Entangled States

Prayers for peace at the beginning of SB1070's enactment

We've had quite the morning here at the Cathedral in Phoenix. Last night, at midnight, the controversial bill SB1070 went into limited effect. Much of the bill was blocked from being enforced by an injunction issued by a local federal judge yesterday morning.

We hosted a group of community leaders who wished to have a prayer service to begin the day's events. There were representatives from every major faith group in the city (with the exception of the Mormons I guess.) We had bishops from the Roman Catholic diocese, the Methodist, the Episcopal Church, heads of the Unitarian Church, the UCC, the Lutheran Synod, rabbis and imans. We all offered prayers, blessings or words of encouragement.

The news of the temporary injunction changed the feeling of the whole day from one of tension and possible defiance to one of thanksgiving and hope. It was extraordinary to see all the different people of faith gathered around the one altar lifting prayer to God.

This is the prayer that I wrote for today; it's meant to remind us that God is present with us:

Almighty God, Holy ONE; we are grateful for the gift of your reconciling love in our lives. The very unity of your nature teaches us that perfect love unites all people. The story of Jesus’ triumph reminds us that love conquers all, all that would destroy and separate your children, and even your children’s anger toward you and one another.

Thank you for being present with us in this moment, in these days. Let us feel your holy love suffusing our lives and let it empower our actions today. Make us instruments of your peace. Give us words of hope to speak to a community of your children which has become divided and is in despair.

As you sent your Holy Spirit to the Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, to your poet King David, to the Blessed Mother who sang Magnificat, so too send your spirit to us today. Let the Spirit strengthen our resolve to proclaim peace, to proclaim love, to proclaim HOPE.

For you are our Hope. And you have shown us again and again that in you, and in the reconciliation you desire for your children, our Hope will never be in vain.

We pray these words, in the power of your Spirit, to you the Lord of all people and of all ages, in whom there is no East or West, no North or South, no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave nor free, but one great fellowship of love finding its unity in thee.

Amen.

There was a rather large press contingent here today. I'll try to find links to some of the coverage and update this post with them as I have time.

"Seven days that shook the Vatican"

As you may have intuited, I've been traveling throughout much of the month of June. Most of the time I was with my daughter and some of it with my daughter and wife as we looked at colleges for our rising High School senior child. We found three exciting prospects for a young lady who's thinking about a dual major in physics and political science with a minor in music.

I took my iPad with me for most of the trip and was able to keep up on the goings on in the Anglican Universe but there was no easy way for me to write anything substantive, and besides it was supposed to be a vacation.

But now I'm back, and starting to get caught up on all the interesting, shiny links to stories that I forwarded to myself during my traveling. I'll get to those over the next couple of weeks. But first...

A friend forwarded this note to me just this morning. It's from a longish article in the National Catholic Reporter about the long-term implications to the Roman Catholic Church from the seven days of horrific revelations of sexual misconduct by clergy and bishops last month. The writer, John L Allen, Jr. describes the week's revelations of coverups as "seven days that shook the Vatican".

"Yet I’m inclined to think the past week does mean something, and here’s my first-blush stab at expressing it: Collectively, I think these events both symbolize and advance the collapse of Catholicism as a culture-shaping majority in the West. When the dust settles, policy-makers in the church, particularly in the Vatican, will be ever more committed to what social theorists call ‘identity politics,’ a traditional defense mechanism relied upon by minorities when facing what they perceive as a hostile cultural majority.

While there are an almost infinite number of ways of defining a ‘minority,’ one widely invoked model says it has four characteristics:

• Suffering discrimination and subordination
• Physical and/or cultural traits that set them apart, and which are disapproved by the dominant group
• A shared sense of collective identity and common burdens
• Socially shared rules about who belongs and who does not

A growing swath of Catholics in the West, particularly in the church’s leadership class, believes that all these markers now apply to the Catholic church, and the events of the past week will strongly reinforce those impressions."

The full article is here.

I'm starting a course tonight here at the Cathedral in Phoenix on the writings of Rene Girard, using his book "The Scapegoat" as my primary text. When I read these words of Allen's about the reaction of the Roman Church to the tensions of the moment, I was immediately reminded of Girard's descriptions of the phenomenon that tend to arise as the scapegoating mechanism engages within social systems. It's the second one in particular that I found surprising when I first read it, and now see it again in Allen's piece. (It makes me think that Allen is working out of a Girardian read of the situation actually.)

Girard uses Greek mythology to illustrate his point referencing both the physical deformities of Oedipus and of Hercules to show how the mechanism works. Allen certainly isn't talking about physical deformities of the same sort as Girard illustrates, but the principle is the same. Think of the "raghead" moniker that American troops have given to arab military types, or the jokes about the nose of the jews in the Second World War - or even the lisp of gay men in our own days. All characteristics that a group feeling it is being persecuted emphasizes in groups it will define as "other" and, if things run according to form, eventually persecute as a scapegoat.

It's rather sobering, scary even, to see the mechanism once you know what to look for. We see it in a similar stage right now in Arizona as the Latino people in the community are being marked as somehow responsible for the economic collapse of the state and the attendant depression we're in at the moment.

The only happy note is that perhaps recognition of what is happening will keep us all from walking the road to its bitter end. Perhaps not. It may just be that the recognition and ultimate defanging of the scapegoat mechanism will hasten a final confrontation that has no real resolution short of Our Lord's return. At least that's what Girard seems to be expecting in his final books.

More I think as I work through the books tonight with a group of friends.

Acres of the Dead: Memorial Day 2010

In 2003 my brothers, father and I began a series of tromps around western Europe. The excuse was that my brothers were both living in Europe at the time. My middle brother was planting a church in Poitiers in France and my little brother's MASH unit was attached to the 3rd Infantry Division stationed at the time in Wurzburg, Germany. But while visiting them was the excuse, the real reason was to spend time together and to try to get to know one another again. We had drifted apart over the years, and after the the death of our mother, we realized that without her to keep us joined as a family, we were likely to drift further.

My grandfather served in World War 1 and my uncles in World War 2. (My father is a Korean War vet.) Grandpa had never really talked about what he had experienced in France. He had graduated from Yale with a degree in civil engineering, joined the army and served as a captain in the Field Artillery. We did think we remembered him saying that he had been at Verdun at one point during his service. We know he had been gassed - and the mustard gas had left him with only partial lung capacity for the rest of his life. My most common memory of him as a child was of him sitting in his sunlit study, filled with his elephant collection (he was committed Republican) and breathing through a rubber mask attached to an oxygen tank.

We decided to see if we could retrace the steps of his time in France during one of our weeks in Europe. My youngest brother borrowed an Army history of WW 1 from the base library and we used it to try to determine where he had been. Looking at the Infantry division patches, we recognized the patch of the 79th Infantry Division which had been on his uniforms. We think we recalled that his artillery unit had been attached to the 313th battalion. Reading the history, it appeared that his unit had been instrumental in the taking of Mount Falcon, a battle which was to some degree the turning point of the Battle of Verdun - one of the, if not *the* bloodiest battle of WW 1.

So we drove to Verdun and found our way to Mount Falcon. There were any number of monuments along the road to the 79th ID and to the 313th. We even found a plaque on the top of Mount Falcon that talked about the exploits there of the 313th along with a young colonel named George Patton.

And then we came across the cemeteries. I'd heard of the military cemeteries of Europe, but I never really had understood how big they were. There were acres and acres and acres of crosses marking the bodies of people killed, ground up in the brutal trench warfare stretching from one horizon to another. It was quite breathtaking. And quite heartbreaking. You can see a photo meditation I created of the experience linked at the upper left of this blog.

I grew up near Gettysburg. I know what battlefield cemeteries look like. I thought I was prepared for the experience. I wasn't.

The experience of *those* cemeteries, many of them, filled with American, British, French and German war dead still haunts me today.

World War One never really needed to be fought. Some historians argue that the war ultimately stemmed from a German mis-reading of French intentions. And the German war plans were so complicated that once the mobilization order was given, there was no way to stand down. And that once the Germans realized they couldn't easily win, they decided to fight a war of attrition, betting that they countryman could accept horrific causalities to a much greater extent than the French or the British. They were wrong, tragically wrong.

The whole generation of European young were ground up between the teeth of two war machines who couldn't find a way to stand down. People who refused to surrender. People who thought the answer to violence was more violence, and the winning strategy was to take the violence to a level that the enemy simply could not countenance.

It would be a lovely thing to believe that such a thing couldn't happen today. But only a fool would think such a thing.

It seems to me that the Church has to do everything in its power to make sure though that it doesn't. I'm not a pacifist per se, but I have a growing sympathy for their stance. Perhaps it's time for me to get out my copies of Hauerwas' and Yoder's writing and spend some time with them again.

Rene Girard suggests that the only way to break out of the cycle of violence, whether obvious or hidden, is to reorient our desires away from earthly things and toward Christ. It's in the imitation of Christ and not each other that we have the best chance to fully enter into the Shaloam of the Kingdom of God.

On this Memorial Day, as we remember those who have served this country, and especially those who have died in its service, let us do what we can to make their sacrifice on the altars of war an historical event and not a current affair.

Immigration Law likely to be challenged in court

Politics Daily has a pretty decent writeup of the legal challenges that we're all expecting to be brought very soon against the new anti-immigrant law just passed here in Arizona:

"As an expression of popular anger in Arizona, the state's dramatic new anti-immigration law is loud and clear. As an expression of constitutionally permissible law, it is thoroughly flawed. If you are into that sort of thing, better enjoy the white-hot coverage of the immigration 'showdown' now because in a few weeks, or maybe even a few days, the effect of the state law is likely to be stayed by the federal courts. And then the debate will go back to where it belongs, onto Capitol Hill and away from the courts, at least for the time being.

Probably selected at random through an internal docket lottery, or perhaps discretely assigned to the chief trial judge, the first federal jurist to review the law will be quickly asked to balance the alleged harm (to the illegal immigrants) of allowing its enforcement pending judicial review against the purported harm (to the rest of the population) of stopping its enforcement immediately until a final court ruling is issued. The judge also will have to evaluate right from the start whether the Arizona legislation is likely to pass constitutional muster when its terms are evaluated on their merits following trial.

Under the new law, Arizona police now are required to stop and question anyone they 'reasonably suspect' of being undocumented. It will be a crime to hire 'day laborers' or to transport them to their jobs. Government agencies that hinder enforcement of immigration laws will be made more vulnerable to civil litigation by state residents. The illegal immigrants who are picked up will be fined. Legal immigrants and/or native-born Americans who are caught up in the sweep, on the other hand, will be unable to successfully sue for the deprivation of their rights because of the governmental immunity that attaches to most police functions."

More here.

At the Cathedral in Phoenix, we're joining with pretty much every other religious group in the State in objecting to the law as it has been enacted. As I read it, the SB1070 seems overly broad, and parts of the law could very well be used to impound the cars of parishioners driving fellow parishioners to worship - at least until the immigration status of everyone in the car has been determined. Is such a thing likely? Probably not. But you have to live here in Phoenix, in Maricopa County to understand what it's like to have America's Meanest Sheriff as your law enforcement. There's not a whole lot of trust in the latino community as far as law enforcement goes. The point was driven home to me when kids from our youth group matter-of-factly decided that the "whitest" person should be the car driver when a group were starting to head home after an event.

Is there a problem with people here in Arizona illegally? Yes. There are representatives of the drug cartels functioning in the schools (according to members of the youth group at the Cathedral). There are record numbers of home invasions and kidnapping, human smuggling and gang violence - almost all latino on latino crimes. There are some very bad people coming across the border. There are also many people desperate to find work coming across as well, because the crushing poverty in their home communities makes impossible to feed and care for their families.

When I was down on the border last year, we learned from the Emergency Room doctors that they're seeing an epidemic of pregnant Latinas with broken ankles. The women are jumping down from the fence in a desperate attempt to have their child on the American side of the border thereby granting the child US citizenship. The problem is that the Border Patrol has to deal with each one of the relatively harmless women with the same sorts of protocols that they have to use to approach people who are heavily armed and bringing drugs over the same fence. For every woman they have to arrest, an untold number of drug mules evades capture. There's some thought that it's the Cartels that are putting the women up to their jumping.

In a perfect world, there would be sufficient economic activity in southern Mexico and in Central America that people - who don't want to leave their homes in the first place - would be able to find work and remain in their native communities. That's the reason many of us here in Arizona are involved with Cafe Justica (a Fair Trade coffee cooperative that is bringing economic viability to villages in Chiapas Mexico) and other such business cooperatives.

Barring that though, many voices in Arizona are asking for either a legal guest worker program for people we need to hire to come legally into the country and then safely return home. And for those who have already been brought here (sometimes by American recruiters) and don't have documentation - which means they can no longer safely return - a legal path to citizenship. (Right now the only path is to try to find their way back home and apply. But given the danger on the border and in Northern Mexico, along with the lack of available visas, that's not an option - especially for families who have been here 20 or 30 years now.)

In the meantime, I guess we're going to wait for the court challenges to begin. Hopefully the law will be stayed before it goes into effect. And perhaps the attention it has attracted will get enough people to recognize the problems we have here to start to respond to repeated requests sooner than later.

Irrational actors

Most of modern economic theory (at least as well as I can follow it) seems to be predicated that the individual consumer and supplier will act in rational ways that seek to serve their own best interest.

But now social scientists are discovering that it "ain't necessarily so". Looking at how pay scale effects work output they uncovered a surprise:

"For example, Ariely describes a series of experiments that measure work performance among randomly selected groups of people where one group is paid nothing, one group is paid a little, and a third is paid a lot. The group that was paid a little did a little. The group that was paid a lot did a lot. The group that was paid nothing did even more. Ariely and colleagues go on to refine this experiment by changing the reward to gifts (chocolates) instead of money, then to gifts whose value is enumerated ('you will receive a $5 box of Godiva chocolates') and examines how this effects performance. He also examines what happens to performance in situations in which one is at first paid to work, then asked to do the same work again for free.

The results are fascinating, and point to the idea that we work hard for money, and we work hard for social reasons, but that one can short-circuit the other, and lastingly so. He then goes on to explain how companies that ask their employees to work harder for social reasons ('you're part of the team') but dismiss the employees for economic reasons ('we need to cut costs') end up in an impossible place. So do companies that ask customers to come make a purchase as a social transaction ('join the family!') but then treat the transaction after the fact as a purely economic matter ('you should have read the fine-print')."

Read the full article here.

Those of us who work in the non-profit world, and who depend on the gifts of volunteers, would do well to read, mark and inwardly digest this information. It helps explain why congregational economics are so different than non-profit hospital corporations, which are different from giant multi-national companies.

Which is a good thing I think.

Credo: Why the Ancient Greeks were wrong about morality

Brilliant essay by Rabbi Sacks in the Guardian today, of which this is just a part:

"Nowadays the very concept of personal ethics has become problematic in one domain after another. Why shouldn’t a businessman or banker pay himself the highest salary he can get away with? Why shouldn’t teenagers treat sex as a game so long as they take proper precautions? Why shouldn’t the media be sensationalist if that sells papers, programmes and films? Why should we treat life as sacred if abortion and euthanasia are what people want? Even Bernard Williams came to call morality a ‘peculiar institution’. Things that once made sense — duty, obligation, self-restraint, the distinction between what we desire to do and what we ought to do — to many people now make no sense at all.

This does not mean that people are less ethical than they were, but it does mean that we have adopted an entirely different ethical system from the one people used to have. What we have today is not the religious ethic of Judaism and Christianity but the civic ethic of the Ancient Greeks. For the Greeks, the political was all. What you did in your private life was up to you. Sexual life was the pursuit of desire. Abortion and euthanasia were freely practised. The Greeks produced much of the greatest art and architecture, philosophy and drama, the world has ever known. What they did not produce was a society capable of surviving.

The Athens of Socrates and Plato was glorious, but extraordinarily short-lived. By now, by contrast, Christianity has survived for two millennia, Judaism for four. The Judaeo-Christian ethic is not the only way of being moral; but it is the only system that has endured. If we lose the Judaeo-Christian ethic, we will lose the greatest system ever devised for building a society on personal virtue and covenantal responsibility, on righteousness and humility, forgiveness and love."

Read the full article here.

I'm not sure that you can say that Judeo-Christian ethics are the only ethics that can create a lasting society - Confucianism, Buddhism and Hinduism seem to have done okay for themselves over a couple of millennia or more too. But the point about the Greeks is very well taken.

H/T to Kendall Harmon

The situation in Haiti

There was some good reporting about the heroic ministry of the Episcopal bishop of Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake on Friday. The Wall Street Journal talked about the "island of organization" in the midst of chaos that he had managed to create.

Kendall Harmon points to this video from the WSJ this afternoon:

The Episcopal Cafe has this letter from the bishop calling for help to be delivered through Episcopal Relief and Development:

I am writing to you from the tent city we have set up behind the rubble of College Ste. Pierre, our marvelous senior secondary school that is no more. As you know, we have gathered approximately 3,000 people here alone. Across the land, the Diocese of Haiti has set up at least 21 refugee camps, caring for more than 23,000 people.

In this letter, I wish to make clear to the Diocese of Haiti, to Episcopal Relief and Development and to all of our partners that Episcopal Relief and Development is the official agency of the Diocese of Haiti and that we are partners working hand-in-hand in Haiti’s relief and recovery efforts.

I also am announcing in this letter that I am appointing The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley, Appointed Missionary of The Episcopal Church, to work directly with ERD on my behalf. I am asking all partners in The Episcopal Church to communicate directly with Rev. Stanley, so as to keep communications with the Diocese of Haiti open. Rev. Stanley is to communicate and work with ERD on my behalf.

In addition, I am asking that all of our partners in the Presbyterian Church USA work directly with ERD, with Rev. Stanley as the central communications person. PCUSA has worked with us for many years, and we are deeply grateful for their compassion and their commitment to the people of Haiti.

We in the Diocese of Haiti have a vision and a plan for this relief and recovery effort. We know the situation on the ground, we are directing emergency relief to those who need it most, and we already are making plans and moving forward to help our people. Since the earthquake struck, we have been and will continue to work closely with your two representatives here, Ms. Katie Mears and Ms. Kirsten Muth. I have complete confidence in you and your agency.

Finally, I wish to make it plain: I know that many of our partners wish to come to Haiti right now to help. Please tell them that unless they are certified professionals in relief and recovery, they must wait. We will need them in the months and years to come, but at this point, it is too dangerous and too much of a burden for our people to have mission teams here.

Please tell our partners, the people of The Episcopal Church, the people of the United States and indeed the people of the world that we in Haiti are immensely grateful for their prayers, their support and their generosity. This is a desperate time in Haiti; we have lost so much. But we still have the most important asset, the people of God, and we are working continuously to take care of them.

He writes to us all in the midst of what is being described as unimaginable loss.

A group of us have been scrounging about to find pictures of the now destroyed murals at Holy Trinity that told the story of the Bible with a wonderful, local Haitian flavor. You can see some of what has been found here. The New York Times has an article about what the loss of this sort of cultural heritage means to the Haitian people.

There's this too about the ruins of the Episcopal Cathedral:

Bruce Jackson: The Drum Major

Every now and then a friend sends me an essay that I am given permission to share here. Bruce Jackson is a member of the Prayer Book class I teach at the Cathedral. He is a church administrator, a well known lawyer, a civil-rights activist and former NFL football player. He writes today of the work of Dr. King:

History consists of significant events which shape the future, catapulted by outstanding leaders who influence our lives and destiny. One Monday a year, America commemorates the life of just such an outstanding leader – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is a testament to his greatness that just about every major city in the U.S. has a street or school named after him. It is also a testament to how misunderstood is his life and achievements that most of them are situated in African-American parts of those cities. Forty-two years after he was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis, he is still mostly regarded as a “black” leader of a movement for “black equality and civil rights”.

This view is partially accurate, but, oh so restrictive. While he was heroic in carrying the struggle to free people of color from the terrible yoke of dejure and defacto daily segregation and second-class citizenship, white Americans just might have benefitted the most from his heroism. He was the driving force in liberating them from the monstrous weight of supporting and justifying the burden of three centuries of hypocrisy on the subjects of “race” and “democracy”.

But for Dr. King and his leadership of the movement for civil AND human rights, America could not, in the last half of the twentieth century, claim to be a moral beacon for the “free world” without inviting justifiable smirks of disdain, disbelief, and outright laughter on the global stage. Had this beautifully constructed and led movement of marches and moral persuasion failed, much of this nation would have remained indistinguishable from apartheid South Africa and the former Rhodesia. Could Ronald Reagan have so convincingly pushed against the continuance of the “Iron Curtain” while an equally oppressive Cotton Curtain remained permanently draped across vast swatches of the U.S.? (Ironically, Reagan, in the 1960’s, was vehemently opposed to King’s movement – Reagan actually appeared before Congress and testified against the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was a direct product of the movement).

In 1955, when King first appeared on the national radar screen, what we now, globally, call human rights violations were both law and accepted custom, as well as tradition, in much of America. Before King led a moral and legal revolution here, a dignified working woman like Rosa Parks could be jailed and fined for not giving up her bus seat so a white man could sit down. A six-year old African-American child like Ruby Bridges could be attacked and spit upon by a white mob in New Orleans simply because she wanted to attend the same local school as did the children of her white neighbors. A fourteen-year old African-American boy like Emmett Till could be hunted down and brutally murdered by a thuggish gang because he “allegedly” whistled at a white woman.

Even university educated folks of color were routinely, and often crudely, denied that fundamental American right to vote or sit on juries, and this was not limited to the regional South. In much of the South African-Americans could not eat at many restaurants, stay in motels, drink from water fountains, or use “whites only” rest rooms.

They could be required to get off a sidewalk and walk in the street if a Caucasian person happened to walk by. In almost all of America, African-Americans could not buy or rent homes or apartments wherever they chose.

King’s movement swept practically all of that away. (Although the 2000 presidential election debacle, wherein thousands of votes from predominantly African-American districts in Florida were not counted, remind us that vigilance is still required where the rights of minority citizens is concerned.) The movement’s victory was so thorough that, although those aforementioned outrages took place during the living memory of the baby boomers, they are often treated like ancient history.

The cultural, social and legal revolution was the product of two centuries of agitation by thousands upon thousands of bold, visionary folks, both white and African-American. But King was the triumphant culmination. From 1955 to 1968, he was able to expose, expound and extricate America from centuries of living massive lies and perpetrating grievous human rights ills upon its own citizens, their crime being merely that of being born non-white. It is not possible to conceive of the movement succeeding without his leadership. It is impossible to think of America as we know it today, had this great proponent of peace and justice not taken Rosa Park’s cause upon his shoulders in 1955.

Rev. Dr. King provided America with a road map to, as he said in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963, “…transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood”. He also provided us with a candle and light for the journey. We are still traversing that road, slowly but surely, with his candle leading the way. On this Monday in 2010, as we honor him with a holiday, please reflect how we can carry his “dream” forward – how we can work together to fight AGAINST poverty, homelessness, racism, and social despair – and FOR individual rights, liberties, and legal/social respect for the dignity of all, no matter their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or religion.

Rev. Dr. King asked that, at his funeral, he be referred to as a “drum major for justice”. Thank you Rev. Dr. King for being the Drum Major who led us to greater heights of humanity through love, justice and peace. Your dream lives on in so many of us……….

(Recommended read : “Let The Trumpet Sound – The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.” by Stephen B. Oates [1985] )

In Brotherhood,
Bruce A. Jackson

The Family, Uganda, Power and the Kingdom of God

If you've not been following the news about the odious proposed legislation in Uganda that would create death penalties for gay and lesbian people, and life sentences for their family members if they refused to out them, follow this link. Once you're up to speed, please return and continue reading here.

It turns out there's a direct connection between the proposed legislation and an American group of Evangelical politicians and power brokers that are called "The Family".

You can read more about the Family, it's shadowy leader, and some of the scandals it has become connected with in Washington DC here. I know from conversations I've had with people here in Arizona that the sorts of things described in the linked article are what they see out here when the governor or someone else decides to have a "Prayer Breakfast".

Elizabeth Kaeton writes about the group and it's founder David Coe:

"One of the 'core ideas' of 'The Family' that Coe 'preaches' is that the message of the New Testament is not love, mercy and justice but power.

In the interview, Sharlet reports a 'sermon' preached by Coe in which he asks his audience to name three people who embody the message of Jesus.

The answers come swiftly.  'Martin Luther King, Jr.'  'Gandhi.'  'Mother Theresa.'

'No,' says Coe.  'Hitler. Stalin.  Pol Pot.'  The audience gasps as he quickly adds, 'That is not to deny that what they did was Evil, but they understood the message of Jesus.'"

Read Elizabeth's full essay here.

Lest you think that this is just some sort of right-wing group, there are a number of people on the left that have connections to Coe as well:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Coe on many occasions as First Lady of the United States. According to NBC News, she participated in a prayer luncheon at The Cedars, the Fellowship's mansion in Arlington, Virginia in February 1993 and met privately with Coe in her West Wing office on December 19, 1997, and a “Meet & Greet with Business Leaders” on Feb. 4, 1998.[4] Clinton has written that Doug Coe is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."[19] Doug Coe has been referred to as a friend and hero by former Senator and Vice President Al Gore.[20][21]

From here.

It's the broad base of appeal to those in powerful positions in part that troubles me.

But what really has me concerned is the frankly heretical idea that the Gospel of Jesus is concerned with the accumulation of power.

Check this piece of news about the Family out:

In public, they host prayer breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of “biblical capitalism,” military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao, Doug Coe, the Family's current leader, declares, "We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't."

The Gospel of Jesus is about Agape Love. It's about the self-emptying of God. It's about the humiliation of God at the altar every Sunday. It's about our learning to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, and loving our enemies. All of which, when followed, protect us from falling into the heresy of using Power to achieve our goals, no matter how noble they might be.

The Kingdom of God will not come about by using our power to achieve it. It will come about by allowing God to transform us by God's loving servant ministry in our lives and within our hearts so that God's goals become our goals. And so that we will have the strength to pick up our cross and follow Jesus in his Way not our way.

Please do not allow anyone to tell you otherwise.

Personal Ordinariates = calling the cards?

Now that the surprising news about the Vatican's new welcome for male Anglican priests has had a day or so to sink in, people are starting to publish their reactions.

Kendall Harmon points out that this action, apparently taken against the desires and hopes of the professional ecumenists at the Vatican, seems to signal a decision by the Pope that Anglicanism in its present form has no future as a Communion. At least not in terms of being able to enter into conversations with Rome. I think Kendall's reading an implicit message here correctly.

Taking Kendall one step farther, since part of the desire for an Anglican Covenant was to create a formal structure that would be able to enter into high-level ecumenical talks with Rome or the Orthodox, does this unexpectedly sudden action by Pope Benedict mean that he's decided the Covenant is dead and not worth waiting for? Is Benedict telling us something we won't hear?

But this announcement is doing something else, in an unexpected way, it seems to me.

Most surprising has been the pretty much across the board rejection of this possibility by the leading voices of the ACNA here in the US. Archbishop Duncan has come out to say that, while he's grateful for the offer, thanks but no thanks. Bishop Iker of Fort Worth and the Southern Cone, a prominent Anglo-Catholic conservative voice for years, is saying that he can imagine some would rather stay with the Evangelical leaning Province of the Southern Cone (Argentina) than become a Roman Catholic priests. Though Bishop Iker points out that any definitive answer on his part is going to have to wait for the full details of the new process to be announced.

The leader of breakaway Anglo-Catholics in Canada has written to say "thanks but no thanks. I'm already Catholic. No need to submit to Rome."

It seems to me that this action on the part of Rome is having the effect of calling the hands of a whole bunch of disaffected Anglicans around the world. "Okay, you're upset and want a full formal rigorous belief set? Come on over." Or in other words, "Gentlemen, I call. Let's see what you've got."

I wonder what people are going lay down?

INFLUENZA: The Bare Essentials

By The Reverends Bill & Nadine Martin, Co-Chairs, Episcopal Diocese of Arizona Emergency Preparedness Committee

 

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a great deal of media coverage regarding flu-like illnesses.  Although much information is considered factual, a good bit is not or else it’s taken out of context of what was originally stated by officials.  But indicators are that the H1N1 virus has the potential to become the primary cause of a major worldwide flu-like outbreak, adding to the seasonal flu virus we usually encounter (and get immunized for) each fall.  In this article, we are providing an update on influenza activity, vaccination, symptoms, and prevention tips including tips for parents.

 

Update

Each week, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) analyzes and publishes information about influenza disease activity in the U.S.   During the week of October 4-10, 2009, visits to doctors continued to increase and, overall, were higher than normal for this time of year.  Also, total influenza hospitalization rates for laboratory-confirmed flu are increasing and are higher than what is normally expected.  Forty-one states, including Arizona, are reporting widespread influenza activity, and almost all of the influenza viruses identified so far are 2009 H1N1 influenza viruses.  In Arizona, during the 2008-2009 influenza season (September 28, 2008-October 3, 2009), 1,684 confirmed H1N1 cases were reported with 320 deaths.  Most of these cases were in the age group 18 years and younger.

 

Vaccination

People who should be vaccinated include pregnant women, those who live with or provide care for infants younger than 6 months, health care and emergency medical service personnel, people 6 months through 24 years of age, and people 25-64 years of age who are in high-risk groups.  Two kinds of 2009 H1N1 vaccines are currently being produced:  the flu shot and the nasal spray vaccine.  The H1N1 flu shot is prepared in the same manner as the seasonal flu vaccine one takes each year.  It is an inactivated vaccine (containing killed virus) usually given in the arm.  It is approved for use in people 6 months of age and older, including healthy people, those who have chronic medical conditions, and pregnant women.  The nasal spray vaccine is made with live, weakened H1N1 viruses that do not cause the flu.  It is approved for use in healthy people from ages 2 years to 49 years.  The nasal spray vaccine is not recommended for women who are pregnant. 

 

Symptoms

Symptoms include fever (note:  not everyone who has flu will have a fever), cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headaches, chills, fatigue, sometimes diarrhea and vomiting.  Check with your health-care provider if you have questions.

 

General Prevention Tips

    Avoid close contact with people who are sick.

    Stay home when you’re sick.  CDC recommends that you stay home for at least 24-48 hours after     your fever is gone.

    Cover your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing.

    Wash your hands often.

    Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth.

    Get plenty of sleep and exercise, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food.

 

One question that comes up frequently in the church is “Is it safe to drink from the common chalice?”  The answer, unfortunately, is neither black nor white.  Most scientists agree that the virus is spread through sneezing or coughing.  So whether you can or cannot become infected by drinking from the common cup cannot be answered with certainty.  So it’s a personal “common sense” choice.

 

Tips for parents.  Get both the seasonal flu vaccine and the 2009 H1N1 vaccine for yourself and your child.  If your child is sick, keep the child at home  from school, day care, camp, or Sunday School, for at least 24 hours after their fever is gone.  (Note:  fever should be done without the use of a fever-reducing medicine.)  A fever is defined as 100 degrees F or higher (37.8 degrees C).

 

The preceding information is based on the CDC’s guidelines and is not intended to be a substitute for your doctor’s advice.  It is not a comprehensive guide to seasonal flu or the 2009 H1N1 flu, and data (such as number of reported cases) are updated frequently.  For more comprehensive information about seasonal and H1N1 flu, go to CDC’s web sites (www.cdc.gov and www.flu.gov).  There you’ll find links to other sites as well.

More on MacCulloch's new "History of Christianity"

Mark Vernon has posted a review over on the Guardian of Diarmaid MacCulloch's new work. Vernon picks up the main thrust of MacCulloch's argument and reiterates what the BBC reviews says:

"As MacCulloch puts it: the sheer variety of Christianity is 'a vital lesson to learn for modern Christians who wish to impose a uniformity on Christian belief and practice which has never in fact existed.' And this rollercoaster ride of intellect and experience is far from over yet. Christianity today has two billion adherents, a figure that has increased fourfold since 1900. That's a third of the world's population. Only those who inhabit Europe's secular enclaves can pretend it's passing.

In fact, it may only be a question of time, muses MacCulloch, before nations declare themselves Christian once again, as Constantine did for the Roman empire in the fourth century. The president of Zambia attempted it in 1991, when he submitted 'the government and the entire nation of Zambia to the lordship of Jesus Christ.' Perhaps South Korea will try next, a country in which Christianity has a massive following, not least because the translation of the Bible into Korean resonated with a cultural revival not unlike that which took place in Elizabethan England. More bizarrely, Christendom could conceivably be reborn in China, not just because the country will soon be home to the largest number of Christians on the planet, but also because Christianity has flourished there from at least the seventh century. This is one of the forgotten elements of Christian history to which MacCulloch draws attention.

He examines these Christianities neither as if from the vantage of the dispassionate scholar, nor with the loaded agenda of a person of faith. Instead, he positions himself as a 'candid friend'. That enables him to assess where we're at with this movement that has shaped, and will shape, so many cultures and lives. For example, he suggests that the energy behind the most vocal forms of Christianity today, those of angry conservatism, might originate with shifting gender roles. Christianity validates the place of heterosexual men in society, by allotting them the positions of leadership. But that privilege is no longer secure because of social changes. So, the Anglican church is rent asunder over gender and sexuality, and the Roman and Orthodox churches refuse to countenance such questions at all. Further, fundamentalism seems most attractive to literate but marginalised men who feel that modernity has left them stranded and without purpose.

Read the full article here.

That last bit seems to hit the nail rather squarely on the head; especially the part about the marginalization of very bright literate men. It's pretty extraordinary to look at the education levels of many of the Islamic fundamentalists. Many are well educated and underemployed. And look what they're most upset about: the encroachment of Western Culture (read that as new roles for women in traditional society). It would be surprising (even a violation of the principle of minimum astonishment!) if the same sociological pressures weren't active in the West and within Christianity as well.

Mount Wilson Observatory fire report

Jeffrey Hall, an astronomer up at Lowell Observatory, just pointed us to this report via his tweet regarding the threat to Mount Wilson:

"Chief Powers expressed his absolute confidence that they will save the Observatory. He said that while it may have appeared over the last day or so that the Observatory was being neglected, that they never lost sight of the importance of its preservation and it is now their highest priority. He flew up to the mountain yesterday, was delighted with what he found and knew they could achieve success here. There are now 150 fire fighters on Mount Wilson. Not only are the crews from Calaveras County (Cal Fire) back up there, but there are Los Angeles County fire fighters and even a crew from Helena, Montana. They have eight engines equipped to spray fire retardant on structures in addition to the crew engines. Chief Powers told me this army of fire fighters is 'not going anywhere. They are very hard working and talented people who will get the job done.'"

Read the full report here. It looks like this is a page that is going to be continually updated as the news is received.

Korean land grab for food topples Madagascar government

Saw this frightening but sadly unsurprising in the Independent when I followed a link from "bls":

"The government of President Ravalomanana became the first in the world to be toppled because of what the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization recently described as 'landgrabbing'. The Daewoo deal is only one of more than 100 land deals which have, over the past 12 months, seen massive tracts of cultivable farmland across the globe bought up by wealthy countries and international corporations. The phenomenon is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe's farmland targeted in just the past six months.

To understand the impotent fury that provokes in impoverished farmers, consider the reaction if something similar happened in Britain. The international development policy consultant Mark Weston has a vivid image to help: 'Imagine if China, following a brief negotiation with a British government desperate for foreign cash after the collapse of the economy, bought up the whole of Wales, replaced most of its inhabitants with Chinese workers, turned the entire country into an enormous rice field, and sent all the rice produced there for the next 99 years back to China,' he suggests.

'Imagine that neither the evicted Welsh nor the rest of the British public knew what they were getting in return for this, having to content themselves with vague promises that the new landlords would upgrade a few ports and roads and create jobs for local people.

'Then, imagine that, after a few years – and bearing in mind that recession and the plummeting pound have already made it difficult for Britain to buy food from abroad – an oil-price spike or an environmental disaster in one of the world's big grain-producing nations drives global food prices sharply upwards, and beyond the reach of many Britons. While the Chinese next door in Wales continue sending rice back to China, the starving British look helplessly on, ruing the day their government sold off half their arable land. Some of them plot the violent recapture of the Welsh valleys.'

Change the place names to Africa and the scenario is much less far-fetched. It is happening already, which is why many, including Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, has warned that the world may be slipping into a 'neo-colonial' system. Even that great champion of the free market, the FT, described the Daewoo deal as 'rapacious' and warned it is but the most 'brazen example of a wider phenomenon' as rich nations seek to buy up the natural resources of poor countries"

Read the full article here.

What it's like in the former industrial heartland

James Kunstler writes a weekly column reporting on what he forsees as the western economy's coming collapse and the effect it will have on the United States.

This week, as the news of the collapse of General Motors is highlighted on the hour, he writes of a recent trip to western and northern New York state:

"You get into these far reaches of upstate New York and your senses report that you have entered something like an HP Lovecraft story, where the sun comes up twenty minutes late, and the magnetic poles are not where they're supposed to be, and the few remaining denizens of the towns all have eleven fingers.... Even though I've seen plenty of desolation like it in other parts of the country -- the back roads of Ohio, the Mississippi River towns of the upper Midwest, the morbid stretch of blue highway between Memphis and Little Rock -- I've never encountered a landscape so shattered by the mere ravages of economic fate.

The most striking feature is how all the things once so 'modern,' all the roadside business enterprises designed along 'space age' motifs -- the car dealerships with boomerang-shaped signs, the rocket-ship-style food huts, the schools that look like atomic power installations -- all teeter now in sublime decrepitude. The reversal of spirit from childlike exuberance of the 1960s to the senile sclerosis of today said everything about where America is at. Much of what existed before the space age is not even there anymore, bulldozed decades ago in our haste to erase pre-drive-in living, as if it branded us a lower life-form than, say, our arch-enemy, the Soviets.  I've wondered for many years what Modernism would be like when time finally passed it by, when it was no longer the sole thing it declared itself to be, up-to-date -- and there it was smeared all over the landscape like so much road kill."

Read the full article here.

Having lived and worked in parts of PA very much like northern New York, this description rings true to me. I was told years ago that PA, once the powerhouse of the Industrial revolution, is now the state with the highest number of people living in rural zip codes. In other words, it's becoming a farming state once again. (Which isn't a bad thing - the coast needs to eat, and PA has excellent farm land an easy short haul a way.)

I've been thinking about the effect this level of disruption is going to have on churches for a long while. I had hoped that it was going to be a truly pressing problem in a few more decades, but it appears that the future is now upon us.

There's a great deal of hope for the Church I think, but it's going to require people to think carefully about how to use the increasingly scarce resource of seminary trained clergy, and increase the role of the volunteer lay person in supporting the work of the community. Total Ministry is one model, and there's a great deal to learn from it.

But I'm not aware of many congregations that have managed to grow using that model - it feels to me more like a way of trying to forestall an inevitable collapse than it does a new model to evangelize the world.

I'm thinking it might be worth having a conversation here about different models that might be created to try to transition ministry from the old pastoral model to a newer model that uses all the resources at hand - big churches, program style churches, missions and cell groups to rejigger our parish ministry model.

Any interest?

Casino empire suddenly hinges on Bethlehem -- themorningcall.com

Heh. The news that the town fathers in Bethlehem PA had decided the way to revitalize the southern part of the city by bringing in a Casino was a bit of a puzzler years ago. (I was in still priest in a parish in the city when the saga began.) Most of us thought that the project would be a minor one for the Sands, and they'd not really be committed in a major way to its success. Since the city government really wanted this to work, it looked like a collision between the city's wants and company's offerings was going to be inevitable.

But that was then, this is now:

"Thanks to a global recession and a decision by the Chinese government to limit people who can travel to Macau to gamble, suddenly the casino that lies in the shadows of the hulking blast furnaces on the south bank of the Lehigh River is as important to Sands as it is to the city that hosts it.

''It would have been inconceivable two years ago, but Bethlehem is now Sands' best hope to avoid bankruptcy,'' said Bill Lerner, a Wall Street analyst assigned by Deutsche Bank to follow Sands. ''It could literally be the factor that keeps Sands from violating its debt covenants. It's that important.''

Sands' big bet on Bethlehem comes at a time when some question the company's model -- gambling coupled with luxury hotel suites, malls and upscale restaurants -- in a newly minted age of frugality spawned by plunging stock markets and high unemployment."

Read the full article here.

Amazing.

Well the good news I suppose is that all eyes are going to be on the project now.

My friends still in Bethlehem tell me that there's already been conflict between the developers and the residents of the area. (My old parish is within easy walking distance of the new Casino site.) And there's been a great deal of concern about what sorts of folks might be attracted to the new facility when it does open.

But now maybe those concerns might lesson a bit? The company needs a win here, and that's going to be hard to do if the local community decides to not play along once things start rolling.

Still, the idea of a Casino empire rolling the dice on its survival in the middle of America's Christmas City, is pretty disconcerting.

I can't wait to here if there's any major difference to the traditional fall and winter activities as a result...

Cathedral Dean's office vandalized...

OMG! Pink Sparkle Ponies everywhere.

See all the fun here.

/me shakes fist in burst of impotent rage at perpetrators.

Help the Invisible Children

This note was sent to me this morning by my daughter. She and a group of her classmates have decided that they could not stand idly by after hearing the accounts of the atrocities being committed in Uganda by members of the Lord's Resistance Army. I'm posting this here with her permission, partly because of my paternal pride in her and her friends, and mostly because some of you might be able to help:

Hey guys!

I know this is kinda long but try and get through it (ha ha)

So, there is this major crisis happening in Uganda, so much so that it is now deemed one of the most unsafe places on earth. This is due large in part to a group called the LRA (Lord's resistance army), which is being lead by a man named Joseph Coney. He is terrorizing not only Uganda, but the congo, Sudan, and several other neighboring countries. Because of him, more than 104,00 people have been displaced within their nations and more than 30,000 children have been abducted. Thats right, 30,00 CHILDREN! These kids are no more than the age of ten, and are being taken away by the LRA to become a soldier. These children are being raised without pity and are taught to be killing machines. Not only that, but they do not want to become soldiers, and spend every day of their lives fearing for what could be a horrible fate, being one of Joseph Kony's soldiers. 

So far, there have been several peace talks in an attempt to stop the madness. In 2008, we have come the closet to ever reaching peace. Kony told the government that he was willing to sign a peace agreement and stop this 23 year old war once in for all. Of course, when the day came for him to sign the paper work, he did not show up. A couple of months later he responded with a bloody massacre. What a christmas present huh?

However, right now, there is something being done. A group called INVISIBLE CHILDREN has stepped up in order to stop this terrible mess. They have rallied, campaigned, and have changed so many things in Uganda. So far, through several events happening in 2006 and 2007, they have been able to stop night commuting and have helped the displaced by giving them some hope. In fact, it was through their efforts that the peace agreement with Kony was almost reached.

Despite all their efforts, there is still one thing they have not helped, the children. The abducted children need help, and Invisible Children plan on helping them out. On April 25th, there is going to be a world wide rally. On this day (a saturday), we are supposed to abduct ourselves in order to show exactly what these children have to go through. It will be then that we will be rescued by the media or someone famous. Hopefully, this will garner enough attention so that we can do something to help the invisible children in Uganda.

Leading up to the event, we are supposed to wear the same two t-shirts throughout the entire month of april in order to help prove the point.

Of course, I have only scratched the surface of the problem. This issue goes much deeper and needs more and more support from everyone we now. So, below are several websites provided to help you understand exactly what is going on and what we need to do. I am hoping that we can get a large group to go to this event, and parents can and are encouraged to come as well, so that more kids and parents will be willing to go and do the event. I know I am personally really hoping to attend the event and have my voice be heard.

Oh and by the way, you do not have to live in Phoenix to take part. This event is happening in hundreds of cities around the world that are taking part, so find one near you :)

Thank you for reading, and if you can, forward this email or spread the word and get as many people as you can to come to this event!

-Kenney

P.S. watch the 30 minute video on the rescue plan site if you want more details about the war in Uganda. There is also a movie that came out in 2003 as well

The main site for the Rescue plan:

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/marchhouseparty/

The main site for the invisible children corporation:

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php

A detailed PDF with everything you need to know about the plan (a must read):

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/marchhouseparty/graphics/The-Rescue-Manual.pdf

The Facebook Site for Phoenix:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?sid=cb60f1d52d52149ee62d6a1ebeb2fdbe&eid=134576255493

Border violence against women spreading into US?

I stumbled across a story today on Latina.com that reports on what, if true, is a horrible bit of news for us in Arizona and in Phoenix:

"Although many politicians would like to believe that the violence will stay to the south of the border, the reality is that it has already begun to affect South Western states. The revelation that Phoenix is now the 'kidnapping capital' of the United States only affirms what many residents already knew.

Recently, a new method of marking territory has crossed over into the United States. 'Rape trees' are popping up in Southern Arizona and their significance is horrific and disgusting. These 'rape trees' are places where cartel members and coyotes rape female border crossers and hang their clothes, specifically undergarments, to mark their conquest and territory."

Read the full article here.

The comments on the story show that there's some skepticism about the report. For what it's worth, this is the first I've heard of either the trees, or that Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the US. I guess I could believe the latter. We do hear regular reports of running gun battles in parts of the city - mostly between warring gangs of Coyotes (human smugglers) that are trying to steal the "clients" of another gang stashed away in a drop house.

It's not yet started to effect downtown Phoenix as far as I can tell, though our Cathedral sexton tells us that graffiti tags showing up on the Diocesan offices and the Cathedral are from Mexican gangs marking their territory.

Can any of you verify the veracity of the "rape tree" part of the story?

I did find this story from a couple of years ago that would at least verify the violence though not the "rape tree" part of the story.

Evangelical overreaction to Sebelius nomination

Halden makes a great point noting the way that Evangelicals in the Republican party are reacting to nomination of Kathleen Sebelius to serve as the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration.

Sebelius is on the record as believing that abortion procedures should be legally available. She's also on record as saying the state should do everything in its power to alleviate the conditions that drive pregnant women to decide that aborting a child is the best solution to their problem pregnancy.

While governor of Kansas her policies measurably reduced the abortion rate in the state by something like 10% - according to her office.

Halden points out that if this is true, then the issue for her critics is not reducing the number of abortions;

"[I]ts all about ideology. Even if her policies reduce the number of abortions it doesn’t matter because she is ideologically in favor of abortions. This seems to smack of what McCarraher spoke of regarding the way pro-life Christians have tended to make fetuses into a fetish. What matters is not whether or not some abortions get prevented, but whether or not our leaders, both ecclesial and political regard the fetus with the same sort of sacrosanctness."

Read the full article here.