The Rev. Canon Andrew M. L. Dietsche elected

On November 19th, The Rev. Canon Andy Dietsche was elected the Bishop coadjutor of New York.  As a priest in the diocese, I believe that the Holy Spirit, through the procedures of the church, its clergy and laity, have spoken.

Mr. Dietsche is a wonderful preacher, a hard worker, a conscientious pastor, and a wise priest.  I do not doubt that he will be an attentive and popular bishop.  He may be the bishop that New York needs at this time.

The Canon was the only priest known by the entirety of the diocese.  When a priest was sick, he was there.  If there was a conflict, he was there.  When I was having trouble with my deacon, he was there.  When there was an installation, he preached and taught.    He was doing what many priests want bishops to do.  He gathered the loyalty and affection of many priests in the diocese, especially those who had felt far from its center.

The other candidates were at a severe disadvantage.  There was no reason for the other clergy, in any serious block, to trust them.    There was little time to massage the consciences of the talented but reticent, so perhaps only the ambitious seemed to apply.  And so the clergy made judgments based on the best impressions they could have made.

However, the impressions which I heard, I believe, were just that:  impressions.  They illustrated the limits of our current system of selection.  One friend argued that the Rev. Canon Tracy Lind, who I preferred, had answers that were “too perfect.”  But when has perfection been a problem?  Harmon was considered “too young.”  Really?  Might we not need a young, energetic priest?  Eaton was “too polished.” Will not that be helpful with the media or participating in the councils of the church? Others asked if Dietsche was “more of the same.”  Which same?  Can’t a staff member learn what not to do?  Even clergy don’t know what they want in a bishop, or have a clear idea about what a good bishop would look like or their responsibilities.  Perhaps tall and handsome would be enough for some, theologically sophisticated for others, a social justice prophet for a few, but with the administrative skills of a top executive.

This may be a problem.

The skills, nay virtues, that we need in a bishop are listed in scripture: but these are variations of the same as what anyone would want in a philosopher-king:  good judgment, a conviction about Christ, a vision.   Many priests are aware that when priests or laity seem to want the ill-defined qualia of charisma, they make a mistake.  And so we went with the familiar.

We are in an age where many priests do not know one another, except through seminary, shared retreats, or simply long tenures.  We do not casually ask new priests out to lunch.  We do not attend each other’s gatherings.  We are less likely to go to one another’s social events.  Most of the clubs that were for priests have dissolved.   For this reason, I think, we selected a talented priest who will be a good bishop because, we think we know who he will be with a mitre.  But the pool of candidates who we know as a body is small.  And we never know how the office will change someone until they fill the office.

I cannot presume that the Holy Spirit had my intuitions at heart, nor do I think that the Holy Spirit has any necessary interest in the growth of the Episcopal Church.  I do not expect that the Holy Spirit desires that our lives be particularly easy, or that its reasons will be clear or obvious.  That said, Andrew is a trustworthy person who is sensitive, good humored and attentive.  We could have done much worse.  It reminds me when Bishop Robinson was elected.  I don’t think he was the person who really filled the diocese of New Hampshire’s needs, but perhaps the nation and world needed him in a different way.

I remain perplexed as to what we want or need from our spiritual leaders.  I remain unsure if any person could fit the bill if we drafted a list of qualities or talents.  I suspect that even our Lord wouldn’t.  And so I wish the Canon Godspeed in the next stage of his ministry.   The episcopacy remains a role I wouldn’t wish upon my closest friends.  Although they do get an awesome pad in Manhattan.

God Bless the Diocese of New York.  Lord have mercy upon Canon Dietsche.

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Do Churches Need Denominations?

A few weeks ago, The Lead at the Episcopal Cafe quoted an article by Ken Carter, who argues that churches need denominations.   He contrasts denominations to sociologists who argue that we are entering a post-denominational phase.

Certainly the particular denominations that make up the mainline traditions are losing their distinctiveness.  Episcopalians are no longer only prosperous WASPs who enjoy early cocktail hours.   Lutherans chant.  Congregationalists use the BCP for weddings.   However, individuals raised in one denomination will go to any church that has a strong leader or a vibrant Sunday School.

But as Ken Carter implies, churches are more effective when they organize together.  They can harness resources.  They can protect hard working pastors from poisonous congregations and hard working congregations from narcissistic pastors.  They assure some modest degree of reliability by establishing set norms amongst the professional clergy.   They can assist congregations, who work as volunteers, by providing professional help when they need it.

So yes, churches need denominational structures. Continue reading “Do Churches Need Denominations?” →

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Does Christianity Require Monarchy?

Adam Lee does well to remind all of us that the founding of this country was certainly and deliberately secular.

He is also right that the idea of a Republic would have been strange to many readers of scripture.  But believers need not agree that they must believe that the church, or scripture, only knows biblical theocracy.  Most Christians and Catholics would not conflate  A “Christian Nation”  with biblical culture.    Biblical understandings of blood, and the ambiguous stories behind the Israelite monarchy’s establishment, do not require that a Christian should support a kingship model of government, the “biblical theocracy” Lee describes.   The closer Christian view is: do the best with what you’re given, but struggle for peace.  Continue reading “Does Christianity Require Monarchy?” →

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9/11 the Tenth Anniversary sermon

I was in the office.  I’d only been at St. Barts for a few months.   I’d gotten to work early because I needed to finish some paperwork before driving to Rochester.  Doreen, a parishioner, was volunteering, taking calls and organizing the mail.   I was listening to the radio when it seemed to turn off suddenly.  At least I think it did.   It came back on with the announcement that the towers were struck.
I made some phone calls to my friends who were working there.  One person watched from his office not too far from the towers.  I called a parishioner in White Plains who had once worked there himself.   But my memory remains foggy, and only the emotional impression remains.

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The Creed: Four Hypotheses

The Creed’s importance first lies not merely in the content or referent, but in its grammar.  Put another way, the more interesting parts of the creed are its pronouns, conjunctions and prepositions. “We”… “in one…”  “Who…”   The creed as a Mad Lib with the content words open reveals who we are.

The creed itself, as the description of the trinity, is the alphabet of the Christian language.  It does not exhaust the existence of other languages, but contains the social imagination of the first political church.

The creed is more like a dream of the first church, on in which we are invited to participate.  It does not exhaust the other dreams we may have, nor does it finish the dreams we will have, but it is the touchstone, the first one.

The creed is the geography of the imagination.  The words are the names of the hallways, the rooms, the towers of the mansion which we share with the saints and priests of the believers.   Upon the steps into the entrance are the words “We Believe” and then we enter.

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Happiness

Happiness

Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.

It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

Source: Dancing With Joy edited by Roger Housden

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On “cherry-picking” the faith

Recently, the Atheist Greta Christina in the progressive magazine Alternet,  offered another complaint about us theologically minded progressives.   Her argument:  we “cherry-pick,” and we’re not allowed to.  Her reason:  because there is no God.

Now I admit, I’ve heard this  before.  Traditionalist Catholics call some of us “cafeteria catholics.”  They call Episcopalians, “catholic-lite.”  It’s meant to be insulting, but it merely exposes a broad misunderstanding of the tradition and how it was actually lived. Continue reading “On “cherry-picking” the faith” →

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Consciousness

A recent link to Eric Schwitzgebel at Metafilter caused me to reflect on a conversation I had with a friend.  The philosopher in question critiques classical notions of self-knowledge and consciousness, that we are generally unaware of how we experience the world.

There were a few reasons I became a theist.  It wasn’t because I believed in Platonic Cosmology, or subscribed to the medieval imagination.  I never quite bought into the structure of classical theology either, with it’s emphasis on omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence, although I’ve read some interesting interpretations from the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

But I did get stuck on consciousness, free will and order.  Once I decided that we could not quite solve the problem of consciousness, God became a possibility.   My atheism could not be certain, nor could it be judged as beneficial.  It simply concealed other Gods within, a different puppeteer.   Perhaps it was internal, but it need not be.  What I wanted was a God that allowed some kind of consciousness to be true, and Christianity provided a convincing narrative for me to understand my own experiences.

Free will provided a different problem.  Is our agency our own?  How do we actually choose?  Is our perception correct?  Theology has often linked conscience, choice and free will as moments, as events of the spirit.

And last, is the world ordered or not?  It may not be, but once we declare it is ordered, it seems that God takes on that place where order and disorder meet, but the even deeper ground of order between the two.

Granted, philosophers provide some precise and elegant ways of talking about the mind; scientists have some understanding of the brain.  But our experience of freedom remains a mystery, and the wonder, awe and reverence we have toward our capacities and the infinit universe we find ourselves, the most accurate words to describe that state most properly remain religious.

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Nominees announced

The nominees for the next bishop, the bishop ordinary, the chief honcho and hierophant, have been announced.   The news, of course, is that one of the candidates, Tracey Lind, is married to someone of the same sex.  Nothing about her extraordinary competence.  Her reputation is of someone who gets things done, a woman of high expectations.

I’m not sure if she is the best candidate for this diocese or not, but she should be judged on her talent and the quality of her public relationships; not on her partner’s gender.

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On Hurricanes

Michelle Bachmann was joking that this was God’s wrath.

Still, it makes my head hurt.

Lord, send us a single sane Republican.

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