If you are born into a poor community you have less of a chance of graduating from high school and you may never attend college or trade school. If this is you, this means your school does not have new materials or textbooks, your school may be crowded and stress-filled, and your school may have a reputation for poor performance and low morale. Consequently, new school teachers will be reticent about choosing your school as their first job out of college. Teach for America places dynamic, motivated college graduates in some of our nation’s underprivileged schools. Teach for America trained me and found work for me here in South Dakota. But, only God would make that work holy.

On my confirmation day, I sat in that huge cathedral, ready to make promises I didn’t fully understand. Now in this realm, in my new career of educational leadership, I truly see what it means to seek and serve Christ in all people. For me, it means that every little miracle that shows up at my classroom door represents a sacred mystery. For me, it means if I look closely into the eyes of the student I am teaching, I might catch a glimpse of the divine looking back at me. For me, it means that I will let my hands, feet and legs say my prayers for me and my every act of service will be a hymn of gratitude.

Read it all.

When I was in seminary, I wrote a killer essay on baptism. The assignment was to write a detailed parish newsletter column explaining baptism and the process for preparing infants, children and adults for the sacrament. I pulled out all the stops, wrote just what my liturgics professor wanted to read, and, had the essay actually been printed in the newsletter, I would’ve had to officiate at far more funerals than baptisms as a result of boring parishioners to death.

It’s safe to say there’s a difference between theory and practice, between seminary and ministry. I know this because the past few baptisms I’ve celebrated haven’t exactly followed the outline I dazzled my professor with. They’ve been better.

Working as a chaplain for Hospice at Home has reminded me that at life’s end, people think about tying up loose ends, and for some that loose end is baptism. I was working with a family and two of the daughters of a man who was dying said that he, his wife and another daughter hadn’t been baptized and they thought that the three of them should receive the sacrament before their father died. One thing that’s very important in providing spiritual care for the dying and their families is not to push any agenda or bias I (or the family) may have; rather it is to explore what’s meaningful for the patient and assist him or her in finding it. So we talked about baptism for a few minutes, and they decided they wanted to be baptized; and with the patient in bed and his wife and their daughter at his bedside, I asked the other daughters to find the nicest bowl in the kitchen and fill it with water from the tap. Then we gathered in a circle, and I blessed the water and baptized them.

Read it all.

(–Per the diocesan website, the Rt. Rev. Edward Lee is Assisting Bishop for Ordinations and Coordinator of Campus/Young Adult Ministries in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania).

Since 1976 when the current Book of Common Prayer restored the sacramental significance and centrality of Holy Baptism to the liturgical and ministerial life of The Episcopal Church, an interesting and exciting movement has been emerging and bubbling up in congregations and dioceses. Simply stated it’s called the “Ministry in Daily Life” movement. It has no formal national organization. Rather, it has local manifestations generated by people who are convinced that the Baptismal Covenant is the basis for intentional baptismal living and ministry every day of the week.

In the Diocese of Pennsylvania this movement has been spearheaded for over 20 years by the Center for Baptismal Living (CBL), a group of lay and clergy persons who have been committed to finding ways to raise the awareness of
both individuals and parishes to the question, what does it mean to be “sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever” (BCP, p. 308)? Or put another way, what does baptismal living look like Monday through Saturday after the Christian community has gathered on Sunday and exited to the dismissal, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”?

Read it all (go to page 5).

The ten year average for POF is 2638. We have surpassed the ten year average over the past two years. Among most Conferences, the goal is simply to slow the decline. North Alabama has dared to pray for more. And it is deeply gratifying to see visible evidence of the Holy Spirit moving among us. Behind every one of these numbers is a family reached, a person saved, a soul that is welcomed and included into the family of faith. And behind every number is a congregation and a pastor who is not threatened by our Wesleyan ethos of accountability and growth but is excited that we are focused on “the main thing” ”“ salvation of the world in Jesus Christ.

“You only count what is important and whatever you count becomes important,” says one of our slogans. By counting every week the new life that God gives us, we are making that new life the engine that is driving our church life. Not content to care for the needs of who is already there, our churches are reaching out to those who are not.

Take a look.

Thirty members of the United Pentecostal Church of Gretna, La., made the two-hour drive to Grand Isle to baptize new parishioners on the beach where they usually conduct the ceremony. But sheriff’s officers riding four-wheel-drive dune buggies blocked the entrance.

Pastor Vidal Galvez, 40, and the caravan of the faithful drove a few hundred yards away to the bay-side waters and got on with the service. They strung a tarp between two vans, put a few beach chairs in a circle and set up a card table for the altar. Two Guatemalan guitarists started off the service with baptismal hymns.

After the 30-minute service, Galvez led congregants into the calm backwaters, where Diana Perdomo and Danilo Garcia were baptized with song and prayer.“This contamination is bad for the fishermen, and the animals,” Galvez said in Spanish. “It ruins the environment.”

Go here to read it all and see the wonderful picture.

One of the best known texts from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer is the Baptismal Covenant. We often refer to it by title ”“ “Our Baptismal Covenant calls us to work for justice and peace,” or “the Baptismal Covenant makes us all evangelists” ”“ with the expectation that our audience knows exactly what we mean.

The commitments we make in the last five questions, particularly the last three, show up in mission statements and on church websites as summaries of what it means to be Christian, and I suspect that they have been the basis of many a sermon series or Lenten study.

It is gratifying for a liturgist to see such a clear example of our worship, our common prayer, sinking so deeply into our consciousness. Praying does shape believing.

Read it all.

* FINAL VERSION – Not Completed
Resolution: D089
Title: Invitation to Receive Holy Communion
Topic: Doctrine
Committee: 13 – Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music
House of Initial Action: Bishops
Proposer: The Very Rev. Ernesto R. Medina

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 76th General Convention direct the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons to review and provide a recommendation to resolve the conflict between Article X of the Constitution, specifically, the invitation offered in the Book of Common Prayer “The Gifts of God for the People of God” and Canon I.17.7, restricting communion to only the baptized; and be it further

Resolved, That the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons consult with other appropriate Standing Commissions, as needed; and be it further

Resolved, That the Standing Commission report back to the 77th General Convention.

EXPLANATION

There appears to be a conflict between the Constitution of the Episcopal Church and the Canons of the Episcopal Church with respect to who is able to receive Holy Communion.

Constitution – Article X
The Book of Common Prayer, as now established or hereafter amended by the authority of this Church, shall be in use in all the Dioceses of this Church. BCP clearly states in the invitation to receive Communion “The Gifts of God for the People of God.” The question we ask is “who is the People of God?”

Canon 17 – Section 7

No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.

We are asking the Standing Commission on Constitutions and Canons to help resolve this conflict.

[Thew] Forrester’s writings and sermons are sufficiently distressing to call into question his fitness, not only to be a bishop, but to even be a priest. Add to that the fact that Forrester adds stuff to the liturgy like a reading from the Qur’an in place of the appointed lesson from the apostle Paul, while also taking away from the liturgy the renunciations, and also so thoroughly revising the theological grounding of the act of adherence that it bears little resemblance to anything specifically Christian.

Given what we know from his sermons and liturgical experimentation/revision, I think there is little basis for believing that Mr. Forrester, if consecrated as a bishop, will heed the call “to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 517). It’s much more reasonable to expect that he would continue doing what he’s already been doing: departing from the core tenets of the Christian faith and revising the liturgical practices of the Episcopal Church accordingly.

Read it all.

Now Mr [John] Hunt has become the pioneer in a rejuvenated campaign for a way of cancelling baptisms given to children too young to decide for themselves whether they wanted this formal initiation into Christianity.

However, baptism is proving a difficult thing to undo.

The local Anglican diocese, Southwark, refused to amend the baptismal roll as Mr Hunt had wanted, on the grounds that it was a historical record.

“You can’t remove from the record something that actually happened,” said the Bishop of Croydon, the Right Reverend Nick Baines.

Read it all.

It removes the word “sacrament” from the rite. It reduces baptism to an organizational membership ceremony of some kind.

It has NO renunciation of evil. It does not admit to the reality of Satan, spiritual evil, worldly corruption or our own sinful desires. It does not warn that this false Trinity of the world, the flesh and the devil can separate us from God – rather, it says that “new birth is a gift that none can take away.” There is no expression of the need to continually “repent and return to the Lord.” Baptism is a magical, immediate entitlement to eternal life. It claims to “bestow the forgiveness of sin” without ever really acknowledging our status as creatures who have trespassed in rebellion against our Creator.

It has a few holdover phrases from the ’79 Prayer Book, but is completely detached from the Biblical message. In fact, it removes some of the most Biblically accurate statements from the ’79 BCP. “… made members of your Church” (yes, big “C”) displaces deliverance “from bondage to sin” in the Thanksgiving over the Water.

Read it carefully and please follow and read the linked material also.

On this Sunday, which follows the solemnity of the Epiphany, we celebrate the baptism of the Lord. This was the first act of his public life and all four Gospels give an account of it. At the age of 30, Jesus left Nazareth and traveled to the Jordan River and, along with many other people, had himself baptized by John. The evangelist Mark writes: “On coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him” (Mark 1:10-11). In these words: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased,” the nature of eternal life is revealed: It is the filial relationship with God, as Jesus lived, revealed, and gave it to us.

This morning, following tradition, in the Sistine Chapel, I administered the sacrament of baptism to three newborn children. To the parents, the godfather and the godmother, the celebrant customarily asks: “What do you ask of the Church of God for your children?” They answer “baptism,” and the celebrant replies: “And what does Baptism give us?” They answer: “Eternal life.” This is a stupendous thing: Through Baptism the human person is brought into Jesus’ unique and singular relationship with the Father, in such a way that the words that are spoken from heaven about the only-begotten Son become true for every man and woman who is reborn from the water of the Holy Spirit: You are my sons and daughters, my beloved.

Dear friends, how great is the gift of baptism! If we make ourselves fully aware of it, our life will become a continual “grace.” What a joy for Christian parents, who have seen a new creature blossom from their love, who have brought this child to the baptismal font and seen the child be reborn in the womb of the Church, for a life that will never end! Gift, joy, but also responsibility! The parents, in fact, together with the godparents, must bring up their children according to the Gospel.

Read it all.

(ENS) Part of the responsibility of living in community is building relationships. That may mean connecting with someone who has a different set of beliefs or cultural standards. That may mean, as the Gospel reading for August 24 suggested, that the pursuit of truth is not about the end product of defining truth but about the journey together.

“Does one person, like the Archbishop of Canterbury, for instance, have a ”˜corner on the truth market?'” asked Anderson in her sermon. “Has one particular group been given the gift of pure truth and the rest of us just can’t hear it?

“I don’t think so. Right now the how of coming to the truth is as important as getting to the truth. Right now, the way in which the Anglican Communion goes about the search for the elusive truth is as important as the truth itself.”

Through relationships characterized by intimacy and vulnerability, “we come to know the truth,” said Anderson. The relationships between bishops that were forged and fostered at the Lambeth Conference are an important beginning to this journey for truth. But laity, priests and deacons all must be a part of building relationships and making connections so that the truth of Christ can be made known to the world.

Anderson challenged each group to live into the baptismal covenant.

Read it all.

Q: Why is baptismal catechesis the key to evangelize modern man?

Arguello: Because baptism opens to us the door of the Church, participation in divine nature. As St. Paul says, “For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

The problem of the man of today is that, because of original sin, he lives everything for himself; he has placed himself at the center of the universe, substituting God as the center of his person, and does not realize that he lives enslaved, condemned to live for himself. This causes profound suffering, because the truth is something else; because God is total love, total giving to the other that he has shown in Christ; man suffers because he doesn’t love like Christ.

In countries where transcendence has been denied for years, where God has been denied, as in the former Communist countries, the rate of suicides is very high, because happiness is to live in the truth, and truth is love. And this original sin can only be erased through baptism.

That is why it is important to call men back to the faith, through preaching, the proclamation of the kerygma, the proclamation of Christ dead and risen. When Peter makes this proclamation on the day of Pentecost, the people are moved and ask him what they should do. Peter replies: “Be baptized and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

The first baptismal fonts were pools — the Council talks again of immersion — to which the neophyte descended by steps. This first form of baptism represents perfectly what this sacrament means: death of the old man and resurrection to new life, to man regenerated by the Holy Spirit, who can love and give himself. That is why the crucified Christ is the true image of the free man.

Read it all.

In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons’ Genealogical Society of Utah.

An April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, obtained by Catholic News Service in late April, asks episcopal conferences to direct all bishops to keep the Latter-day Saints from microfilming and digitizing information contained in those registers.

The order came in light of “grave reservations” expressed in a Jan. 29 letter from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the clergy congregation’s letter said.

Read it all.

In all my years as a parish priest, I advocated ”” indeed, insisted ”” that “it is desirable that every minister having the cure of souls shall normally administer the sacrament of Holy Baptism on Sundays at public worship when the most number of people come together” (Canon B21: Of Holy Baptism).

Yet now, in retirement, as I approach our parish church, and see the festive gathering ”” I wonder….

Sunday by Sunday, the faith is being sold cheap, and the opportunity for patient and welcoming pastoral teaching before Baptism (as allowed by Canon B22 (4)) is being lost. Elsewhere, evangelists may be dancing to the tune of Fresh Expressions of Church in all sorts of courageous innovations, but these popular Sunday jamborees are invitations to fresh perjury.

Perjury is a punishable offence, and yet we clergy who put the question “Do you turn to Christ?” could be accused of inciting it. It is no wonder that thoughtful members of our congregations become distressed at what they see; for solemn vows are being made, when it is often quite clear from the body language and the tone of the responses that the parents and godparents are doing no more than follow the script that has been put into their hands.

—The Rev. Ian Robins in this morning’s Church Times

In 1990 I was appointed to a parish where both the church and house needed extensive refurbishment. Late one afternoon the clerk of works came to report that the day’s plumbing work was unfinished; it could be completed only the following morning and they would have to leave the water turned off overnight.

He advised me to fill buckets for my needs. But what were my needs? I realised that I needed water for drinking and for cooking, for washing up and washing myself, for shaving and flushing the lavatory. It taught me very quickly how essential water is for survival. Water is a source of life. Some time later a woman came to see me to plan a funeral. Her brother had fallen into the local canal and drowned. Water is not only a source of life. It can be an instrument of death.

Then some years later still I found myself here at the Beda College in Rome, where older men from the English-speaking world are prepared for priestly ordination. One was Vietnamese. He had escaped from his country by boat and spent nine days on the open sea. Water was carrying him to safety, but it was also a threat: there was doubt about the seaworthiness of the boat, danger from storms and from pirates. For him water was ambivalent. And water’s very ambivalence is one reason why we use it for baptising, when we mark a passage from death to new life in Christ.

Read it all.

Much has been said and written in recent months about “open communion” for all Christians, and even for unbaptized persons. Of course, those who advocate this idea of hospitality do so in all good conscience. However, such actions are really spiritually dangerous, and not permitted in the Episcopal Church.

First, as to unbaptized persons, Canon I. 17. 7 states, “No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.” This simply continues the declared teaching of the Church Catholic at least since the second century, as set forth in the Didache: “Do not let anyone eat or drink of your eucharist except those who have been baptized in the name of the Lord.”

The basis for this principle is found in Chapter 11 of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians: “Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body” (vs. 27-29).

Reference to St. Paul’s admonition is found in the Exhortation in the Book of Common Prayer:

But if we are to share rightly in the celebration of those holy Mysteries, and be nourished by that spiritual Food, we must remember the dignity of that holy Sacrament. I therefore call upon you to consider how Saint Paul exhorts all persons to prepare themselves carefully before eating of that Bread and drinking of that Cup.

For, as the benefit is great, if with penitent hearts and living faith we receive the holy Sacrament, so is the danger great, if we receive it improperly, not recognizing the Lord’s Body.

Finally, the 1979 General Convention adopted specific guidelines for non-Anglicans receiving communion in the Episcopal Church (Resolution No. A43). That resolution gives five conditions for the reception of Communion by non-Anglicans:

”¢ They shall have been baptized ”¦ and shall have previously been admitted to the Holy Communion within the Church to which they belong.
”¢ They shall examine their lives, repent of their sins, and be in love and charity with all people ”¦
”¢ They shall approach the Holy Communion as an expression of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ ”¦
”¢ They shall find in this communion the means to strengthen their life within the Christian family ”¦
”¢ Their own consciences must always be respected as must the right of their own church membership to determine the sacramental discipline of those who ”¦ make that their spiritual home.

Further, the resolution commended the Commentary on Eucharistic Sharing by the Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations as the pastoral context for the interpretation of these standards.

That commentary warns against any idea of “open communion”: “If local circumstances present a pastoral need for a public invitation, it should not in any way be coercive, nor should it be in terms of an ”˜open communion’ applied indiscriminately to anyone desiring to receive communion.”

In the words of an editorial [TLC, Sept. 19], “To welcome nonbelievers and those who are not baptized to receive communion is not an act of hospitality but of disrespect both for them and for the Blessed Sacrament itself.” It is also a repudiation of scripture, ancient tradition, canons and General Convention action.

”“The Rt. Rev. William C. Wantland is the Bishop of Eau Claire, retired. He lives in Seminole, Okla. The preceding Reader’s Viewpoint originally appeared on page of the December 26, 2004 issue of THE LIVING CHURCH magazine, an independent weekly serving Episcopalians. The Reader’s Viewpoint article does not necessarily represent the editorial opinion of THE LIVING CHURCH or its board of directors.

(This originally appeared in an older version of the blog here).

When Jane Andrews Parker was growing up in railroad towns in New Mexico and Arizona in the 1920s, her mother said they’d wait until the family moved to a town with an Episcopal church to baptize her.

But her father’s career with the railroad never took them to such a town.

She grew up and married a man who wasn’t a churchgoer. He died in 1996. Now she lives with her daughter and son-in-law, who also aren’t churchgoers.

Parker awoke Sunday, which would have been her mother’s birthday, still unbaptized at 90.

Shortly before noon, two priests at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church poured water over her head and anointed her with oil, saying she was “marked as Christ’s own forever.”

Receiving the sacrament alongside her were her daughter, Dale Holden, 65; her son-in-law, Richard Holden, 67; her granddaughter, Jennifer Wierks, 38; and two great-grandchildren, Jonathan Wierks, 3, and Jane Wierks, 1.

Read it all.

Years ago I met a Methodist minister who had worked in Africa. He told me that one day some of the villagers where he was working came to him to ask if their children could be baptised. He was taken by surprise. Infant baptism was not a main part of his tradition and had not been something he had yet explained to these new adult Christians. He wondered with a laugh whether Catholics had been snooping. “Who has told you about children being baptised?” he asked them. “No one,” they answered. “But being baptised is such a blessing for us, we want our children to have it too.” Parents instinctively want to share their benefits with their children.

Of course, not everyone sees baptising the young as a benefit. Some would prefer to wait, believing that the choice of religion is something that people should decide for themselves, not have imposed on them when they are young. Others go further and identify it with indoctrination. Children should not be programmed in this way. But is baptism an imposition? Is baptising programming? What is being done when a person is baptised?

Read it all.

The hope that the Covenant would assume a significant place in the general life of the Church has been abundantly fulfilled. The Covenant is now often used in preaching and teaching, and has sent down its roots deeply into the awareness of many in our Church. And it has become very common for the Covenant to be renewed not only at a Baptism and at the Easter Vigil, but also at other major events in the life of the Church, and increasingly at Ordinations so that those who are to be ordained renew their baptismal commitment with the whole assembly before they go on to make their ordination vows. This is theologically significant in that Ordination is thus seen as the fruit of the discernment of particular gifts for the ministry of Word and Sacrament for the People of God rather than as an elevation to a higher status. The ordained person lives out his or her baptismal identity within the larger context of the common baptismal vocation.

Sorry Mr. Toon, but I have seen nothing but good fruit springing from recovery of a baptismal ecclesiology. At the same time, we cannot be naive nor unrealistic in our expectations. No liturgical text can of itself renew the life of the Church. And so I come to my final point: it is an absolute imperative that much more energy be devoted on the part of all of us to the ministry of Christian formation. Now as I am nearing the time for retirement, I often find myself saying to my students, “Teach? in season and out of season, teach. Our people are hungry to deepen their understanding of the faith. I have had this confirmed for me time and time again. Whether it be the catechumenate, or adult education during the coffee hour, or an open forum where questions can be asked and engaged respectfully: all such occasions should be seen as opportunities to nourish God’s people, to strengthen faith. It is imperative for the Church to claim such opportunities at every level of our corporate life.

I am convinced that much of the conflict in our Communion today has resulted from not making basic education and continuing education a higher priority for laity and clergy alike: education in Scripture, education in basic theology, the exploring of moral issues, mining the riches of our extraordinary liturgical tradition. Throughout my ministry as a teacher of liturgy in seminaries, now for over four decades, I have regularly been involved in lay education in parishes. And this has not meant asking people to read big, fat books. My goal has always been to enable people to reflect on the meaning of their faith and to connect faith in Jesus Christ with the realities of their daily lives. The fruit of this has been to enter more deeply into the symbols of our redemption which form the central meaning of the sacramental life.

Read it all.

Take a look.

The following is an excerpt of the lead article in the Diocese of Northern Michigan’s September 2007 newspaper, entitled “Dar es Salaam, Already One in God.” The intro to the article states “On the 19th of February, 2007, the Primates of the Anglican Communion, meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, released a Communiqué. We, as the Diocese of Northern Michigan, offer our response.” It is not clear who exactly within the diocese drafted this response. Please read it all carefully. It is noteworthy not so much for what it says specifically in response to the Primates’ demands, but its articulation of the theological convictions accepted within the diocese. This is where TEC’s Baptismal Ecclesiology can lead individuals or an entire diocese.

(emphasis added)

We invite all to God’s table. What we expect, in turn, is that those who come to the table likewise recognize the right, by being children of God, of everyone else to be at the table.

BAPTISMAL ECCLESIOLOGY

We proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ that everyone and everything belongs. We are continually being created in the image of God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Baptism confirms this most basic truth which is at once, the Good News: all is of God, without condition and without restriction.

We seek and serve Christ in all persons because all persons are the living Christ. Each and every human being, as a human being, is knit together in God’s Spirit, and thus an anointed one ”“ Christ. Jesus of Nazareth reveals this as the basic truth of the human condition:

God is more in me
than if the whole sea
could in a little sponge
wholly contained be.
~Angelus Silesius

We strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being, because each person embodies the living God. Life is inherently and thoroughly sacramental, which is why we love one another without condition.

We stand with Meister Eckhart who, when he gazed deep within himself, as well as all about him, saw that “the entire created order is sacred” as it is grounded
in God. We do harmful and evil things to ourselves and one another, not because we are bad, but because we are blind to the beauty of creation and ourselves. In other words, we are ignorant of who we truly are: “there is no Greek or Hebrew; no Jew or Gentile; no barbarian or Scythian; no slave or citizen. There is only Christ, who is all in all.” (Colossians 3:11).

Everyone is the sacred word of God, in whom Christ lives. This baptismal vision of a thoroughly blessed creation leads us to understand the reason for the incarnation in a new way:

People think God has only become a human being there ”“ in his historical incarnation ”“ but that is not so; for God is here ”“ in this very place ”“ just as much incarnate as in a human being long ago. And this is why he has become a human being: that he might give birth to you as his only begotten Son, and as no less. ~Meister Eckhart

AFFIRMATIONS

Because each and every one of us is an only begotten child of God; because we, as the church, are invited by God to see all of creation as having life only insofar as it is in God; because everything, without exception, is the living presence, or incarnation, of God; as the Diocese of Northern Michigan,

We affirm Christ present in every human being and reject any attempt to restructure The Episcopal Church’s polity in a manner contrary to the principles of the baptismal covenant;

We affirm the full dignity and autonomy and interdependence of every Church in the Anglican Communion and reject any attempt of the Primates to assume an authority they do not have nor have ever possessed;

We affirm the sacramental gift of all persons, their Christ-ness, especially those who are gay and lesbian, and reject any moratorium on the blessing of samesex unions and consents of gay bishops, as it would compromise their basic dignity.

The full article is here (pp. 1-2)

There is much talk at present in the Anglican communion of a new covenant to bind us together. This is seen as a solution to our problems, to our disagreements about homosexuality. Some argue that we just need to agree to certain new “essentials”. But many of us hesitate to embrace such a covenant because we already have a covenant: our baptismal covenant. That is how we are joined together and it is based on the long-established “essentials”: the historic creeds. From the very earliest days of Christianity, baptism marked that moment when men and women assented to the Christian essentials – one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and came into relationship with those who shared this belief in the creator God, the risen Christ and the Spirit who sustains us daily. Baptism is therefore the foundation of our identity as Christians. With Paul’s words to the Galatians in our memories, we hesitate to assent to a covenant in which there will be a new distinction between lay and ordained by handing over decision-making power to the Anglican primates. Having made our assent to the historic creeds, we hesitate to create new “essentials” about an issue – homosexuality – that may be purely of this moment.

Let me suggest another response to the Anglican crisis. All we really have to do in the midst of this crazy church dispute is be awake to our relationship with a loving God.

Read it all.

Read it all in case you had not earlier.

One of the arguments between Catholics and Protestants at the Reformation and until now centers on just how grace “works” in the sacraments. Is sacramental grace “invincible” in that it is offered in the sacrament whether the recipient seeks the grace or is prepared to receive the grace or not, or does the receptive state of the recipient determine whether grace abounds or not? Nothing is as simple as it sounds, and the Catholic would assert that the recipient of a sacrament should be in a “state of grace” to receive the gift, or there are consequences. Nor am I absolutely sure that a “receptionist” would want to make Jesus and His Presence entirely a matter of the receptive nature of the receiver: too much like works righteousness. I raise this question because our lawyer-bishops seem to propose that the theology of a baptismal “covenant” -but they say they are against covenants – is now divorced from any scriptural or credal teachings, among them that baptism is “for or by the remission of sins.” While “mutual ministry” doctrine is not clearly articulated in this paper, what is assumed is that all Christian ministries have their origin in baptism and that ergo all the baptized are to be included in all ministries to which the church discerns they have a calling. Certainly the unbroken teaching of the Church has been that in baptism all are incorporated into Christ and therefore into His ministry as prophet, priest and king. The source of the charisms of ministry is in the water of baptism rightly administered with the Trinitarian formula. That last caveat should be noted and remains the clear teaching of the Prayer Book and the Catechism.

An Evangelical and I would suggest an earlier Tractarian would object to bishops’ thesis in two particulars. The first is that it lacks a “moral” component. The second is that the bishops say too little rather than too much about their “discovery.” My use of the word “moral” takes us into dangerous grounds, for to most of us the word “moral” immediately suggests sex. That is a commentary on our times rather than theology. For “moral” I might propose the word suitable or apt, not perfect synonyms, but good enough for my purpose. While all the baptized may forensically be suitable or apt candidates for any form of ministry lay or ordained, it is surely obvious, even to the most sentimentally obtuse that all are not really suitable or apt candidates. I do not discount the power of grace to make up for deficiencies in talent or ability, but there would be no point in our present elaborate methods of discernment if all shall win and all take the prize.

A discernment committee is quite right to suggest that Susy’s chronic bad temper makes her a less than suitable candidate to serve as a deacon. A moral judgement is here made. But why should chronically choleric people be excluded?The fact that Frank has dreadful problems with comprehension would perhaps rule out a seminary education, although one remembers the Cure de Ars and wonders. To say to the world that persons living together in a sexual relationship outside the bounds of matrimony is a given based on their baptism asks us to suspend all moral or “suitability” judgments.

Read it all.

My third observation was an emerging new theology of baptism. This was clarified for me when I was taken with members of the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation to a radical Episcopal church in San Francisco. When we entered into the liturgical space, I could see the table, which was unbounded by rails and clearly open to all. But I could not see the place of baptism. When I asked where it was, I was taken out the back, and told that it had been placed there so that baptism would not be a stumbling-block to newcomers. In other words, the idea goes, all people are welcome to the table no matter what their belief or lifestyle, as Jesus had table-fellowship with prostitutes and sinners. Baptism can be looked into later when there is time to think things through. This is, of course, a reversal of the biblical model, where baptism was the sacrament freely and always available for all who come to repentance and faith, and communion, the table fellowship of the baptized for which self-examination was necessary.

Aligned to that, I have also observed, and have seen particularly in the West Coast, an uncomfortableness with repentance and confession of sin. The theory, as I understand it goes something like this: The archetypal Eucharistic rite is focussed around the gathering, the word, the intercessions, the table and the going out. Confession is an optional extra. This was almost encouraged by the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation document on the eucharist, and by the pattern where the confession in the middle section was displaced when there was, for example a baptism, marriage, or an ordination. There has been a reclaiming of penitence in some of these rites recently, especially in the Church of England, by placing the penitential section at the beginning of the service. It is one thing to omit penitence in a church which has the expectation of personal auricular confession, but quite another to omit it in a church of the Reformation which enjoins General Confession. There is, in my view, behind this, a serious underplaying of personal sin and personal salvation.

The next element of the liturgy to be ”˜downplayed’ was historic Creeds. Again, we are told that the Eucharistic prayer is creedal (a part-truth), or that Creeds are not a necessary part of worship (another part-truth), but the eventual reality which I observed was the omitting of the historic creeds altogether in the main Sunday liturgy. I was sensitized to expect something of this sort several years ago when I met a very radical Presbyterian minister from Albuquerque. I asked him did they have the historic creeds in the worship of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. His answer was this: ”˜Yes. We have fourteen declarations of faith at the back of the book and they all interplay with each other’! There is a real reaction to and distancing from propositional statements of faith, even the historic ecumenical creeds – and in some cases from their central tenets and beliefs.

Sixth, and following on from the last point, there is an inclination to try to find ways of holding all faiths together as believing in a common god.

Read it all.

We were quite astounded the other day to come across Derek Olsen’s reflection on Communion without Baptism posted on the Daily Episcopalian blog, which is one of the blogs on the reappraising side of the Anglican/Episcopal spectrum. To our mind, Olsen makes one of the most eloquent and passionate defenses of requiring baptism before communion that we’ve yet seen. It is particularly interesting because Olsen obviously knows that many of his audience at Daily Episcopalian will strongly support Communion without baptism on the grounds of hospitality and inclusion. So he approaches his argument from that perspective. This elf really considers this blog entry MUST reading. Let us know if you agree.

Here’s an excerpt:

Coming from this perspective, Communion without Baptism misreads the logic of the liturgy. It demands intimacy without commitment, relationship without responsibility. To apply this same logic to another sphere of human relationship, this is the logic of the one night stand””the logic of the “meaningless” fling. Is this the relationship that we wish to have with the God who knows us each by name and who calls that name in the night, yearning for our return to the Triune embrace? But then again””who is this “we”? Exactly whose relationship are we talking about? Is this “we” the clergy, the members of the vestry, those who populate our pews day in and day out? Are those the ones invited to receive communion without baptism? No. The seekers, the strangers, the wanderers in our midst””they are the ones in view here. And here is my question; this is what we must answer to the satisfaction of our own consciences: Do we have the right to choose for the stranger and the seeker a relationship contradicting the logic of intimacy without offering them a yet more excellent way? Do we who make decisions for the church uphold our own baptismal commitment and covenant by offering the strangers and seekers less than what has been offered to and received by us?

The call of God is to all. God’s radical hospitality is for all. Truly Christ stretched out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of his saving embrace. Truly the Spirit moves over the waters of renewal and new life, beckoning and inviting. To the stranger, to the seeker, through our mouths we offer and issue God’s words of invitation: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden”¦” inviting them through the waters of Baptism into the household of God. And in doing so we fulfill Christ’s commission to baptize those of all nations and teaching them his words and ways, the depths of his love, the depths of a life hid with Christ in God.

The full entry, including more information about the author and a link to his personal blog, is here.

Note, this entry is part of a series by Daily Episcopalian on the topic of Communion without Baptism. An opposing perspective was posted here. Also, yesterday, Daily Episcopalian published an interview with leaders of St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco, one of the Episcopal churches often considered to be in the forefront of the “Open Communion” or Communion without Baptism movement.