After the Eucharist - St. Luke's West Holloway

I’m in London for the Annual General Meeting of the Compass Rose Society which begins on Monday.  Part of what I love about the Anglican Communion is its theological breadth and liturgical diversity.

For me, the Anglican tradition is less about institutional preservation  – though I believe the tested wisdom and organizational strength of that tradition is a charism worth preserving  – and more about being rooted in rich spiritual, liturgical and theological soil.  It’s the same soil that gave us Julian of Norwich, Thomas Cranmer, C.S. Lewis, Rowan Williams, and Katherine Jefferts Schori for goodness sake!  We are living in a time where we need leaders, deeply rooted in the wisdom of Jesus, to till this soil in a rapidly changing world and post-Christian context.

It was Archbishop Rowan Williams who aptly coined the phrase “a mixed economy” to describe the kind of church which might emerge if this post-Christian context is taken to heart. Traditional or “inherited” understandings of what it means to be the Church, and emerging “fresh expressions,” should ideally be seen as complementary aspects of a single coherent ecclesiology.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes in London today.

Fr. Dave Tomlinson

This morning I attended the 11:00 Liturgy at St. Luke’s West Holloway, a parish church currently led by Fr. Dave Tomlinson, whose preaching and writing  I have admired for some time (see his Re-Enchanting Christianity here). On the parish website, Fr. Tomlinson states:

“I think I’ve the best job in the world! I’ve been the vicar of St Luke’s since 2000, and I’m more enthusiastic about the job now than the day I first took it on. St Luke’s is a glorious mishmash of people – young and old, men and women, black and white, gay and straight – who have found in this place somewhere to belong, somewhere to make friends, somewhere to grow personally and spiritually, somewhere to laugh and weep together, somewhere to explore the mystery we call God. We are a church that tries to combine the rich and broad tradition of Christianity with insights and understandings from the present, and this is reflected in our theology and worship. ”

These words are congruent with what I encountered at St. Luke’s this morning.  I was warmly welcomed both before and after the service and felt quickly at home in the open and creative set-up of the worship space.  The liturgy included a judicious use of video, poetry, and music, featuring both an adult and children’s choir accompanied by piano and organ.  The theme, based on the lectionary readings, was the “God of Creation,” and Dave concluded his fine sermon with a video setting of the poem ‘Wild Geese‘ by Mary Oliver.  It takes both spiritual sensitivity and artistic skill to blend traditional and modern elements together in a liturgy like this, and as one who believes liturgy demands our very best, I was pleased to see both elements in good evidence.

Evensong at St. James, Paddington

This evening, I made my way to St. James Paddington for a traditional liturgy of Choral Evensong.  Here I experienced a liturgy more catholic in style, in a gothic space enriched by a brilliantly designed lighting system, professional choir, dignified ceremonial, and the scent of fragrant incense beckoning the faithful to raise their hearts in glad adoration of the living God.

At St. James, Paddington,  the music of Orlando Gibbons, the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittus, the chanted psalm, the Biblical readings, the choral anthems, the opening and closing organ voluntaries, were faithfully offered–leading us into the Divine Mystery at the heart all things.  Two very different approaches to worship yet one Spirit inspiring and blessing us all.

Very rich soil indeed.

It is an odd word, ubuntu, even difficult to pronounce.  It’s oddness, however, reveals more about our own perceptions and our need to continue to learn and grow, to overcome a propensity to lock down our souls.

What is the meaning and significance of ubuntu? It points to a quest of the human heart, to heal, to unify, to rediscover a larger whole that respects the dignity of every human being.  It’s a rich, non-Western word that my friend and writer, Brian McLaren defines as, “one-another-ness,” “interconnectedness,” “joined-in-the-common-good-ness,” and “profound commitment to the well being of all,” (see “A New Kind of Christianity,” p. 233).

The quest for ubuntu, I want to say, resonates deeply with the quest and vision of Jesus that I read in the Gospels.  And it is a timely quest as we consider the state of Christianity in the world today.  One can look out on the horizon and surmise by observing the actions and words of some who claim to follow the way of Jesus that there are other “quests,” at work – quests for survival, security, and ego-centered power.

It’s been a very fragile couple of weeks within the Anglican Communion, indications that a quest for ubuntu may be on very thin ice indeed.

What has dominated the Anglican blogosphere lately is the story of the pressure placed on our Presiding Bishop by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office to provide documentation of her ordination status and to refrain from wearing the symbols of her office (mitre) while visiting Southwark Cathedral in the Church of England. This was unexpectedly described as standard “policy” for our Primate following her numerous similar visits (and those of her predecessors) with no such requirements. Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was calm and even courteous about the whole silly episode now dubbed “Mitergate” (see Ruth Gledhill’s article at the Times Online here).  It’s difficult for me to believe that such a shift in policy represents the deeper hearts of those who have applied it in this case.

We all know that theological debates and provocative actions over the issues of human sexuality as well as issues of authority and provincial autonomy, have torn deeply into the fabric of our beloved Anglican Communion. I do not for one minute want to minimize the complexity of the issues, nor the importance of seeking common agreements by which we maintain mutual regard, consistency of practice, and common faith and order within our Communion. But I do wonder at times, if in our exhausting attempts to preserve our institutional structures, we are missing a critical opportunity to discover a new and more inclusive way of being the Church in the 21st Century.

We live in the movement from modernism to postmodernity (a term we will live with until we can look back and name what has really happened); it is a time of great uncertainty but also a time of great possibility. Anglican Christians today, and all Christians who have eyes to see, find themselves living in a border land, somewhere between what has been and what is yet to be. We face the delicate balancing act of holding on to the best parts of our traditions while seeking distance from those things that prevent us from being a positive and transformative voice in our culture today. The truth is that we need both to have integrity, and maybe that is what the quest for ubuntu is finally all about.

I pray we can find the courage to pursue that quest with less fear and more charity.

The blogosphere is once again alive with the latest developments among provinces within the Anglican Communion.  It breaks my heart to see some of my faith heroes backed into defensive corners over institutional matters that I believe are not consonant with their deepest hearts (my humble opinion).  This morning I read an essay by Brian McLaren that holds up the historic Anglican instinct of avoiding extremes when any number of controversies might cause us to turn on each other, rather than turn with each other toward a world in great need.  Brian offers these helpful words:

In its aspiration to be one global community the Church will not find it easy to resist being divided by denominational and nationalist ties.  In cherishing the beauty of holiness, the Church will need to work hard to resist having its soul reduced to a list of correct doctrines.  To resist these constrictions and reductions, the Church must hold to another ancient value: catholicty.

There are two models of catholicity.  One is a colonial or imperial model: unity and universality are maintained by submission to one dominating will.  The other is the humble or charitable model: unity and universality are maintained by a generous spirit of inclusion.  The spirit of inclusion is, at its core, a refusal to practice elitism (from Ancient Faith, Future Mission, p. 15).

I continue to believe, somewhat naively I’m sure, that Anglican Christians (read all Christians) around the world can find a center that will hold.  That center, I believe, is not a doctrinal or ecclesiastical consensus, but a person, Jesus the Christ, and his call to love God with all our being and to love our neighbor as well as we love ourselves.

Last Sunday was an extraordinary celebration of faith and common mission at Holy Comforter. It doesn’t get much better on Pentecost than having a former Bishop of Jerusalem as your celebrant and preacher.  Bishop Samir Kafity graced us with inspiring and confident words as we renewed our baptismal promises to engage God’s mission in the world today.  It was also an added pleasure to welcome Canon John Peterson, former Secretary General of the Anglican Communion and dear friend of Bishop Kafity. I can say that Mthr. Libby, Fr. Jody, and I felt honored to be in the company of such distinguished and globally aware servants of God.  Their joy and sense of humor was infectious!

In Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, the long Arab-Israeli conflict continues to take a dramatic toll on Palestinians. Political turmoil and socio-economic pressures have led to an increasingly sharp decline of the indigenous Palestinian Christian population. By way of comparison, Palestinian Christians represented approximately 23% of the total (non-Jewish) population of pre-1948 Palestine. Now they make up less than 2% of the population and face possible extinction as a result of these sharply declining rates in the course of the next few decades, most notably in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Bishop Kafity reminded us of the importance of preserving a living indigenous Christian presence in the Holy Land and the Middle East. We know all too sadly, that the Christian presence is threatened by those who are consumed with extremism. It is clear that the Christian community in the Holy Land has a crucial role to play as a moderating element in the social and cultural fabric of the Middle East and they deserve our continuing prayers and support.

In gratitude for Bishop Kafity’s ministry, our Diocesan Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Shannon S. Johnston, asked that the loose offering from Sunday’s liturgy be designated to the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.  AFEDJ raises funds for and promotes the humanitarian work of the Diocese of Jerusalem and its institutions so that it may better serve in building bridges of dialogue, peace and understanding between East and West, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

It was a Pentecost I shall not long forget.

Archbishop Rowan Williams recently gave a brilliant address at Guildford Cathedral titled The Finality of Christ in a Pluralist World. The Archbishop spoke of defending the uniqueness and finality of Christ, and encountering the truth about God and humanity from a moral, political and philosophical perspective.

The address highlighted the importance of approaching inter faith dialogue with confidence, but also of learning something new:

“If our convictions lead us to believe there is no hope for those outside our own faith or with no faith…” there is a danger of “treating others as if they know nothing, and we have nothing to learn”. ”Belief in the uniqueness and finality of Christ allows us a generous desire to share and a humble desire to learn”.

Jumping to the conclusion of the address, the Archbishop states:

“Belief in the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ – for all the assaults made upon it in the modern age – remains for the Christian a way of speaking about hope for the entire human family. And because it’s that, we are bound to say something about it. We are very rightly suspicious of proselytism, of manipulative, bullying, insensitive approaches to people of other faith which treat them as if they knew nothing, as if we had nothing to learn and as if the tradition of their reflection and imagination were of no interest to us or God. God save us from that kind of approach. But God save us also from the nervousness about our own conviction which doesn’t allow us to say that we speak about Jesus because we believe he matters. We believe he matters because we believe that in him human beings find their peace. Their destinies converge and their dignities are fully honored. And all the work that we as Christians want to do for the sake of convergent human destiny and fullness of human dignity has its root in that conviction that there is no boundary around Jesus – that what he is and does and says and suffers is in principle liberatingly relevant to every human being; past, present and future.”

The full transcript of the address can be viewed here:  The audio link for the address is here:

In this video, also available here, Rowan Williams talks of Lent as providing an opportunity to “sweep and clean the room of our own minds and hearts so that the new life really may have room to come in and take over and transform us at Easter.”  The Archbishop says:

“It’s not about feeling gloomy for forty days; it’s not about making yourself miserable for forty days; it’s not even about giving things up for forty days. Lent is springtime. It’s preparing for that great climax of springtime which is Easter – new life bursting through death.”

From America Magazine:

On January 25 Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, accepted the 2009 Campion Award from the editors of America.  In his remarks upon accepting award, he reflected on the idea of a “martyrial ecumenism,” mused on the surprising links between Shakespeare and St. Edmund Campion and emphasized the central place of forgiveness in all relationships.

Drew Christiansen, S.J, the editor in chief of America, introduced the archbishop, and literary editor Patricia A. Kossmann presented Williams with the award. The Campion award is given on a regular basis to a notable Christian person of letters. It is named after St. Edmund Campion, S.J., an English writer and martyr who is honored in both the Anglican and Catholic traditions.

Download audio file (Rowan.mp3)


A tip of the Biretta to Eleanor Braun for pointing me to this.

And thanks to Burgess Laird for the link to this New York Times report on the Trinity Wall Street Conference where Rowan Williams spoke on the subject of theology and economics.

A timely message about hope, human cooperation, and charity.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, speaking at a congress in Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, called for a renewed effort in promoting greater visible unity between Anglicans and Roman Catholics.

“Since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church has been involved in a number of dialogues with other churches – including with the Anglican Communion – which have produced a very considerable number of agreed statements.  The strong convergence in these agreements about what the Church of God really is, is very striking.  The various agreed statements of the churches stress that the Church is a community, in which human beings are made sons and daughters of God, and reconciled both with God and one another.  The Church celebrates this through the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion in which God acts upon us to transform us ‘in communion’.

Therefore the major question that remains is whether in the light of that depth of agreement the issues that still divide us have the same weight – issues about authority in the Church, about primacy (especially the unique position of the pope), and the relations between the local churches and the universal church in making decisions (about matters like the ordination of women, for instance).  Are they theological questions in the same sense as the bigger issues on which there is already clear agreement?  And if they are, how exactly is it that they make a difference to our basic understanding of salvation and communion?  But if they are not, why do they still stand in the way of fullervisible unity?

At the conclusion of the lecture, Dr. Williams stated :

All I have been attempting to say here is that the ecumenical glass is genuinely half-full – and then to ask about the character of the unfinished business between us.  For many of us who are not Roman Catholics, the question we want to put, in a grateful and fraternal spirit, is whether this unfinished business is as fundamentally church-dividing as our Roman Catholic friends generally assume and maintain. And if it isn’t, can we all allow ourselves to be challenged to address the outstanding issues with the same methodological assumptions and the same overall spiritual and sacramental vision that has brought us thus far?

It is an excellent lecture and an important response from the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion.  The full text of the lecture can be found here.