by a decree of the sacred canons, they are forbidden to betray such confession by word, sign, and by any other means whatever, unless those confessing so desire. And (further) should they do otherwise, let such betrayers know that they sin most gravely, and incur the indignation of Almighty God and of the whole Church.” And further to stir up the zeal of both clergy and laity to this work the Bishop grants ample indulgences to such as follow the advice here given them.

“And since late repentance (when, for example, sickness compels and the fear of punishment terrifies) often deceives many, we grant to all our subjects, who in the time of the pestilence shall come to confession to priests having the keys of the Church and power to bind and to loose, before they are taken sick, and who do not delay till the day of necessity, forty days of indulgence. To every priest also who shall induce people to do this, and hear the confessions of those thus brought to confess whilst in health, we grant the same by the mercy of God Almighty, and trusting to the merits and prayers of his glorious Mother, of the Blessed Peter, Paul, and Andrew the Apostles, our patrons, and of all the Saints.”

“You shall further declare, to all thus confessing to lay people in case of necessity, that if they recover they are bound to confess the same sins again to their own parish priest. The Sacrament of the Eucharist, when no priest can be obtained, may be administered by a deacon. If, however, there be no priest to administer the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, faith must, as in other matters, suffice for the Sacrament.”

Francis Gasquet, from whose book this letter was taken, adds the following comment:

“These large derogations from the usual ecclesiastical practice, though consonant alike with Christian charity and the teaching of the Church, are resorted to only in cases of the direst need, and the circular letter of the Bishop of Bath and Wells witnesses to the extreme gravity of the situation throughout the diocese, as early as the month of January, 1349.”

Gasquet, Francis Aiden, The Great Pestilence (A.D. 1348-9), Now Commonly Known as the Black Death. London: Simpkin Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd, 1893.

The entire book is available for free at Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45815/45815-h/45815-h.htm

23Feb

Agreeing to Disagree

I recall an old slogan:
“In essentials, unity.
In nonessentials, diversity.
In all things, love!”

The early bishop and martyr Polycarp, whose feast is celebrated on Feb 23, was involved in a dispute that is a model of Christian brotherhood in the midst of disagreement. The dispute is known by the obscure name “Quartodecimanism” from a Latin term meaning “fourteenth”.

The controversy arose because Christians in Jerusalem and Asia Minor, following guidance from the Apostle John, chose to celebrate Passover on the 14th day of the “first month”. They felt that the crucifixion of Jesus should carry the emphasis, and that this day should be the principle feast for Christians. On the other hand, churches in and around Rome had changed the principle celebration to the following Sunday (as is the commonplace today for most Christians). The dispute became quite heated at times, leading almost to excommunications.

We have a record of how Polycarp and his opponent treated each other on this issue:

And when the blessed Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little about certain other things, they immediately made peace with one another, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it as he said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him. But though matters were in this shape, they communed together, and Anicetus conceded the administration of the eucharist in the church to Polycarp, manifestly as a mark of respect. And they parted from each other in peace, both those who observed, and those who did not, maintaining the peace of the whole church.

(Eusebius, quoting a letter by Irenaus, available at earlychurchtexts.com)

Eventually the debate was settled, and the Roman practice prevailed, though a few holdouts persisted into the fourth century. Today Easter Sunday is the biggest feast on the Calendar for Christians throughout the world.

Other sources:
Campbell, T. (1907). Pope St. Anicetus. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved February 25, 2018 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01514a.htm

25Oct

Fish Stories and Garden Snakes

I once heard a sermon on the prophet Jonah, in which the preacher opined that the fish story “makes good faithful Christians go weak in the knees” because it is hard to believe in a great fish swallowing a man whole, and then spitting him up again; and yet he does in fact believe. The reason is that once you have “swallowed” that God became incarnate as a human being, died on the cross, and was resurrected, and ascended into the realms of glory, then believing in Jonah is a little thing. Who are we to cherry pick which parts of God’s story to believe? To do this is dangerous, making God subject to our whims and sensibilities—making God to be not God. “The world needs more believers,” he concluded.

A great deal of discussion rages on about the historicity of Adam and Eve. This story reads to our contemporary context like a tall tale. I myself go “weak in the knees” when I contemplate the idea of defending the veracity of this story of a man and woman in a garden full of magic fruit, being approached by a sentient talking serpent. It just seems preposterous.

However, I take a similar approach to the tale of Adam and Eve, as the aforementioned pastor took to the story of Jonah. I have swallowed the idea of a Creator capable of bringing into existence a universe full of galaxies and black holes and many other wondrous things—this is a being of great power, and nearly infinite knowledge. Such a being, if it chose to interact with humanity, must be accorded the utmost respect. I believe that this God has indeed interacted with us, particularly in the person of Jesus, thus piercing the idea of a deistic God who observes some kind of “Star Trek”-like “prime directive” of never interfering with the course of natural events. Jesus of Nazareth, the “Son of man”, appeared among us, fulfilling many predictions from centuries past. This man mysteriously appeared to many after his death and then vanished, leaving behind a continually growing movement of people dedicated (imperfectly) to the love of others and reconciliation with God.

Therefore, I embrace Adam and Eve, and the Garden of Eden. A God who finely tuned the physical laws of our universe would not be sloppy in allowing mere fables into the sacred texts of His chosen people. Whether read literally or allegorically, the story must be taken seriously, as the very word of truth from on high.

Notes:

Christians have read Genesis 2-4 in a variety of ways. A fairly recent book of interest would be Barrett and Caneday, editors, Four Views on the Historical Adam, Zondervan, 2013. Featuring essays by Denis Lamoroux and others, it lays out some of the different positions taken by Christians.

My recollection of a sermon in the first paragraph is from notes taken on a homily preached by Fr. Michael Spurlock at Evensong, St Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, Oct 15, 2013. As far as I can discover, neither a recording nor any notes exist online at this time.

Photo credits:
1. “Eve Tempted by the Serpent” William Blake, c. 1799
2. “Jonah and the Whale” (oil on board). Aris, Fred (b. 1934). The Bridgeman Art Library International.

17Sep

Metrical Psalms? There’s An App For That

Once all the rage in Reformed churches, translations of the book of Psalms set to rhyme and meter were once commonplace. The first book of any kind published in Britain’s New World colonies was the Bay Psalm Book, printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (A copy of this book owned by Boston’s Old South Church was sold a few years back at a Sotheby’s auction for a staggering $14,165,000).

Some metrical psalms have survived the ravages of time to remain in present day hymnals, including “Old Hundredth” and a version of Psalm 23. The text of the former, from the 1561 Anglo-Geneven psalter, may be familiar to you:

All people that on earth do dwell,
sing to the Lord with cheerful voice:
Him serve with fear, his praise forth tell,
come ye before him and rejoice.

The Church of Scotland adopted a psalter in 1650, in collaboration with the Westminster Assembly, the full official title of which is The Psalms of David in Metre According to the Version Approved by The Church of Scotland. The “1650 Psalter”, or “Scottish Metrical Psalter”, borrowed extensively from prior versions, including 269 lines of the “Bay Psalm Book”. This 1650 edition is still used in parts of the Scottish Highlands and in some Presbyterian churches elsewhere.

A website devoted to hymnody and old psalters, Music For the Church of God, said this about the Psalter:

In spite of its age and sometimes quaint wording, the Scottish Psalter still retains great power even today. If one had to use only one metrical Psalter, this one would be a good choice.

Now, a developer has created an app that contains all 150 psalms, matched to several optional tunes (with MIDI tune player), and commentary by Scottish theologian John Brown of Haddington (1722-1787). I commend this app to you as a great way to get acquainted with this treasury of faith.

Get it for iOS in the App Store.

Android here.

Kindle store (Kindle Fire) here.

28Aug

Luther’s Gift of Music

Martin Luther and his family by G.A. Spangenberg (1866) Musée de Leipzig

“Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.” (Martin Luther, 1483-1548)

The reformer Martin Luther was not merely a scholar and theologian, but also a talented musician and composer. He sang and played the lute (as pictured above). As the father of the Protestant Reformation, he pushed for music instruction throughout Germany. He guided and shaped music as an expression of the reformed faith. We can give him credit for many of the musical innovations we now take for granted, such as congregational singing of hymns.

Luther collaborated with Johann Walter, singer, composer, and choirmaster to the Elector of Saxony, and together they published the first Lutheran hymn books. These hymns were instantly popular and spread quickly and widely. Among the most popular German publications in the middle of the 16th century were the Achliederbuch (1524), Enchiridion (1524), and Geystliche Gesang Buchleyn (1524). The Rev Kurt Egbert wrote:

Luther’s hymns were very popular and were sung at home, in the fields, in the marketplace, on the way to work and at group gatherings of various kinds. In the churches the singing was led by the choir (not accompanied by the organ). As hymnals were made available to the congregations, the hymns were often sung antiphonally. The stanzas were divided between the congregation, choir and organ. This is a practice which only recently has become fairly popular in Lutheran churches after a long period of neglect.(The 1983 essay “Martin Luther, God’s Music Man” is available here)

Luther’s reform of music initially allowed the use of as much or as little Latin as each church saw fit. He imported Roman Catholic music freely, often changing or translating the text into German. In 1523 he undertook to write a German version of the Mass.

He often wrote powerfully of music’s ability to elevate the human spirit. In Luther’s famous 1538 Foreword to Georg Rhau’s Collection, “Symphoniae iucundae”, his joyous thoughts crescendo to a passion that looks beyond this world to a heavenly dance:

I would extol the precious gift of God in the noble art of music, but I scarcely know where to begin or end… This precious gift has been bestowed on men alone to remind them that they are created to praise and magnify the Lord. But when natural music is sharpened and polished by art, then one begins to see with amazement the great and perfect wisdom of God in his wonderful work of music, where one voice takes a simple part and around it sing three, four, or five other voices, leaping, springing round about, marvelously gracing the simple part, like a folk dance in heaven with friendly bows, embracing, and hearty swinging of partners.

An explosion of musical creativity continued in the Lutheran churches for the next few hundred years. Riches of beauty flowed from the pens of such luminous composers as Dietrich Buxtehude, Samuel Scheidt, Heinrich Schütz, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Felix Mendelssohn. The Anglican Church, receiving Luther’s insights, evolved its own beautiful musical traditions in the capable hands of William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, and others.

Among the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, Luther’s enthusiastic embrace of music stands in stark contrast to the attitudes of some of the others. To be sure, Luther felt that music should serve the word—he advocated singing one note per syllable, for example—but he didn’t eliminate music. Many of the reformers who followed Luther took a dimmer view of music. Some banned organs and other musical instruments in their churches, and even eliminated music altogether in favor of the spoken word. In Geneva, John Calvin permitted only the a capella singing of metrical psalms. While I will not denigrate the faith, devotion, and spiritual insights of the other reformers, music in the Protestant Church clearly owes a deep debt to Martin Luther.

As a recent essay summarizes:
For Luther to “say and sing” was a single concept resulting from the inevitable eruption of joyful song in the heart of the redeemed. In contrast to some other reformers who saw music as always potentially troublesome and in need of careful control and direction, Luther, in the freedom of the Gospel, could exult in the power of music to proclaim the Word and to touch the heart and mind of man. (Paul Schilf, PhD at Christ Lutheran Church, Sioux Falls)

I recall that when I was a junior in college I visited an Anglican church whose worthy choir was performing Anton Bruckner’s “Os Justi” (not a reformed work, of course). As the treble voices soared, the man next to me muttered, “You would have to have ears of wax not to be moved by that.” Martin Luther expressed a similar sentiment:

“A person…who does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”

25Jul

The art of the Czars and the Art of Willful Blindness

It is fascinating how an object can embody the best and worst of us. Take this lovely and delicately decorated piece of Russian art. Shown below is an ornate chalice commissioned by Catherine thd Great in 1790. The craftsmanship and beauty are an homage to something higher and better, to God. The Czars under whom this art flourished were, of course, famously cruel and despotic.

This article isn’t about Czars, but rather about events that took place later, in the 1930’s. The art tells us also about a more banal, if no less sinister, form of evil. The reason I saw this little gem is that literally tens of thousands of priceless pieces of art were lifted from Russia during the dark days of Joseph Stalin, by another Joseph, to whom we shall return in a moment.

I have read the fascinating little 2009 book by Tim Tzouliadis called The Forsaken, An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia. This book chronicles the tragic fates of thousands of Americans who migrated to Russia in the 1920’s, in hopes that the Communist experiment might offer them a better life, or because work relocated them there (in the case of an auto factory that Henry Ford moved to Gorky). Upon arrival, their passports were immediately confiscated by Soviet officials. During the purges and horrors of the 1930s, most of these Americans were arrested and either summarily executed with a bullet in the back of the head, or sent to gulags where most of them died of disease and starvation.

The Americans were by no means alone in this nightmare. An internal report by Nikita Khrushchev stated that from 1935 to 1941 the NKVD had arrested 19 million citizens, of whom 7 million were shot immediately. (Tzouliadis, p.159)

The terrified American emigrants tried to turn to the American embassy for help. As the book put it:

In Moscow, the American diplomats understood very well that low-level negotiation with the Soviet Foreign Ministry was entirely useless, given the fact that the entire Commissariat was petrified of the NKVD and were themselves frequent victims of the Terror. Clearly more forceful intervention was required at the very highest levels of government. Had the diplomats been willing, action might still have been taken, and the lives of the American emigrants might well have been saved.

But what was abundantly clear was that if this was about to happen, the “captured Americans” needed a heroically protective figure to intervene on their behalf—someone with the courage of Oskar Schindler or Raoul Wallenberg—someone willing to lend sanctuary, to hand out passports, to speak to the president, and to kick up a very loud and very public fuss in a time of peril. Someone, in short, who might hold a protective hand over them when their lives were so evidently endangered.

What they got instead was Ambassador Joseph Davies. (p. 106)

Joseph Davies was happy to praise the Soviets and turn a blind eye to the plight of the Terror victims. He even attended some of the “Show Trials”, and wrote favorably of the proceedings, even as most foreign press and even his own staff differed:

“Ambassador Davies was not noted for an acute understanding of the Soviet system, and he had an unfortunate tendency to take what was presented at the trial as the honest and gospel truth. I still blush when I think of some of the telegrams he sent to the State Department about the trial…”

“I can only guess at the motivation for his reporting. He ardently desired to make a success of a pro-Soviet line and was probably reflecting the views of some of Roosevelt’s advisors to enhance his political standing at home.” (Charles E. Bohlen (1973) Witness to History, New York: Norton. Page 52)

His wife at the time was the heiress and multimillionaire Marjorie Merriweather Post, founder of General Foods. She and her husband lived in the manner to which the richest woman in the world was accustomed. They entertained lavishly at the newly renovated Spaso House in Moscow.

At night, Marjorie’s sleep was disrupted by the noises attending the activities of the secret police.

Only years later, after their divorce, did Marjorie Merriweather Post reveal how she had listened to the NKVD vans pulling up outside the apartment houses that surrounded the Spaso House gardens. In the middle of the night she had lain awake listening to the screams of families and children as the victims were taken away by the secret police. (Tzouliadis, p 120).

Every night she also heard a lot of gunfire emanating from the basement of a nearby Moscow building, due to prisoners being executed. She confronted her husband about this chilling sound and he soothed her by telling her that it was probably just construction noises from the expansion of the subway.

This insomnia perhaps could have been part of the reason that Davies and his wife endeavored to spend most of their time away from the embassy, traveling the world, and sailing the Baltic on their luxury yacht, the “Sea Cloud”. They also scoured the land buying up at discounted prices the art that the Bolsheviks had confiscated from Orthodox churches and the Romanov government. Marjorie had an eye for art, and built from scratch one of the largest private collections of Russian art outside of the Hermitage. The scope of the purchases was breathtaking. In one letter, Mr. Davies recounts the excitement of art collecting:

As usual we cannot resist them [the commission shops] and have been having somewhat of an orgy again of picking up these interesting souvenirs. (Tzouliadis, p118).

Much of the interesting souvenirs, representing this great heritage of art is now on display at Hillwood, the mansion that was Marjorie Post’s final home in Washington, DC. This priceless horde is a testament to the best and worst of humanity.

17Jun

Communist Infiltration of Protestant Churches

“Dr Harry F Ward, for many years, has been the chief architect for Communist infiltration and subversion in the religious field.” (Former communist Manning Johnson, 1953, Testimony before House Un-American Activities Committee).

In a year that marks both the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, and 100 years of Communism, we will examine a nexus between these two mighty movements. In the early 1900s, a large number of clergy had Marxist leanings and were easy targets for manipulation by communists, despite the atheism of the latter. Dr. Paul Kengor, author of Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century is quoted as saying:

When I started researching this book, I asked Herb Romerstein, the veteran investigator of the communist movement, and himself a former communist, which group of Americans were most manipulated. He unhesitatingly answered “liberal Protestant pastors.” He called them “the biggest suckers of them all.”

Harry F Ward

One of the more prominent of these early communist sympathizers was the Methodist Harry F. Ward. He trained at Northwestern University (BA 1897) and Harvard (MS Philosophy 1898). Returning to the Midwest he became a pastor of a Methodist church in the slums of Chicago, where contact with stockyard workers increasingly radicalized him. He joined a fledgling labor union in solidarity with his parishioners. He began preaching sermons that emphasized political and economic themes. In 1905 he took a sabbatical during which time he read the works of Karl Marx. The following year he founded the Methodist Federation for Social Service, joining with like-minded Methodist pastors to promote social change. He taught at Boston University in 1916, and later became a professor of ethics at New York’s Union Theological Seminary (from 1918 to 1941), where he was instrumental in distributing communist literature, according to Comintern archives. He influenced a generation of pastors.

Of Ward’s Union years, an interesting glimpse is provided in a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famous theologian and martyr under the Nazi regime, who had trained at Union. Ward was depicted as “decidedly more ideological than any of his Union colleagues”:

Ward and Niebuhr would take dramatically different turns in the decade ahead: Niebuhr abandoning pacifism for Christian realism, and eventually becoming a Cold War anticommunist Democrat; Ward, meanwhile, hunkering down, as he saw things, in the trenches with Jesus and Marx, a defender of the “Soviet spirit” against all its enemies. . . . In the classroom, Bonhoeffer listened closely as Ward enunciated his singular version of Pascal’s wager: Christians had the world to gain from living “as if” there existed an ethical God weighing every human action in the balance. This meant, at least for Ward, a socialist revolution. (Marsh, Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Vintage, 2015, p 124)

From 1920 to 1940 he was the national chairman of the ACLU, the role for which he is best remembered today. He is also one of the fathers of the ecumenical movement. Along with prominent socialist theologian Walter Rauschenbusch, Ward was instrumental in founding the Federal Council of Churches in 1908, which was a precursor to the current National Council of Churches.

Kengor, who based his work on declassified communist archives, writes of Ward in the Catholic World Report:

One of the more eye-opening early documents now declassified from the Comintern Archives on Communist Party USA (CPUSA) is a four-page December 1920 letter that lists liberal college professors targeted by the Soviet Comintern and American Communist Party. On the list is not only Ward, listed with Union Theological Seminary, but other professors from seminaries or religious colleges, from Mount Holyoke to Trinity College. The liberals are listed by Comintern officials as sources to get their materials on the shelves at seminary and college libraries.

Ward made several pilgrimages to the USSR, where he was given the full Potemkin-village treatment. The progressive pastor was smitten, returning to write more than one book on the marvels of the Motherland. In 1935, he published The Soviet Spirit, a valentine to Lenin and Stalin, which the “Daily Worker” and “New Masses” promoted loudly. The “Daily Worker” did a full-page profile of Ward’s book, along with a glowing feature on the good reverend. The hardcore atheists were enamored of the Methodist minister. As for New Masses, it offered a free give-away of The Soviet Spirit as a complimentary gift for buying a one-year subscription.

In the 1950’s Ward’s name came up in connection with the infamous McCarthy hearings. Former American Communist leader turned defector, Manning Johnson, gave the testimony noted above. He was asked if Ward was a communist. Johnson answered in the affirmative.

“I would say that he is the Red dean of the Communist Party in the religious field.”

Johnson named an organization headed by Ward as a Communist front, namely the “American League Against War and Fascism”. This organization was created by the Communist Party central committee and per Johnson was involved in activities including sabotage, fomenting resentment against law enforcement, conducting espionage for the Soviet Union, and infiltrating and subverting churches, seminaries, and youth organizations. All sensitive information conveyed to this and other front organizations were reported to the Communists in Russia. The end goal of using front organizations was to attempt to radicalize millions of people in support of Communist ends.

Harry F. Ward was selected to head the American League Against War and Fascism. The party conclusion was that because he was a minister, he would be able to draw in churches, and secondly, that he would be able to draw in labor because of his imposing record as a clergyman of some standing and note.

In other words, they considered him the ideal head for the organization. It was proven a good decision because the American League Against War and Fascism was able, through exploiting the antiwar and anti-Fascist sentiments among the clergymen and among church people generally to involve millions of people in supporting the program of the American League Against War and Fascism.

… The majority of the ministers in the American League Against War and Fascism were involved by Harry F. Ward, and the organization which he was connected with, known as the Methodist Federation for Social Action; also the People’s Institute of Applied Religion, and other Communist-front organizations operating in the religious world. The Methodist Federation for Social Service later became the Methodist Federation for Social Action.

The Methodist Federation for Social Change

The secretary of the Methodist Federation, Ms. Winnifred Chappell, was also named as a Communist, and wrote an article in June 1934, that called for workers to refuse to make goods for their governments, and to join in “a joyful international Soviet to supply their own and each other’s needs.” Another prominent member of the Methodist Federation was Jack McMichael, former head of a major Communist front organization known as The American Youth Congress. He was himself later called before the HUAC committee where he vehemently denied being a Communist.

Johnson’s testimony about the Methodist Federation continued:

The Methodist Federation for Social Service or the Methodist Federation for Social Action, headed by Rev. Harry F. Ward, whom I have already identified as a party member, was invaluable to the Communist Party in its united-front organizations and campaigns. It was invaluable because through it the party was able to get contact with thousands of ministers all over the country.

… They had the contact, a wealth of
contact, established and built up over the years with ministers in every section of the country who were easily and quickly involved in various united-front activities, consequently giving these Communist-front movements an aura of respectability the like of which they could not get except for the tremendous amount of faith people have in religion and the church.

Mr. Manning’s full testimony is available at the Internet Archive.

The influence of The Methodist Federation for Social Change is well attested: MFSA attained the height of its growth just following World War II under the leadership of Jack McMichael. By 1950, the MFSA was highly influential in the Methodist Church. While the MFSA had only 5,800 members compared to 9 million in the entire Methodist Church, this membership included half of the church’s 16 bishops, as well as having representatives in all the major seminaries at the time.(Wikipedia). The Methodist Church would be scandalized enough by the MFSA to formally cut ties, though it has persisted as an independent organization and remains a force within Methodism, proclaiming today its mission: “to mobilize, lead and sustain a progressive United Methodist movement, energizing people to be agents of God’s justice, peace, and reconciliation” (MFSA website, accessed 2/28/2018).

Testifying about the MFSA in 1953, Communist Party founder Benjamin Gitlow revealed that its objective “was to transform the Methodist Church and Christianity into an instrument for the achievement of Socialism.” (HUAC transcript is available at Archive.org).

The National and World Council of Churches

As noted earlier, Harry Ward was instrumental in founding the Federal Council of Churches, a precursor to the National Council of Churches, and by extension the World Council of Churches. For decades, the latter organizations were led by Ward’s pupil and fellow member of the MFSS, Bishop Bromley Oxnam (1891-1963).

Oxnam studied under Ward at Boston University (also assisting him in grading papers, and babysitting his children). Oxnam became a socialist–though apparently never a Communist–calling the industrialized capitalistic world “unchristian, unethical, and anti-social”. (As an aside, he apparently also was not one for theological disputes, hilariously referring to them as “one monkey with a mirror flashing it in the eyes of another”). (See Brookhiser, “The Earnest Methodist” in First Things, 1992). Oxnam became president of DePauw University in 1928. Oxnard rose rapidly through Methodist ranks, eventually becoming Bishop of Washington, DC.

The National Council of Churches became the subject of scrutiny in the 1950s. The Air Force Reserve had raised concern, and Secretary of the Air Force Dudley C. Sharp defended his allegations:

…in view of the Secretary’s repudiation of the information conveyed respecting the National Council of Churches of Christ in America, the chairman issued a statement to the effect that the leadership of the [N.C.C.] had hundreds or at least over a hundred affiliations with Communist fronts and causes. Since then we have made careful, but yet incomplete checks, and it is a complete understatement. Thus far of the leadership of the National Council of Churches of Christ in America, we have found over 100 persons leadership capacity with either Communist-front records or records of service to Communists causes. The aggregate affiliations of the leadership, instead of being in the hundreds as the [H.C.U.A.] chairman first indicated, is now, according to our latest count, into the thousands, and we have yet to complete our check.

As an aside, I can remember growing up in small town America and hearing people grumble about the NCC’s left wing agenda. I know of people who left their churches because they “didn’t want to send any tithes to the National Council of Churches.”

In 1990, after the Romanian Communist regime fell, the World Council of Churches issued a tepid apology for its silence on the human rights abuses suffered by Christians under Communist regimes. Rev. Emilio Castro, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, said: “I think we didn’t speak strongly enough, that is clear. That is the price we thought we needed to pay in order to help the human rights situation inside Romania.” (L.A. Times).

Conclusion

As early as the turn of the 20th century, Harry Ward and other zealots for the “Social Gospel” articulated by theologians like Walter Rauschenbusch were turning their attentions toward the abolishment of capitalism and eventual establishment of a world socialist government. They were easy marks for Communists who used them to infiltrate and subvert Protestant Christianity. Their efforts had enormous impact upon the “mainline denominations” such as the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians. These groups have continued to drift leftward ever since, and have paid a price, losing as much as 50% of their membership (see this piece from The Gospel Coalition).

In fairness, I must state that not all socialists were Communists, and not all persons identified as Communists, even under oath, necessarily were such. Ward wrote once, “As for myself, I belong to no social or economic faction. In answer to that question I usually say, I am neither Communist, nor Socialist; I am something worse than that–I am a Christian.”

Some leftists, while sympathetic to socialism and progressive political positions, nonetheless opposed Communists within their organizations. Many people who were Communists in the 1920s later changed their minds.

Probably most of the “red churchmen” listed above were merely “fellow travelers” with communism. They were sympathizers, rather than card carrying members of the party of Lenin. Many ministers were largely unaware of the extent to which sinister and calculating Communist agents were using and manipulating them behind the scenes.

09May

95 Theses: Spiraling Out of Control

Out of love for the truth and from desire to elucidate it, the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and Sacred Theology, and ordinary lecturer at Wittenberg, intends to defend the following statements and to dispute on them in that place. Therefore he asks that those who cannot be present and dispute with him orally shall do so in their absence by letter.

When Martin Luther posted his “95 Theses” on the church door at Wittenberg, he may have intended no more than an academic dispute among faculty at the local university. At the time, he was Professor of Moral Theology, and the “Theses” were in Latin, the language of the academy. There is debate about when, or even if, this nailing of the theses occurred.

The drama of Luther walking through Wittenberg with his hammer and his nails is very, very unlikely to have happened,” says Professor Andrew Pettegree, an expert on the Reformation from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. “The castle church door was the normal noticeboard of the university. This was not an act of defiance on Luther’s part, it was simply what you did to make a formal publication. It would probably have been pasted to the door rather than nailed up.” (Time).

Luther’s bold statements were circulated widely among scholars, and soon “went viral” (The Economist). His work was translated into German, without Luther’s knowledge, and thanks to the printing press, within weeks his ideas had circulated throughout Germany and beyond.

“They are printed and circulated far beyond my expectation,” he wrote in March 1518 to a publisher in Nuremberg who had published a German translation of the theses. But writing in scholarly Latin and then translating it into German was not the best way to address the wider public. Luther wrote that he “should have spoken far differently and more distinctly had I known what was going to happen.”

You are surprised that I did not send them to you. But I did not want to circulate them widely. I only intended to submit them to a few close friends for discussion, and if they disapproved of the Theses, to suppress them. I wanted to publish them, only if they met with approval. But now they are being printed and spread everywhere far beyond my expectation, a result that I regret. It is not that I am against telling the people the truth, in fact that is all that I want, but this is not the proper way to instruct the people. For I have doubts about some of the Theses, and others I would have put much differently and more cogently, and some I would have omitted, had I known what was to come. Still, the spread of my Theses shows what people everywhere really think of Indulgences… (Martin Luther, Letter to Christoph Schuerl, March 5, 1518)

Nonetheless, he persisted in advocating his views, and at first, not much happened. The Bishop of Brandenburg merely passed Luther’s letter and the Theses on up to his superiors in Rome. Pope Leo’s initial reaction was “Brother Martin is a man of fine genius, and this outbreak is a mere squabble of envious monks.” Later he wrote, “It is a drunken German who wrote the Theses; when sober he will change his mind.”

However, as the furor for reform continued to brew, Luther was quickly viewed by the church hierarchy as a threat. He was called to recant his views, refused, and was excommunicated.

Whatever Luther’s original intent, the 95 Theses brought sudden fame to Luther and his ideas, and precipitated a break with Roman Catholicism. Events quickly spun out of the control of either Luther or the Pope. The Indulgence controversy was the soil out of which a political, social, and ecclesiastical revolution grew. A quiet academic dispute went viral. The ideas of Luther challenged the established order and remade Europe.

Addendum:

The traditional date of the start of the Protestant Reformation, October 31, 1517, more properly reflects the day that Luther mailed a letter, along with a copy of the Theses, to Albert, the archbishop of Brandenburg. This letter read, in part:

Under your most distinguished name, papal indulgences are offered over all the land for the construction of St. Peter … I do not so much complain about the quacking of the preachers which I haven’t heard, but I bewail the gross misunderstanding among the people which comes from these preachers … Evidently the poor souls believe that when they have bought indulgence letters they are assured salvation. They are likewise convinced that souls escape purgatory as soon as they have placed a contribution in the chest.

The first and only duty of the bishops is to see that the people learn the gospel and the love of Christ … for on no occasion has Christ ordered that indulgences should be preached … what a horror, what a danger for a bishop to permit the loud noise of indulgences among his people, while the gospel is silenced …

20Apr

Saint Anselm of Canterbury

(Statue of Anselm at Canterbury Cathedral, taken May 2010, by Ealdgyth, obtained from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons 3.0 license)

If you have taken a philosophy class somewhere, you probably encountered this great thinker from antiquity, and his famous definition of God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”. In his work, proslogion, he endeavored to demonstrate God’s existence in what has since been labelled the “ontological argument”. Basically, If you can conceive of something like God, defined as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”, but God doesn’t actually exist, then anything that does exist would be greater. Hence God must exist in reality and not just in thought. It’s clever, though it can be (and has been) punctured by others, such as Immanuel Kant. Variants of the argument have been put forward by Descartes, Leibniz, and Goedel. Even today the argument provides grist for reflection. Few would regard it as an absolute proof of God, but perhaps in its best forms it demonstrates that belief in God isn’t unreasonable, as the loudest screamers of the atheist community would insist. ¹

Another sign of the importance of St. Anselm is that in the divide between East and West in Christianity, the theological focus in the West since St Anselm has been upon the mystery of the atonement. In his book Cur Deus Homo (“Why God Man?”) Anselm reflects upon the atonement. Jesus is regarded by the church universal as a being with two natures–“fully God and fully Man”. As St Athanasius put it centuries earlier:

…For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess,
that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;
God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds;
and Man of the substance of his Mother, born in the world;
Perfect God and perfect Man,
of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.

(You may read the Athanasian creed in its entirety here).

Anselm started with this accepted christology and asked, “why?” His answer became a powerful reflection upon the nature of the atonement. The thesis is essentially that we humans owe a cosmic debt that we cannot pay. Only God is qualified to pay off that debt, but can’t do so because He doesn’t owe it. With Jesus you have one who both owes the debt and can pay it.

Anselm (1033-1109) joined the Benedictine monastery at Bec in Normandy, in 1060, rising to become Abbot. Not long afterward, England was conquered by Anselm’s king, William the Conqueror. Many of Anselm’s friends went to England, and he made trips to oversee property belonging to Bec. In 1093 Anselm became Archbishop of Canterbury. His years in Canterbury were stormy, as he clashed with the English monarch over what is known to history as the “investiture controversy”, and twice had to go into exile. After his death he was canonized, and is today regarded as the father of scholasticism. He is considered one of the “doctors of the church” (from Latin docere, “to teach”), men regarded as great intellects who profoundly influenced Western Christianity.

In addition to the heady philosophical treatises, we have the following prayer from Saint Anselm:

O Lord my God,
Teach my heart this day where and how to see you,
Where and how to find you.
You have made me and remade me,
And you have bestowed on me
All the good things I possess,
And still I do not know you.
I have not yet done that
For which I was made.
Teach me to seek you,
For I cannot seek you
Unless you teach me,
Or find you
Unless you show yourself to me.
Let me seek you in my desire,
Let me desire you in my seeking.
Let me find you by loving you,
Let me love you when I find you.

(Read more at BeliefNet).

We also have a song of St Anselm,
Jesus, as a mother you gather your people to you:
you are gentle with us as a mother with her children;
Often you weep over our sins and our pride:
tenderly you draw us from hatred and judgement.
You comfort us in sorrow and bind up our wounds:
in sickness you nurse us,
and with pure milk you feed us.
Jesus, by your dying we are born to new life:
by your anguish and labour we come forth in joy.
Despair turns to hope through your sweet goodness:
through your gentleness we find comfort in fear.
Your warmth gives life to the dead:
your touch makes sinners righteous.
Lord Jesus, in your mercy heal us:
in your love and tenderness remake us.
In your compassion bring grace and forgiveness:
for the beauty of heaven may your love prepare us.
(From James Kiefer).

A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Anselm

Almighty God, who didst raise up thy servant Anselm to teach the Church of his day to understand its faith in thine eternal Being, perfect justice, and saving mercy: Provide thy Church in every age with devout and learned scholars and teachers, that we may be able to give a reason for the hope that is in us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Further information about Saint Anselm:

For Further Reading
Resources about the Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement:

Saint Anselm, Cur Deus Homo. (Full text available online).
Theologian and popular teacher RC Sproul has discussed this issue in an essay.

Resources about the “Ontological Argument”, including modern restatements:

Saint Anselm, proslogium, available online courtesy of Fordham University.
A repository of items at Lastseminary.com.
Waterloo Univ statistics professor Christopher Small’s blog and essay. (Discussion of the more recent version of the ontological argument by the mathematician Goedel).
Der Spiegel. (A computer program validates Goedel’s argument).

¹ One of the funnier misrepresentations of an ontological argument, which I can no longer find, is a statement to the effect of, “I can f**k around with language and therefore God exists, now go to church.”

15Mar

R.I.P. Stephen Hawking

The eminent physicist Stephen Hawking has died at age 76, and his death is being mourned throughout the world, even as his contributions to theoretical physics are celebrated. He struggled valiantly against a neurodegenerative disease that robbed him of just about everything but his mind.

He was also one of the more prominent atheists of our time. His bold pronouncements often garnered a lot of attention. He famously dismissed philosophy as out of date with respect to science and therefore having nothing more to add to our understanding of the Universe. He made the criticized statement that universes can spontaneously come onto being: “because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”

About death and the afterlife, he stated in 2011:
“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”(The Guardian).

He is noted to have challenged contrary beliefs with some grace (Jude Smith in Christian Today). His ex-wife, Dr. Jane Hawking, who was then (and is currently) a practicing Christian, reported on this in a recent interview with Christian Connection. “…at first we lived in harmony each respecting the other’s point of view – and because he had been giving such a damning diagnosis I could well understand why he would not be inclined to believe in a loving God, let alone given how complex his researches into the origins of the universe were. He has to be able to see the proof of everything in mathematical terms.”

She recalls him as having great energy and a sense of humor. In one mirthful exchange, Hawking admitted to his wife that science is often a faith based enterprise.
I remember once asking him how he knew which theory to work on, to which he replied: ‘Well you have to take a leap of faith in choosing the one that you think is going to be most productive.’ I said: ‘Really? I thought faith had no part to play in physics?’ (Jane Hawking, in The Telegraph).

Although this marriage would unravel, they eventually were able to remain on good terms. Jane’s faith gave her great help and comfort, in the midst of his diagnosis and subsequent disability.

“Faith was my rock and a blessing because I believed that there was help and support for me in all the challenges I faced and that things would resolve themselves eventually.”

Her determination early on prevailed and gave him back a will to live at a crucial moment when he had lost it. Though not acknowledged as such, it seems that in the midst of his deepest darkness, he was given a gift of grace from God, that supported him and enabled his later contributions.

Brother James’ Airs

Category: History