Inauguration, Inschmauguration, How About the March For Life?

Forget all the media hype over today's incredible waste of taxpayer's money. The real event this week in Washington D.C. is the March for Life scheduled for this Friday. I don't expect much of a media frenzy over the march, but what else is new? The Daily Kos has labelled the marchers as "pro-life terrorists," and tells anyone opposed to President Obama's agenda (which is pro-abortion) to "suck it."


Don't look for the annoited one to suck it up and make an appearance at the March for Life.

Per Drudge: In the USA, there will be over 3500 killed today from abortion.

No flags lowered.

No Presidents crying.

No media hyperventilating.

Just a normal day.

Weddings, Marriage, Same Sex Blessings, Confusion Reigns

Today's readings at church seemed to point to the "M" word.

1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
   and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
   and her salvation like a burning torch.
2 The nations shall see your vindication,
   and all the kings your glory;
and you shall be called by a new name
   that the mouth of the Lord will give.
3 You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
   and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
   and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
   and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you,
   and your land shall be married.
5 For as a young man marries a young woman,
   so shall your builder (your sons) marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
   so shall your God rejoice over you.
Isaiah 62:1-5

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. John 2:1-1

Raising the subject of weddings in an Episcopal church tends to lead to the inevitable discussion on homosexual blessing or weddings.

In today's sermon we were treated to a straight-forward homily focusing on weddings, making something out of nothing (lemonade out of wine), but we were spared any mention of same-sex blessings. Of course, we were also spared any mention of our Creator's intentions, and any mention of what Jesus and the Bible might have said about the subject of same-sex weddings.

Ah well, such is the homilist's dilemna: whether to duck and run or whether to let em know how you really feel.

I wonder how Bishop Steven Miller of the Diocese of Milwaukee handled it? He is one amongst a large crowd of confused Episcopal clergymen on the subject of marriage (okay there I went and used the "M" word). This article in the Milwuakee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel demonstrates Bishop Miller's unusual take on blessing homosexual practice in the church,

Bishop Steven Miller has yet to decide whether he'll allow the provisional rite approved by the church to be used in its parishes. And the lack of a decision is frustrating many in a diocese that strongly supported the change. 

Miller argues the provision as adopted creates a two-tier system in the Episcopal Church and does nothing to advance marriage equality.

He has proposed eliminating the church's civil function in conducting marriages, returning that to the state, and rewriting the Book of Common Prayer to define marriage as between two people, regardless of gender.

"There is a difference between Christian marriage and civil legality," Miller said.

"The blessing rite, while trying to achieve justice for one group of people, creates an injustice for another," he said, pointing to, for example, elderly heterosexual couples who cannot marry for financial reasons.

 

"We don't have the authority to bless those unions," he said. 

 

The Rev. Kevin Carroll, dean of All Saints Cathedral in Milwaukee, said he believes the rite will eventually be adopted in some form in the diocese.

"I think what we're working on is how to honor people . . . who still hold up a traditional view of marriage, but still more forward with the intent and spirit of the general convention's vote last summer," said Carroll.

"My guess is, by this time next year, we'll have a better idea what we're doing."

Which means to say that right now they haven't got a clue as to what they are doing. The reason for their cluelessness is simply that they have walked apart from the Apostolic Faith and the wisdom they are supposed to be teaching (the wisdom that been delivered to us as it is found in Scripture). They are on their own.

"In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." Judges 21: 25

Not every Episcopal Bishop is twisting their undies in knots about same sex blessings, and they don't see this as "doing nothing to advance marriage equality" as Bishop Miller complains. Instead, other bishops see this as just the kind of blessing that Jesus would endorse. Read (in the El Paso Times) the words of Bishop Michael Vono of the rapidly declining Diocese of the Rio Grande,

"I'm very positive about it," he said. "We live in an age where there is still a lot of judgment, still a lot of discrimination that happens within Christianity. We exclude people that are not like ourselves.

"So this may be the Jesus thing to do in our age because Jesus forced the issue that no one is rejected by God and that all people are loved. And if you have two responsible people, whether heterosexual or gay, who love in a Christian way -- which is responsibly and exclusively monogamous and help each other and forgive each other -- what more can we ask for?"

 All people are loved, but not all the things we do are loved. We are loved so much that Jesus blesses us by forgiving those unloving things we have done and by commanding us to "go and sin no more."

I am afraid that Bishop Vono and Bishop Miller have mis-read that last line and are quite prepared to tell their flock to "Go and sin some more."

Pray for the sheep of these confused shepherds.

Pope Benedict on Gender Identity and Gender Manipulation

Here is an excellent description of the problem of modern gender identity from Pope Benedict's 2012 "state of the Church" address. h/t Opinionated Catholic.

"The words of the creation account: 'male and female he created them' (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned."

And if you think the Pontifex is just another out of touch, twittering celibate male, I cite the following example from the news to show how prescient his 2012 remarks were:

"An undergraduate student at a small women’s college in North Carolina is seeking permission to stay at the school — and live on campus — after she undergoes gender reassignment surgery in February, which will finalize her transformation into a man."

"Officials at the school, Salem College, are now considering the thorny issue, reports the Winston-Salem Journal."

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/12/student-at-historic-all-womens-college-wants-to-stay-at-school-after-adding-penis/#ixzz2Hy5U0jAv

I guess that would be considered a case of somebody wanting to have it both ways.

In a world where Christ's rule is rejected, "now we decide for ourselves" applies not only to matters of human sexuality, but to all manner of things (think abortion).

"In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." Judges 21: 25

Time and time again we choose "our will be done" over "Thy will be done."

"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." John 3:19 KJV

 Consider these things the next time a politician or religious leader describes themselves as "pro-choice".

The Death of Languages: Episcospeak and Episcobabble

In her sermon today, our priest attempted to convey the need for those of us in the congo to participate in our "Strategic Visioning Process," and in particular, to attend today's meeting that was to focus on "Faith Formation" (AKA Christian Education). The message in her sermon was to imagine a future where the words "Baptism" or "Resurrection" lose their deeper meaning. To illustrate this, she suggested that one half of the world's languages will die by the year 2100 (she may have been referring to the National Geographic Society's Enduring Voices Project which can be found here).

Our priest told us that languages tend to die once a population shrinks to less than one million people who speak that language. Given the fact that the average Sunday attendance in the Episcopal church has been below that threshold for more than a decade and is dropping like a stone (TEc research shows that the average Sunday attendance across the church in 2010 was 657,831 in the United States. That compares to 856,579 in 2000), could it be possible that Episcospeak and its related tongue, Episcobabble, are in the process of going extinct?

Anyone familiar with the rambling letters of our bishops, and the sometimes difficult to comprehend social activist rants of our priests, will see that this extinction business might not be a bad thing. Lest they protest that I am hoping that their revisionist language go the way of the dodo, I should remind them that they themselves sought to eliminate another language, and that was the language of my parents and my youth when they came out with the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

I might also remind them that the very words that our priest fears might die have already been hijacked and have seen their meanings revised. The following are taken from the "Revisionist Dictionary By Irenaeus First Edition—August 2007" published in five parts on-line at StandFirm in Faith. I will post the entire thing later this month and put up a link when it is done.

BAPTISMAL COVENANT
(1) Traditionally, the covenant made at baptism by which we repent, renounce sin, accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and become members of Christ, redeemed by his atoning sacrifice. “Obdurate sin grieves the Holy Spirit and violates our baptismal covenant.”
(2) For Progressives, two related ideas: that baptism irrevocably confers good standing in the church so neither “sinful” conduct nor heterodox belief disqualifies any baptized person from holding church office; and that baptized persons need little trouble themselves about “sin”*, repentance*, or amendment of life*. “A moratorium on ordaining noncelibate homosexuals would betray our baptismal covenant.”

RESURRECTION: Feeling that Christ is alive. Formerly, the crude notion that Christ rose bodily from the dead.

And don't forget the biggie that we recite every time we say the 1979 Baptismal Covenant and the one that shows up in any argument about human sexuality and the Church,

JUSTICE: P.C.* outcomes, by any process. “The 1959 revolution did much to establish justice in Cuba.”

"Justice," in Episcospeak, also has the deeper meaning: "My will be done, not Thine." The Revisionist Dictionary may need a second edition.

In an earlier post I quoted CS Lewis on the "Death of Words," and it bears repeating in this context,

"What is the good of deepening a word's connotation if you deprive the word of all practicable denotation? Words, as well as women, can be 'killed with kindness'. And when, however reverently, you have killed a word you have also, as far as in you lay, blotted from the human mind the thing that word originally stood for. Men do not long continue to think what they have forgotten to say."

C.S. Lewis, "The Death of Words" From (C.S. Lewis On Stories, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1982, p. 107)

We should not pass on to our children through any "Faith Formation" process words that have been "killed with kindness," or words that have been so perverted that they have not only lost their ancient meanings but have taken on new and more dangerous ones.

Whether or not Episcospeak and Episcobabble deserve to die, they will (if the statistics are accurate and are predictive of extinction). The attempt by Episcopal revisionists to change the meaning of words in order to foster and justify the social and moral changes popular amongst the majority of clery of the Church was doomed from the get go as it went against the very Word passed down to us through Holy Scripture.

When Epsicospeak goes extinct, don't blame people for not teaching it to their children.

Instead, blame "The Word" for the death of "those words".

"Spiritual but not Religious" and Mental Health

If the thought of hearing one more person tell you that they are spiritual but not religious is enough to drive you crazy, you thought wrong.

In the U.K., researchers have concluded that "People who have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework are vulnerable to mental disorder." This survey was reported in "CROSSROADS" a "Newsletter of the Center for Spirituality, Theology & Health" from Duke University. Here are some of the findings,

1. 35% had a religious understanding of life,
2. 19% had a spiritual understanding (but not religious),
3. 46% said they were neither spiritual nor religious.
4. Religious persons were 27% less likely to have ever used drugs.
5. Religious persons were 19% less likely to be a hazardous drinker.  
6. Those with a "spiritual" view of life (but not religious) were more likely to have ever used drugs, be dependent on drugs, have abnormal eating attitudes, experience generalized anxiety disorder, a phobia, or a neurotic disorder, and were 40% more likely to be taking psychiatric medication.  

Researchers concluded that "People who have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework are vulnerable to mental disorder." 

Citation: King MB, Marston L, McManus S, Brugha T, Metzer H, Bebbington P (2012). Religion, spirituality and mental health: Results from a national study of English households. British Journal of Psychiatry, November 22 [E-pub ahead of print]

Comment: This is the largest study to date reporting that those who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" (a growing category of people in the U.S. and Europe) have worse mental health. The authors did not explain why those who are spiritual but not religious have worse mental health, although admitted that the study was cross-sectional, so direction of causation could not be determined (i.e., the findings don't tell us whether being spiritual but not religious causes mental illness, or whether mental illness causes people to describe themselves as spiritual but not religious). 

My personal observations of the "spiritual but not religious" crowd cannot be quantified, but I have noted a tendency towards what I call, "flakiness." I don't know if there is a diagnostic code for that or not. "Flakes," when presented with a menu, tend to choose the spiritual fad du jour over traditional Christianity. Spiritual instability therefore might be a marker for psychological instability.   

I wonder if the guidance of right doctrine by established religion helps provide some of the effects on mental stability suggested by this survey. Of course, these surveys alway lead to more speculative questions than they answer. The problem with any kind of survey like this is the problem of definitions, in this case the definitions of "religious" or "spiritual" as well as the problem of what constitutes a mental disorder come to mind.

In addition to the authors' conclusions, the results seem to point to an overall decrease in "religiosity" in the U.K. Other attempts to measure this were highlighted in the "Religion in Great Britain" study (contemporary with the British Journal of Psychiatry report) which concluded that the numbers of people with no religion, while increasing, would not reach the 65% level until 2020 (65% figure obtained by adding the 19% "spiritual but not religious" plus the 46% "neither spiritual but not religious" reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry study cited above).

‘Between the fourth quarter of 2004 and the fourth quarter of 2010, the Christian  population fell from 78.0 per cent of the population to 69.4 per cent, while the group of people with no religion grew from 15.7 per cent to 22.4 per cent. ‘If these populations continue to shrink and grow by the same number of people each year, the number of people with no religion will overtake the number of Christians in Great Britain in 20 years, on this measure of religious affiliation.’ The Labour Force Survey asks people what religion they belong to, ‘even if you are not currently practising’ – a form of question which tends actually to underestimate the number who say they are non-believers.

Quite likely a great underestimation of the number of non-believers even though I wonder how one would quantify the actual number of non-believers. While applicable only to Christians, the surveyors might ask "Do you believe in Jesus as Lord and Saviour?" I don't think that will ever happen in the current climate of "political correctness."  I guess that is a job for the guy guarding the pearly gates.

Stickmen from BeckySaysThings

                                            http://beckysaysthings.files.wordpress.com/

A Bishop's Particular Responsibility

The Church of England’s House of Bishops recently announced that clergy in civil partnerships can become bishops, but they must remain celibate.

As if...

The Most Rev’d Dr Eliud Wabukala, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya, released a statement on the matter that can be found at T19,

"However, the heart of the matter is not enforceability, but that bishops have a particular responsibility to be examples of godly living.

The Archbishop doesn't agree with what the revisionist church has defined as "godly living," and to me this is the heart of the matter: convinced that when they see loving homosexual relationships that these are examples of godly living, it then becomes a requirement of the revisionist leader to force it down everybody else's throats.

It cannot be right that they are able to enter into legally recognised relationships which institutionalise and condone behaviour that is completely contrary to the clear and historic teaching of Scripture, as reaffirmed for Anglicans by the 1998 Lambeth Conference in its Resolution 1.10."

According to the revisionist, the only thing clear about the historic teaching of Scripture is that it is clearly homophobic and clearly wrong.

"The weight of this moral teaching cannot be supported by a flimsy proviso. In his teaching about marriage, Jesus reaffirms that marriage is the coming together of a man and a woman in accordance with the pattern of creation itself when he says ‘from the beginning of creation God made them male and female’ (Mark 10:6). For the health and well being of both church and society we must promote this great God given gift of marriage without compromise and ambiguity."
 

Here in the U.S., many would agree that our society is unhealthy. Many also would say that certain Churches are unhealthy. The statistics seem to show that TEc is in decline, and this I consider to be a sign of illness.  Perhaps only future historians will be able to properly assess the effects of the loss of the strength of the moral teachings of Jesus on our society. As far as today's moral wasteland goes, someday it too will cry for the blessed rain of Jesus' words to wash us so that we might return to the health that He desires for us.

 

Diachronic Koinonia and "Local Options" in the Church

2013 will likely bring to many Episcopalians the new tension of living in a church where one parish may bless sin in the form of same sex relationships while a neighboring parish will not deviate from the apostolic faith. We may wind up with same sex blessings as a "local option," and as long as the money keeps rolling in, most Bishops will consider this a "unity" of sorts. Of course, this is a false unity, and a destructive one as the Pope pointed out back in 2008 when he said,

"Too often those who are not Christians, as they observe the splintering of Christian communities, are understandably confused about the Gospel message itself. Fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called 'prophetic actions' that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition. Communities consequently give up the attempt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of 'local options'. Somewhere in this process the need for diachronic koinonia – communion with the Church in every age – is lost, just at the time when the world is losing its bearings and needs a persuasive common witness to the saving power of the Gospel" (cf. Rom 1:18-23). 

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI, St. Joseph's Parish, New York, Friday, 18 April 2008

(H/t James H. at Opinionated Catholic )

Too many local options dilute the Faith and confuse the seeker. The Gospel's clear voice is lost in the din of  the competing messages.

I get the sensus that the Pope is right about those "prophetic actions" too.