Musings of an Anglican/Episcopal Priest

Month: January 2004 (Page 2 of 3)

Jealousy

Sad Current mood: jealous

Current music: David Wilcox: East Asheville Hardware

I have to admit that I am envious of my Orthodox Brothers and Sisters in the OCA as Metropolitan Herman prepares to meet those of them that are going to the March for Life in DC on the 22nd. I wish that my Church were as unequivocal in its support of life.

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Life…

Current mood: blank

Current music: Blues Traveler – Optimistic Thought

Life. . .

Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Herman for Sanctity of Life Sunday

January 18, 2004

To the Reverend Clergy, Venerable Monastics and Faithful of The Orthodox Church in America:

Dearly Beloved in the Lord:

Every time we recite the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, we affirm our belief in “the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life.” We acknowledge that life is a precious gift from God, a participation in His very existence. Even as sin, and ultimately death, disfigured creation, God’s love for those to whom He granted life remained steadfast, as He promised to send His only-begotten Son into the world to destroy death, to restore the living bond between Himself and His creation, and to proclaim that life, in this world and in the world to come, is sacred. Having completed His earthly ministry, Our Lord sent “the Lord, the Giver of Life,” upon His People to sustain them and strengthen them in living in the image and likeness of their Creator.

All life finds its source in the One Who is Life Itself. Life did not simply “happen,” either by design or by coincidence. The breath which enlivens and sustains every human being is that of the Holy Spirit, given by God as a sign of His immeasurable love for us. Rooted as we are in “the Giver of Life,” it is our calling to witness to life as a participation in God’s very being, as a gift to be valued beyond all others, and as a treasure entrusted to our loving care and stewardship.

We live in a time in which life is not always seen as a gift, divine or otherwise. For many, the Creator has been removed from life’s equation, while that which is borne in the womb has been reduced to a “mass of tissue” with the “potential” for human life, and nothing more. The blessing of childbearing has been redefined in many circles as a “burden,” an “inconvenience,” a “setback” in attaining “fulfillment,” personal goals, or professional pursuits. The “spirit” operating herein is a foreign one, hardly “the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life” in Whom we profess our faith. It is a spirit which fails-or refuses-to recognize human life as an extension of and participation in the life of the Triune God. And it is a spirit which has not only denied life to millions of unborn infants, but which also seeks to deny life to the chronically ill, the elderly, and others whose lives seem devoid of hope. The implications of this denial, to say the least, are frightening.

As Orthodox Christians, we profess the fullness of truth. As such, it is our calling to affirm the sanctity of life, not only with our words but also in our deeds. While we condemn abortion, euthanasia, and every other challenge to the sacred gift of life, we must not be remiss in proclaiming that life is something to be valued, something to be defended at all costs, something by which Creator and creature are intimately united now, and for all eternity. Pray that those who “hold life captive” might be touched to protect the lives of the unborn, the elderly, the infirm, and all who could find that the gift of life could be stripped away unwillingly. Engage in ministries which proclaim the sanctity of life to others who, without our efforts, may never hear the truth. Support those who have devoted themselves to wrestling with the spirit of our time which rejects the very “Lord, the Giver of Life.” Comfort those who have fallen victim to abortion, offering a sign of divine hope and reconciliation. And strive, each and every day, to be an example of that joyful life so abundantly given to us as God’s People, that those who have yet to experience God’s countless gifts may “turn to Him and live.” Working and praying together, may we open the eyes and hearts of those who have yet to embrace the Lord, the Giver of Life to see that life is indeed a sacred gift worth accepting and defending.

With love in Christ,

+ HERMAN

Archbishop of Washington

Metropolitan of All America and Canada

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The Passion of Christ

Current mood: calm

Current music: Blues Traveler – Crash Burn

The Passion of Christ.

A good review of The Passion of Christ from The New Pantagruel.

But the question persists. When people learn that I have seen the movie, they generally ask two questions: Is it really anti-Semitic? and Does it end with the Resurrection? I could honestly respond “No” to the former question and “Yes” to the latter, but instead I hem and haw. The question of anti-Semitism is always germane to Passion Plays, whether the production is taking place in a nondenominational church up the street or in cineplexes across the country. Discounting the issue as some have done is either insensitive or lazy; likewise, stressing the issue as the overwhelming concern of the film is a blatant misreading. Viewers with strong opinions will bring those strong opinions to the film–while evangelical viewers have been at a loss to find a hint of anti-Semitism, a recent screening for a group of journalists and liberal religious figures in New York resulted in confirmed fears. So the question of whether The Passion of Christ is anti-Semitic is largely one that a viewing of the movie cannot fully answer–nothing persuades like a presupposition.

But even those inclined to find prejudice will, if they pay attention to what happens on screen, have to admit that the movie attempts to paint a more complex portrait. The animosity of the Jewish ruling council instigates JesusÂ’ legal troubles in The Passion of Christ, but only insofar as the Jewish leaders are pawns in a game with greater consequences. Jesus has to die because God wants him dead, needs him dead, must go through the motion of killing him. In The Passion of Christ transcendent spiritual forces both good and evil are the main players, orchestrating and influencing events. As the movie opens in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see that the primary battle Jesus is fighting is a spiritual one, involving prayer and demonic visions and the crushing of a serpentÂ’s head. Many past Jesus movies have opted for realist, earthy tropes to emphasize the historical character of the gospel story, but Gibson plunges directly into the contention that this is a tale that is as mythological/doctrinal as it is historical.

Not very many Christians like that bloody and “barbaric” idea of the atonment anymore–should we be at all surprised if the public doesn’t get it when it sees it?

“Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,

that man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?

By foes derided, by thine own rejected,

O most afflicted.

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?

Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee.

‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee:

I crucified thee.”

–Words: Johann Heermann (1585-1647);

trans. Robert Seymour Bridges

Music: Herzliebster Jesu, Ecce jam noctis

The New Pantagruel: About Jonathan Edwards

Current mood: awake

Current music: Firewater – I Still Love You, Judas

Another good commentary from New Pantagruel, this time related to Jonathan Edwards:

Unlike contemporary conservative or “paleo-orthodox” Calvinists in the Anglo-Scottish tradition, Skillen rejects Edwards’ covenantal theology. Skillen argues, as does Noll in America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, that “Puritan” covenantalism (Skillen declines to call it “Calvinist”) has led Evangelicals to a private religious pietism as the covenanted people: “Individuals ‘getting right with God’ is more important than the maturation of the church as the visible community of God’s people.” If this does not lead to sheer withdrawal from the national public, Skillen says, it leads to the conflation of the state with the church:

{Read it all}

About West Tennessee and the AAC

Current mood: content

Current music: Sewanee – Anthem: Adam lay ybounden

Clear thinking from Dr. Ephraim Radner:

A Response to Bishop Johnson’s Pastoral Letter Concerning the AAC Memo

By The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner

Senior Fellow, The Anglican Communion Institute

The only thing surprising about Bishop Johnson’s pastoral letter is the

level of vituperative hostility; the content itself represents a consistent

ignorance about the Anglican Communion and a willful denial about ECUSA’s

standing, externally and internally, with respect to its canonical

legitimacy in the eyes of both that Communion and many of our own members.

As I have noted elsewhere, the outrage over this “leaked memo” of the AAC is

either a sign of disingenuousness or of numbed consciousness. The basic

outline of this “strategy” has been public for some months, largely because

it represents the Proposal of the Primates of the Global South for

disciplining ECUSA (and New Westminster) that was presented at the October

Lambeth meeting (this proposal is available at

anglicancommunioninstitute.org). In brief, the Proposal calls for the

larger Communion, along a certain timetable, to withdraw its recognition of

those bishops who consented to Robinson’s election, participated in his

consecration, or supported the local option resolutions regarding same-sex

blessings; it also calls on the Communion to maintain its recognition of

those bishops and others who opposed these measures as the legitimate

representatives of the Episcopal Church. These recognized leaders would

then be affirmed as those capable to acting by rights according the

Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church.

The AAC — through its leaders and individual members, both present at

Lambeth and subsequently — have affirmed the thrust of this Proposal.

We didn’t need a publicity splash to know this.

In case Bishop Johnson and others hadn’t noticed, even though the Proposal

was not officially accepted by the Primates meeting as a whole, it has been

put into place by individual Primates in their relationships with ECUSA

already, albeit in an uncoordinated fashion. The process for deciding who

is “the real Episcopal Church” is well underway; and thus far, the weight

is stacking up in favor of the AAC’s contention. This is a process that

the larger Communion has set in motion quite independent of the AAC, and its

implications and outcome are tied to the center, not the periphery, of

ECUSA’s leadership legitimacy.

If any of this comes as a surprise to bishops of ECUSA, it can only be

because they have once again closed their eyes to what the majority of the

Anglican Communion is actually saying, doing, and committed to being. Then

again, such willful blindness no longer strikes people in the larger

Communion as odd, since it seems to have characterized all the decisions and

actions people like Bp. Johnson claim were done “publicly and above board”:

the public trashing of the Scriptures, of the historic faith and order of

the Church, of our Constitution, of the previous commitments of the General

Convention, of Communion teaching and agreements, of the bonds of our common

life — that this constitutes “established means” of peaceableness over

against the “deceit” of those upholding the teaching and witness of our

historical faith is damning statement of Bp. Johnson’s own stunted moral

vision.

In short, nothing new. The AAC is not an outlaw organization; membership

in and support of its work is not a “breaking of communion” with ECUSA; no

one should be frightened by Johnson’s bluster.

Continue reading

Selling sex

Current mood: amused

Current music: Blues Traveler: 100 Years

Women Having Sex, Hoping Men Tune In

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

Published: January 16, 2004

Except for the politics and soft-core pornography, “The L Word,” Showtime’s new series about lesbians that starts on Sunday, is old-fashioned fun–more “Melrose Place” than “Sex and the City.”

The show’s equivocal message does stand out, however, though perhaps not quite as much as the steamy scenes of women making love.

“The L Word” has been marketed by Showtime as a kind of premium-cable Certs: a manifesto of lesbian liberation and visual candy for men. This was not the case for Showtime’s other groundbreaking series, “Queer as Folk,” about the sex lives of gay men. (For whatever reason, what is good for the gander leaves the goose cold: few women report being aroused by the sight of men kissing each other.)

This strikes me as funny. One wonders how many Lesbians like the fact that thier “manifesto” is being served up with a nice side of objectification and lust by the old “patriarchy.” When will people learn that the free market, for all thier protests against it, will always comodify them and make a profit. Christians need to realize that capitalism is not moral just as much as these different interest groups need to understand that all of thier marching and protesting just provides another niche market and target audience. As I mentioned to a friend in college who was taking a course entitled “Women in the Civil Rights movement,” “Irony is a militant latino-lesbian feminist being published by a branch of one of the largest publishers in the US. . .they probably publish Bibles and Guns and Ammo too.” For Gosh sakes, people are so good at self-aggrandisement. This Show is nothing more than a grown-up and possibly slightly less abrupt TATU.

More about TATU

Current mood: amused

Current music: Blues Traveler – Conquer Me

Also

Unless you think I’m being too harsh on the little Eurasian tarts, think for a moment about the fact that thier manager is a former child psychologist-cum-advertiser turned manager of the nymphets.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0312/lim3.php

Pop knows well the love that dare not speak its name. But with the global ascendancy of the two Russian 18-year-olds who make up the sapphic pheromonomenon t.A.T.u., the secret language is officially a dead tongue. Speaking of tongues: t.A.T.u.’s brashly pronoun-specific approach to homo culture’s heritage of elision, insinuation, and codification is basically to stroke, nuzzle, and snog the shame out of it. It’s enough to turn an indigo girl crimson.

OK, I left out their Svengali. And their schoolgirl getups. And how they might not actually be lesbians, let alone lovers. t.A.T.u.’s backstory is a willful tangle of sensationalist contradictions: Mastermind and former child psychologist Ivan Shapovalov, who will probably be played by Jeremy Irons in the movie, calls them his “underage sex project,” designed to heal the West of puritanical sickness. His genius packaging covers the bases: triumph of free market, nadir of showbiz exploitation, TRL-ing of gay tolerance, death-by-Maxim-cover of lesbian chic. And the nymphets play their parts with the unflappable gusto of pop-up ads. Julia Volkova, the moody brunette: “Everybody is so sure we are lesbianki, maybe we are bisexualki.” Lena Katina, the extroverted redhead: “Do you want to hear that we are fucking every night?”

Tsk all you want, but in the annals of what British tabloids have christened “paedo-pop,” is Julia and Lena’s carnality any more troubling or disingenuous than Britney’s virginity? In any case, to paraphrase someone who made a fetish of tortured repression (more on whom later), let’s measure truth based on whether pop says something to you about your life. In theory, t.A.T.u. should speak volumes to anyone who ever lived through adolescence, even if you weren’t parading about in knee socks and wanting desperately to kiss your best friend in the pouring rain, as the lezzies from the Bloc do in their most notorious video. Their English-language debut is titled 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane–a clumsily poetic evocation of apocalyptic teenage confusion, and of the music itself, which suggests ABBA’s Agnetha and Frida genetically spliced with a Chipmunk each and furiously liplocked inside a wind tunnel. Abrasive, insistent, given to ferocious rhetorical overstatement, perpetually on the brink of implosion, it’s teenpop scaled to the dimensions of teen experience.

America could barely handle a real lesbian’s fake sitcom (though it lapped up a hasbian’s Celestial true confessions) is it ready for fake lesbians professing real love? The Trevor Horn-produced hit “All the Things She Said,” a cloud-splitting squall of pain, shame, passion, and defiance, complicates girl-I-love-loves-me-back elation with the hurt of peer and parental censure, and stages it all as a panic attack. As soft/loud histrionic as Horn’s signature Frankie/Propaganda sound, it alternates between conspiratorially hushed verses and a frantically repeated mantra charging straight at your brain stem: “All the things she said/running through my head/this! is! not! enough!”

“Not Gonna Get Us” freights us-against- the-world alarm with scythe-like screams and spooky imagery: “Lights from the airfield/Shining upon you.” The obstinate Eurodisco anthem “Malchik Gay” is their “girls who like boys to be girls who do girls like they’re boys” song. But for conceptual ingenuity, nothing comes close to their louder-than-bombs “How Soon Is Now.” Menacing keyboards turn Johnny Marr’s tremolo into a full-body shudder, power chords crunch and oscillate wildly, and the memory of Morrissey’s huffy-wallflower delivery is banished by a mighty squeal: “YOU SHATCHYA MAUF!” Despite the initial incredulity–you are the heir of what species of shyness exactly?–they don’t dilute the original’s monumental self-pity so much as convey it with foot-stamping, door-slamming petulance. For those of us who fell under the song’s spell at an impressionable age, t.A.T.u.’s version at once mocks and absolves the indulgent wallows and turgid poetry and cheap misanthropy the Smiths inspired. It’s a magnanimous, transformative gesture: a classic of gay teen desolation, liberated at long last.

He was also arrested in Russia last year.

t.A.T.u MANAGER ARRESTED Wockner May 19, 2003

The manager of the smash Russian lesbian pop duo t.A.T.u. was arrested in Red Square May 15 as he prepared to shoot a video with 300 girls, some of them reportedly as young as seven.

Ivan Shapovalov, 36, was accused of perverting the morals of minors, and later reprimanded by a judge.

t.A.T.u. singers Julia Volkova and Lena Katina, both 18, have been denounced and banned from television in Britain for kissing and making out on stage — with some critics calling their antics “pedophile porn.”

The 300 extras were clad in t.A.T.u.’s signature school-girl uniforms for a video shoot for this month’s Eurovision Song Contest.

“He threatened the girls morality by seeking to pay them 10 rubles [32 cents] to pose,” a local cop told Britain’s The Sun. “We wanted to stop him exploiting these young children. We didn’t know what he was going to do with them.”

t.A.T.u.’s biggest hit, All The Things She Said, hit No. 1 in several nations earlier this year. In the video, Volkova and Katina make out passionately.

The two have said they plan to marry each other but still have sex with men as well. Russian journalists have claimed the girls really are heterosexual and that Shapovalov invented the lesbian shtick for commercial reasons.

Imagine that. . .those ex-commies sure learn quick.

More dead folk

Current mood: contemplative

Current music: Various Artists – White Freightliner Blues

I wasn’t aware of it but Neil Postman went over to the majority in October. I’ve read several of postman’s essays and I think his voice was one that was–and still is–very important to our culture. The New Pantagruel has a very interesting tribute authored by Read Mercer Schuchardt, one of Postman’s former students.

While Neil was not himself religious, he was nevertheless a friend to religion, and to those who were believers. Like so many things, he was surprisingly good at contributing to those fields in which he was not a specialist. His Jewish background, race, and overall mensch-ness allowed Dr. Postman to particularly enjoy the irony of being most widely read and revered in, of all places, Germany. This was but one of many implicit ways that he taught his students to value the position of the outsider as the one who could best see in and through the semantic environments created by media and technology. He wore as a badge of honor the fact that he never once published a scholarly (refereed) article, while at the same time he was quoted by all those who were published in the official journals. He saw, as most communication departments historically have seen, that the real motivation behind studying communication media and its effects was to prevent another holocaust.

{Read it all}

Another Postman Article

Current mood: cheerful

Current music: Various Artists – Highway Kind

Another one. . .

Another article relating to Postman’s demise.

With the circus that was the California recall election dominating the news this week, the death of author and media critic Neil Postman didn’t get the attention it deserved. But that wouldn’t have surprised Postman one bit. He wrote one of the great books of media criticism of our time, “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,” which even when it was published in 1985 all but predicted Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Hollywood-style gubernatorial campaign and the media frenzy that would accompany it. Postman understood better than anyone that television has inextricably changed the nature of debate, and that in politics entertainment now reigns supreme.

{Read it all}

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