Thread: ++KJS and Sir Francis Drake's prayer Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Try (# 4951) on
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According to the Facebook page of a friend who is a clergy delegate at the General Convention of The Episcopal Church, USA, the Presiding Bishop offered the following prayer as a benediction:
quote:
Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.
The prayer was originally written by the British seaman and explorer Sir Francis Drake, known as a war-hero to the English and as a notorious pirate to the Spanish. He was also the third person to circumnavigate the Earth (the second to do so and return home), and the first European to land on California. Unfortunately, he also sailed under Sir John Hawkins on one of the first English slave trading expeditions. Furthermore, he was present at the Rathlin Island Massacre in Ireland. In addition, while he did not found any colonies himself, his voyages of discovery and plunder are sometimes considered instrumental in the founding of the British Empire and thus in the dispossession and extermination of native peoples around the globe. Therefore, some Episcopalians are suggesting that using a prayer by an "adventurer" is insensitive to African-Americans, Irish-Americans, and Native Americans and contravenes ECUSA's commitment to opposing racism. This has lead to much facebook drama.
So, I ask whether or not the Presiding Bishop was in the right.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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It's a nice prayer.
Posted by Martin L (# 11804) on
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So I guess the prayer worked, then, in that people were disturbed?
In all seriousness, people should cut her a break. I am 100% sure her intentions were pure and innocent.
Can wisdom, truth, and beauty come from the mouth or pen of even a sinner? Let's hope so, or else we are doomed to a world without them.
Now, should we avoid the world of specific notorious people of history, and who ultimately gets to decide which people end up on that list? That is a sticky issue. I think the best we can do is to try our best not to cause others discomfort, and in the case of an accident (as I'm sure this was), to respectfully apologize and hopefully receive the forgiveness of those who were wronged.
[ 05. July 2012, 03:08: Message edited by: Martin L ]
Posted by Martin L (# 11804) on
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avoid the words, not world.
Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on
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Lutherans like to use the saint and sinner dichotomy. Sometimes--often times--there is more sinner than saint in a person.
It is not the first time prayers have taken on new meaning in a new era.
I agree that we need to be disturbed by the Holy Spirit when we travel too close to the shore. I have to say, when we get out into the deep blue we can see the stars--and they are awesome.
It is when we are disturbed we experience growth.
Posted by SeraphimSarov (# 4335) on
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A tempest in a teapot for the loony left
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
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AIUI, this prayer was offered on a Monday in a hall. That is intolerably insensitive to those of us who believe deeply that no benediction be said on a Monday except in a church.
Honestly, some people need to get a life. No doubt Drake also said at some stage "Bless you" to someone who sneezed. Does that mean that it is now insensitive for anyone to say it?
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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The whole problem with demonising people is that you give them no scope to be angels.
Posted by Try (# 4951) on
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quote:
Originally posted by SeraphimSarov:
A tempest in a teapot for the loony left
That would be my opinion as well, but I didn't want to say that right at the start. Honestly, Drake was a REALLY COOL GUY and a PIRATE, and the fact that he was an Anglican makes us cool by association. Whining about native peoples makes you look like a silly old hippy.
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on
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Drake was a pious psychopath (if you think that's a contradiction you must not get out much). He wrote a good prayer (or at least got one attributed to him--I'm skeptical, since the language doesn't sound very Elizabethan to me, though I'm no expert). Some very unpleasant people have, over the centuries, managed to say wise things. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and sometimes has very poor taste in his servants. Get over it. As a member of the loony left, I find this embarrassing.
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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Much of the OT is about Holy People poaching land from their immediate owners, who -to be fair- probably poached them off some else, themselves. And then there's David and his Psalms...pretty dodgy if you ask me. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
Maybe we should give Marcionism another look.
Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on
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the PB has right to ppray when & where she feels the need to, Good material source too
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
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Can anyone tell me what Sir Francis Drake is actually said to have prayed? Looking at the thought, sentiment, and language of this prayer it is difficult for me to imagine it being uttered before the 20th century (see 'Desiderata'!). Below is the prayer usually attributed to Drake:
Lord God, when you call your servants to endeavour any great matter, grant us also to know that it is not the beginning, but the continuing of the same, until it be thoroughly finished, which yields the true glory; through him who, for the finishing of your work, laid down his life for us, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
[ 05. July 2012, 06:06: Message edited by: Amos ]
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
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...which, as it turns out, was actually composed by Eric Milner-White, using a sentence from one of Drake's letters:
‘There must be a begynnyng of any great matter, but the contenewing unto the end untyll it be thoroughly ffynyshed yeldes the trew glory.’
I would bet a pound of Maya Gold that the prayer KJS prayed was written sometime after 1950.
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
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Triple post. Apologies.
No need to worry, Try.
Speaking for myself, I find that prayer wordy and a bit saccharine. It's really a sermonette by other means, and so addressed to the people who are supposed to be praying it and not to the Almighty. It's the sort of thing our 'Guide for Intercessors' was written to prevent.
However I don't think anyone needs to worry about the association with Drake. Despite being all over the web as 'Drake's prayer' there is absolutely no evidence that Drake had anything to do with it, and a great deal of internal evidence that he didn't. It is likely to turn out to have been entirely written by someone from Terre Haute, Indiana: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderata
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Maybe we should give Marcionism another look.
Yes, because editing out problems and inconvenciences is always so much more effective in the long term than facing and acknowledging them.
Posted by Cryptic (# 16917) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
The Lord works in mysterious ways, and sometimes has very poor taste in his servants.
I think that says it all. It's a great prayer.
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Maybe we should give Marcionism another look.
Yes, because editing out problems and inconvenciences is always so much more effective in the long term than facing and acknowledging them.
orpheo--I think your irony meter needs adjustment.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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posted by Amos
quote:
Lord God, when you call your servants to endeavour any great matter, grant us also to know that it is not the beginning, but the continuing of the same, until it be thoroughly finished, which yields the true glory; through him who, for the finishing of your work, laid down his life for us, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
This isn't quite the prayer, but it's close. I've been trying to find the original wording, which as you say does come from a letter, but Drake himself did use it as a prayer before war and massacre of natives.
Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on
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We get threads like this every so often. The devotional artwork of Eric Gill has featured more than once. Each time the same basic consensus seems to be reached: that the thing ought to be valued on its merit and not necessarily its origins.
Leaving aside origins that are of questionable morality or which have the potential to embarrass, there remains wider question of how much the hang-ups of the cognoscenti ought to impinge on the worship of the masses.
I made a similar point on a recent thread about Christianity in Japan. I linked to a video of Japanese Orthodox Christians worshipping and somebody commented that it was unfortunate that they were still using Russian chant and had not developed their own Japanese system of chant for the various parts of Orthodox services.
The point I made in response seems apt here as well, which is that in all likelihood, the majority of those Christians do not have at the forefront of their minds Sunday by Sunday that the music they are singing is distinctively Russian, if they are aware of it at all. Similarly, many of the chants used in the Russian Orthodox Church are immediately recognisable to anybody who knows the Greek originals, but if you were to cite a well-known hymn as an example and ask most Russian worshippers how they feel about having to use this Greek music, most of them would wonder what on earth you were talking about. To them, it is no more Greek than kulich, but rather it is simply their church music that they have known and loved for as long as they can remember. They made it their own long ago, and its foreign origins, while perhaps interesting, aren't really relevant to their worship.
The point is that elements of worship are adopted and embraced by the people whose hearts they move: they are owned. The person moved to contemplate the Saviour because of a sublime image that he has seen in church all his life need have no knowledge of or interest in the fact that the artist saw his whole household - his sister, his daughters, and the dog included - as fair game for the satisfaction of his sexual desires, (I was shown a reredos by Eric Gill at a school chapel I recently visited and it was beautiful). The devout Christian in Japan, who goes to the services every day and loves the hymns and prayers need have no idea of the country of origin of the tunes to which the words are set, nor is she particularly likely to care. And the person at a church convention who hears a prayer may find it inspiringly beautiful or stomach-churningly saccharine, all independently of any knowledge that it might have been penned by someone who had hobbies including assisting Irish massacres and the African slave trade, with a spot of Spanish plundering thrown in for good measure.
It is only those with particular knowledge of the history or development of these things who will know about them, and my personal view is that their almost academic hang-ups are not sufficient reason to eliminate elements of corporate worship.
Responding some years ago to the charge that some Orthodox churches, in restoring to use prayers and services that had been out of use for centuries were performing "liturgical archaeology", the now bishop of Manhattan wrote:
quote:
Those who go to church on Sunday morning are not called upon to be liturgicists or liturgical archaeologists, any more than the patient needs to be a medical scientist or go into the lab to be given medicine. The ‘finished product’ is nevertheless today’s worship; if they hear or join in texts that had been in an ancient manuscript, they need never suspect it, for all that is worth. These materials have been returned to use because they provide what was needed.
I cannot say it better.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Maybe we should give Marcionism another look.
Yes, because editing out problems and inconvenciences is always so much more effective in the long term than facing and acknowledging them.
orpheo--I think your irony meter needs adjustment.
I think both your irony-agreement-upon-initial-irony meter and your spelling need adjustment. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Try:
Therefore, some Episcopalians are suggesting that using a prayer by an "adventurer" is insensitive to African-Americans, Irish-Americans, and Native Americans and contravenes ECUSA's commitment to opposing racism.
What happens if you move to a similar problem in another sphere? During WWII some awful experiments were carried out on Jews to try and find ways to keep airmen who 'ditched' in the sea alive longer. Some argue that the results from such experiments should not be used, others (including some Holocaust survivors) that, if it now helps people survive, the suffering was not entirely wasted.
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Maybe we should give Marcionism another look.
Yes, because editing out problems and inconvenciences is always so much more effective in the long term than facing and acknowledging them.
orpheo--I think your irony meter needs adjustment.
I think both your irony-agreement-upon-initial-irony meter and your spelling need adjustment.
I think I'll go to a corner and have an irony meltdown. I can't compete with Brits. ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
[ 05. July 2012, 09:05: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
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Count me among those who doubt that a prayer containing the words quote:
Disturb us, Lord
can be attributed to Drake. Back then, they were rather more careful about what they prayed for.
Posted by FooloftheShip (# 15579) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Maybe we should give Marcionism another look.
Yes, because editing out problems and inconvenciences is always so much more effective in the long term than facing and acknowledging them.
orpheo--I think your irony meter needs adjustment.
I think both your irony-agreement-upon-initial-irony meter and your spelling need adjustment.
I think I'll go to a corner and have an irony meltdown. I can't compete with Brits.
Or, apparently, Aussies - or arguably geography.....
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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Put me down as another who thinks this prayer owes more to Desiderata than Drake.
I also find this stanza really irritating:
quote:
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
a. It suggests that physical risk taking is an inherently virtuous thing to do, as opposed to a means to an end. (Yes, I know it's supposed to be metaphorical for something else but in order to be effective as a metaphor there still has to be the suggestion that sailing on wild seas through storms is an inherently good idea.)
b. Almost certainly, the sort of people who say this prayer don't have the slightest desire to sail through wild and stormy seas, except possibly on the deck of a cruise ship.
c. I really doubt Drake would have thought like that. That is why the Prayer Book is full of prayers for calm seas and against storms.
Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on
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After a quarter hour's googling, there don't seem to be any references to this prayer before the time of Ronald Reagan's presidency. Like Ricardus, I do not think that a prayer for stormy weather could have conceivably been written by anyone with sailing experience, let alone an Elizabethan sailor. Sailors love smooth seas, safe harbours, and homeward winds.
Certainly, it reads like a late-20th century poem in its style. Whatever Sir Francis Drake's flaws or gifts, I would have to see some proof that he had anything to do with this text other than verying citations by bloggers.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
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According to this blog post, it seems to have been tracked back to The Minister’s Manual, Vol. 37, a sermon helper for the year 1962, in an entry by M.K.W. Heicher, and apparently not associated with Drake at that point. That's the earliest sighting Google found for me.
Personally I would have put its feel somewhere around the 1970's, but that's perhaps not so distant from 1962.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
After a quarter hour's googling, there don't seem to be any references to this prayer before the time of Ronald Reagan's presidency. Like Ricardus, I do not think that a prayer for stormy weather could have conceivably been written by anyone with sailing experience, let alone an Elizabethan sailor. Sailors love smooth seas, safe harbours, and homeward winds.
Certainly, it reads like a late-20th century poem in its style. Whatever Sir Francis Drake's flaws or gifts, I would have to see some proof that he had anything to do with this text other than verying citations by bloggers.
Remember Mendelsshon's smooth Seas and a Prosperous Voyage ? The prosperous voyage section was that with strong winds and so forth. Smooth seas meant no wind to propel the ship, being becalmed and no progress.
[ 05. July 2012, 11:23: Message edited by: Gee D ]
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
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The prayer just isn't Elizabethan enough either. In the late 16th century there was widespread fear that Elizabeth's death would herald a return of the dynastic wars of the 15th century, and there were frequent threats of war with various bits of Catholic continental Europe. The last thing anyone would have prayed would be, "Tell you what, Lord - what we could really do with is a bit more trouble." It's a very 20th-century prayer, and also from that popular Anglo-American spirituality that piously and unwisely thinks that a bit of discomfort might be a good thing.
I suppose the question therefore becomes, if this had been written by a slaver, should we be using it now? Well, lots of other documents have been written by people we might not like if they were around today. Weren't some of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence slave owners?
Posted by AntarcticPilot (# 17195) on
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There is no way the prayer as posted is from Sir Francis Drake; the language is completely anachronistic. It could, I suppose, be a 20th century paraphrase of something written by Sir Francis, but my search on the internet does not reveal any 16th century form of the words.
We should remember that until the King James version of the Bible was published, there was no standard way of writing English; it was the KJV that essentially codified English spelling and grammar.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
Speaking for myself, I find that prayer wordy and a bit saccharine. It's really a sermonette by other means, and so addressed to the people who are supposed to be praying it and not to the Almighty.
It is attempted manipulation. I detest manipulation, especially when it's disguised as prayer.
Moo
Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
After a quarter hour's googling, there don't seem to be any references to this prayer before the time of Ronald Reagan's presidency. Like Ricardus, I do not think that a prayer for stormy weather could have conceivably been written by anyone with sailing experience, let alone an Elizabethan sailor. Sailors love smooth seas, safe harbours, and homeward winds.
Certainly, it reads like a late-20th century poem in its style. Whatever Sir Francis Drake's flaws or gifts, I would have to see some proof that he had anything to do with this text other than verying citations by bloggers.
Remember Mendelsshon's smooth Seas and a Prosperous Voyage ? The prosperous voyage section was that with strong winds and so forth. Smooth seas meant no wind to propel the ship, being becalmed and no progress.
GD effectively proves that I (perhaps like the Presiding Bishop) have no real first-hand experience at sailing and that my metaphors should not be trusted. But thanks for the Mendelssohn reference, which I will now check out.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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This could run and run. A wonderful opportunity to use all those bib crit techniques on something no one feels protective of.
I think it's been reworked. 'Disturb us' sounds quite modern to me, 1980s onwards, but 'Your mastery' and 'dream of eternity' sound older, and not the sort of thing that someone who began a prayer with 'Disturb us' - bold and stylish in its day - would say.
The metaphors are creaking, if not breaking up. We might want God to disturb us for sailing too close to the shore, but not, surely, for arriving safely. I'm not sure we shall find stars by leaving land, especially if we're experiencing storms and wilder seas.
I can't decide if pushing back the horizons of my hopes is a good thing or not, but I don't think pushing back the future in strength, courage, hope and love means anything at all.
A shame, because the first four lines are promising. Still, it's appropriate for a prayer that wants us to be more adventurous to take the risk of falling into incoherence in search of purple prose.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Whether he wrote this prayer or not, since Sir Francis Drake delivered my country from a Spanish invasion, if we're scoring sensitivities, I feel personally slighted that a collection of people in another country that isn't even Spain, are rejecting his prayer, not on the grounds that it might not be genuine, or that they don't agree with the sentiments of the prayer, but just because they don't like him.
If they claim they are entitled to have their sensitivities listened to, then I'm entitled to make the same claim, with in my opinion, a better justification. I accept the Spanish are entitled to view him differently, but nobody else is. If it wasn't for him, I might be writing this post in Spanish.
Posted by Lothiriel (# 15561) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think it's been reworked. 'Disturb us' sounds quite modern to me, 1980s onwards, but 'Your mastery' and 'dream of eternity' sound older, and not the sort of thing that someone who began a prayer with 'Disturb us' - bold and stylish in its day - would say.
It has a bit of a ring of Drake's contemporary John Donne about it -- "Batter my heart, three person'd God". But if that prayer has any 16th century origins, it has clearly been modernized, perhaps in both language and meaning.
And I agree with Lyda*Rose that we should be careful in judging people of other times by 20th century standards.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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a good prayer regardless of the author
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
a good prayer regardless of the author
Each to their own, but I don't like it. Where others see its virtues, I see a kind of guilt-tripping piety that makes me suspect the author was someone who had never prayed, "Dear God ... out of the depths ... will you please stop disturbing me now?"
Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Try:
Drake was a REALLY COOL GUY and a PIRATE, and the fact that he was an Anglican makes us cool by association.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
The Anglican Church needs to adopt this a slogan:
"Be Anglican. We are cool. We are pirates!"
Think of the Sunday School curriculum. Think of pirate settings for eucharist. Wow!
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Try:
The prayer was originally written by the British seaman and explorer Sir Francis Drake, known as a war-hero to the English and as a notorious pirate to the Spanish. He was also the third person to circumnavigate the Earth (the second to do so and return home), and the first European to land on California. Unfortunately, he also sailed under Sir John Hawkins on one of the first English slave trading expeditions. Furthermore, he was present at the Rathlin Island Massacre in Ireland. In addition, while he did not found any colonies himself, his voyages of discovery and plunder are sometimes considered instrumental in the founding of the British Empire and thus in the dispossession and extermination of native peoples around the globe. Therefore, some Episcopalians are suggesting that using a prayer by an "adventurer" is insensitive to African-Americans, Irish-Americans, and Native Americans and contravenes ECUSA's commitment to opposing racism. This has lead to much facebook drama.
So, I ask whether or not the Presiding Bishop was in the right.
This, of course, ignores a more important question - was the prayer she read printed on recycled paper?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I remember reading an account, in translation of course, by a Spanish captive of Drakes who was intrigued by the way the 'heretick' Protestants chanted the Psalms rather mournfully ... but I picked up the impression that whilst he disagreed with their theology, he did find them surprisingly devout ...
Even pirates were devout in those days.
I've got a soft spot for Drake, he had an eye to the main chance. A bit of a rogue all ways round.
But of course, the Elizabethans didn't believe that it was Drake who defeated the Spanish Armada - 'God blew and they were scattered' - the Almighty himself was on their side ...
Of course, it was a combination of weather, the judicious use of fire-ships to separate the Spanish fleet and the storms did the rest ...
Probably no more than 500 died in the actual fighting. The Spanish lost loads to storms and the English lost loads of men to dysentery as they waited at Tilbury for the invasion that never came ...
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on
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quote:
The whole problem with demonising people is that you give them no scope to be angels.
I'm not quite sure if the point of this facebook fracas is to demonize ++KJS or Sir Francis Drake. It's sure to wind up being the former, so in that spirit:
Regarding the aptness of the marine metaphors, Katharine Jefferts Schori has a PhD in Oceanography (1983) from Oregon State, fer cryin' out loud. Presumably she's been on a boat. I blame her staff.
It's a dreadful prayer, stinking of middle class comfort.
[ 05. July 2012, 17:43: Message edited by: The Silent Acolyte ]
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
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quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
It's a dreadful prayer, stinking of middle class comfort.
I am glad you said that.
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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Am I correct that Drake wasn't in fact a rogue pirate, but rather a privateer licensed by the Crown to operate against ships of rival powers?
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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I like Gee D's objection about it being delivered in a hall on a Monday. That's something I could really get behind.
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on
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I'm Irish. I don't care. *Shrug*. I am however deeply offended by the prayer's eye-watering tweeness.
[ 05. July 2012, 19:42: Message edited by: Yerevan ]
Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
We might want God to disturb us for sailing too close to the shore, but not, surely, for arriving safely.
True, although technically the prayer asks we be disturbed when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore. IOW, thanks to our own timid actions rather than faith in God.
Still, I agree that this prayer is one of middle-class privilege. It might be OK for someone's personal devotions if they sincerely mean it, but in a large assembly like that, it really is a sermonette disguised as a prayer.
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Astley:
The person moved to contemplate the Saviour because of a sublime image that he has seen in church all his life need have no knowledge of or interest in the fact that the artist saw his whole household - his sister, his daughters, and the dog included - as fair game for the satisfaction of his sexual desires, (I was shown a reredos by Eric Gill at a school chapel I recently visited and it was beautiful).
Oh dear! Must remember to refrain from printing anything holy in Gill Sans or Perpetua.
In all seriousness, I agree with your whole post, Michael.
And I think what the undivided Church decided so long ago about the validity of Sacraments celebrated by an unworthy minister applies to all our works in our various vocations as well. I'm sure at some point the balance tips - a person's crimes may be so well-known that when we read or view their works, we just can't get past the person and their evil deeds; and in that case, the work just becomes a distraction and something else should be used.
Given that the PB was praying this prayer at General Convention, which is chock full of "cognoscenti," perhaps a different prayer might have been more appropriate if the connection with Drake were well-known (though mistaken).
Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on
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I looked up the word "disturb" in the gnome-dictionary (GNU public licence allows for free copying and use etc.). Here's some of the content.
quote:
Disturb
1. ... to
interrupt the settled state of; to excite from a state of rest. [1913 Webster]
2. To agitate the mind of; to deprive of tranquillity; to disquiet; to render uneasy; as, a person is disturbed by receiving an insult, or his mind is disturbed by envy. [1913 Webster]
3. To turn from a regular or designed course. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
And disturb His inmost counsels from their destined aim. --Milton.
Is not then 'disturbance' exactly what God needs to do with each soul and each community? To awaken in us the awareness of other than our selfish selves, our contentedness, even our smug self righteousness? I don't frankly believe that God is particularly interested in us feeling good, well or positive, but rather that we have faith and we try to follow faithfully. And if God knows our desires and issues before we mention them, then truly corporate prayer of petition is not intended than for other than the community.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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I think we've found a suitable use for the phrase "prayer branding".
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on
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No_Prophet. Praying for God to disturb us is something of a cliche on the more liberal end of spectrum, right up there with dance metaphors and "comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable". In fact it is to liberals what "Lord, I just wanna" is to charismatics
Its also popular with the sort of people who use the term "faith journey" unironically, which obviously makes it Evil and Wrong...
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
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Everyone, of course, is ignoring the REAL issue--the need to apologize for the unecological, unsustainable fishing techniques used by the Twelve Apostles.
Seriously, your church is bleeding money, had had four dioceses secede, its average age is somewhere between "Social Security" and "purgatory", its membership and influence is plummeting, and this is what they are worried about? Really?
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
Everyone, of course, is ignoring the REAL issue--the need to apologize for the unecological, unsustainable fishing techniques used by the Twelve Apostles.
It was their culture. They couldn't help it. Middle eastern fisher people of color get a pass.
quote:
Seriously, your church is bleeding money, had had four dioceses secede, its average age is somewhere between "Social Security" and "purgatory", its membership and influence is plummeting, and this is what they are worried about? Really?
Yes, because it's something we can actually do something about. The rest? Not so much.
[ 07. July 2012, 03:24: Message edited by: RuthW ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
I fear I might be guilty of junior-hosting in saying this, Unreformed, but you've been paddling the same canoe in several threads, and you might want to take a look at the board commandments, specifically the one about crusading.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I fear I might be guilty of junior-hosting in saying this, Unreformed, but you've been paddling the same canoe in several threads, and you might want to take a look at the board commandments, specifically the one about crusading.
I think the actual hosts of this website can figure out if I'm doing that or not, and will issue the appropriate warning if I am. In which case, I'll be glad to shut up about TEC.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
Look at it this way, Unreformed- you've commented that the Episcopal Church and Anglicanism is a dying denomination rife with paganism and error in no less than 5 thread. Consider us all informed. Give it a rest.
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Am I correct that Drake wasn't in fact a rogue pirate, but rather a privateer licensed by the Crown to operate against ships of rival powers?
I believe that to be true.
"Francis Drake: a Man of his Age but not necessarily for Ours?"
Drum beating about that old Elizabethan sea dog, or England's then enemy, Spain, seems rather dated now.
One nation's hero is another nation's villain.
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
Everyone, of course, is ignoring the REAL issue--the need to apologize for the unecological, unsustainable fishing techniques used by the Twelve Apostles.
Seriously, your church is bleeding money, had had four dioceses secede, its average age is somewhere between "Social Security" and "purgatory", its membership and influence is plummeting, and this is what they are worried about? Really?
You do understand what is meant by the statistical term "median", don't you? It is one measure of central tendency (the other two being the mode and the mean), and is defined as that point on a scale below which 50 percent of cases fall. It is not a score but rather the point on a distribution dividing the upper and lower half of cases. You have, on the Homosexuality and Christianity thread in Dead Horses, stated that the median age of members of the Episcopal Church is 57. I don't know whether that figure is accurate or not, but if so, half of Episcopalians are below that age. Further, I would suppose that means confirmed and/or communicant members of TEC, in which case the figure isn't distorted by significant numbers of infants and small children. Given the average life span in our present-day society, I would find the quoted median age of membership to be not at all distressing.
[ 07. July 2012, 12:08: Message edited by: Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras ]
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
LSV if you want to discuss this start a fresh thread. I'm not going to get accused of hijacking this one.
That is, if you want to.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
It's a dreadful prayer, stinking of middle class comfort.
I am glad you said that.
Its also very didactic. Its instructions to the congregation phrased as a prayer to God. Authoritarian attitudes pretending to be radical and liberal. A little moralising homily dressed up as a bad poem. As well as being twee. Like the worse sort of Wee Word on the radio.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
:
It's a nice prayer. Even a sinner can create nice prayers. This is a country that celebrates Columbus Day - dedicated to someone who did far worse. I can't get upset over this.
Posted by Daron (# 16507) on
:
To the OP. KJS is already one of the most disturbed bishops in the Anglican Communion so I'd say that her prayer qualifies as a work of supererogation.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
Everyone, of course, is ignoring the REAL issue--the need to apologize for the unecological, unsustainable fishing techniques used by the Twelve Apostles.
Seriously, your church is bleeding money, had had four dioceses secede, its average age is somewhere between "Social Security" and "purgatory", its membership and influence is plummeting, and this is what they are worried about? Really?
The Mormons have none of these problems. Their membership median age is below the average; they are rolling in money and on the ascendancy. That proves they are theologically and morally correct.
The TEC must insist its members give up tea, coffee and wear temple garments in order to become a god immediately!
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
The Anglican Church needs to adopt this a slogan:
"Be Anglican. We are cool. We are pirates!"
Think of the Sunday School curriculum. Think of pirate settings for eucharist. Wow!
Well, there's already The Pirate Eucharist and The Pirate Bible Translator.
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
The Mormons have none of these problems. Their membership median age is below the average; they are rolling in money and on the ascendancy. That proves they are theologically and morally correct.
Mostly it proves that they have dozens of children.
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on
:
On re-reading this prayer I realise that it scores highly on liberal bullshit bingo (I should add that I'm also highly partial to a good game of evangelical or Catholic bullshit bingo - my hatred of cliche is entirely even-handed ).
References to "The marginalised": 5 points
Ability to extract a sermon on ecology and/or social justice from ANY passage of scripture: 20 points
Use of term "faith journey": 10 points
Use of dancing/journeying as metaphor for faith: 15 points
Wearing of multi-coloured 'efnic' stole: 15 points (+ 5 bonus points if genuinely 'efnic' and accompanied by heart-rending story of how stole was gifted to celebrant during inspiring visit to impoverished Guatemala/Tanzania/Bangladesh)
Hymn by John Bell: 10 points (+ 5 bonus points if hymn contains dance metaphor)
Hymn by Fred Kaan: 10 points
Use of Mother God: 50 points
Pray beginning with "Disturb us Oh Lord" which urges the congregation to think things the congregation no doubt thinks already: 20 points
Use of inter-faith prayer: 50 points (+ 20 points if borrowed from an obscure indigenuous culure)
Use of words "radical/subversive/inclusive": 10 points (+5 points if all used in one sentence)
Didactic sermonette addressed to congregation disguised as hymn/prayer to God: 15 points
Use of at least seventeen adjectives to each noun: i.e. "compassionate, loving, embracing, dancing, inclusive, daring, subversive..[yadda, yadda...five minutes elapses]....triune God": 30 points
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
quote:
he Mormons have none of these problems. Their membership median age is below the average; they are rolling in money and on the ascendancy. That proves they are theologically and morally correct.
Complete non-sequitur.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Look at it this way, Unreformed- you've commented that the Episcopal Church and Anglicanism is a dying denomination rife with paganism and error in no less than 5 thread. Consider us all informed. Give it a rest.
It seems to be a common refrain among continuing Anglicans over the last week. They're over us. So over us that they don't even remotely care. Except we just can't see how awful we are. If we were just like them so they could rejoin, then we'd have no problems, but no, we'll never come back. But they don't care, nosiree.
Then they eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's, wonder why no one will ever love them, and cry themselves to sleep.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
Mockingdale--
I admit its on my mind this week because of TEC General Convention. It's a horrible disaster, yet I can't look away. I'm fascinated. It's like watching a trainwreck, or reality TV.
[ 09. July 2012, 19:47: Message edited by: Unreformed ]
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
Mockingdale--
I admit its on my mind this week because of TEC General Convention. It's a horrible disaster, yet I can't look away. I'm fascinated. It's like watching a trainwreck, or reality TV.
It's fair to say that our shenanigans hurt far fewer people than your church's shenanigans.
I'll take an aging church and vapid hippy-dippy theology over Rome's issues six days and twice on Sundays. ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
[ 09. July 2012, 21:11: Message edited by: Mockingale ]
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
Mockingdale, well, as ++Marini once said, given the number of sins the Church has committed over the course of 20 centuries, reference to them must be rather summary.
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
Mockingdale--
I admit its on my mind this week because of TEC General Convention. It's a horrible disaster, yet I can't look away. I'm fascinated. It's like watching a trainwreck, or reality TV.
Bullshit. This isn't something that is unfolding in front of your eyes. TEC General Convention barely even made the Indianapolis paper on the day it started. If you know about what's going on there, it's because you went looking for the information.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
Mockingdale--
I admit its on my mind this week because of TEC General Convention. It's a horrible disaster, yet I can't look away. I'm fascinated. It's like watching a trainwreck, or reality TV.
Bullshit. This isn't something that is unfolding in front of your eyes. TEC General Convention barely even made the Indianapolis paper on the day it started. If you know about what's going on there, it's because you went looking for the information.
Well, the reality TV analogy still holds up, doesn't it?
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
News of the triennial convention of a small Christian denomination hardly compares with the near ubiquity of reality TV.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
I wouldn't care so much if Unreformed's criticisms actually had something to do with the Episcopal Church I know. I've gone to an Episcopal Church every Sunday for 15 years and the one and only reference to any pagan God I have ever heard was in group discussion outside of a service. Yet Unreformed accuses the Episcopal Church of being rife with paganism.
Either he's a bitter convert and he needs to get over it, or he learned everything he knows about the Episcopal Church from Virtue Online and he needs to get over it.
Long story short, he needs to get over it.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
quote:
originally posted by Yerevan:
References to "The marginalised": 5 points
Does this include references to "The Other" or is that in another category?
quote:
originally posted by Yerevan:
Use of words "radical/subversive/inclusive": 10 points (+5 points if all used in one sentence)
Don't forget justice.
Speaking of justice...how about points for using gerunds as theological terms?
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
... a small Christian denomination ...
Actually, if you count all the Anglicans worldwide as one denomination, its not that small. Way behind the Roman Catholics of course, and then the Pentecostalists (though counting them as one is even more problematic than the Anglicans), then the Orthodox, then the Baptists, then the Anglicans. They come in just ahead of the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and churches in communion with the Pope of Alexandria. So its the world's largest mainstream Protestant denomination. Still only about one churchgoer in thirty or forty though. There are a great many Catholics about (and quite a lot of Pentecostals)
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
News of the triennial convention of a small Christian denomination hardly compares with the near ubiquity of reality TV.
And a denomination that has always been small in the U.S. I don't believe the TEC has never been more than 1-2% of the U.S. population. It had more influence in the past, but that coincided with the dominance of the old-line WASP (mostly English White Anglo Saxon Protestants) elite in government and business, which has largely passed as the U.S. diversified.
The membership wobble it's going through now is nothing like the crash after the War of Independence. Somehow it survived then and probably will in some form again.
(Pagan gods? Nope. Not in my church, or diocese for that matter.)
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
The biggest problem I had with TEC was not paganism (the Hindu thing was a throwaway line), or even Dead Horses (REALLY!), but the creeping Unitarian Universalism in that body, and its confusion of the Gospel with American Progressive politics.
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
:
To give you due credit, Unreformed, you appear to have followed your conscience and walked after weighing things up.
I'm just wondering why you are turning and looking back? Will it do much except make you feel embittered?
TEC seems well and truly set on its progressive course. Whatever anyone thinks of its emphasis I think it's unlikely to change in the near future.
There are Provinces of the Anglican Communion in disagreement with TEC. In fact a de facto schism now exists. TEC is not the Anglican Communion.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
(the Hindu thing was a throwaway line)
Isn't it a pain in the neck when people hold you accountable for your snide little remarks?
quote:
but the creeping Unitarian Universalism in that body,
This is another matter in which I can with absolute certainty say you are just wrong. In 15 years of Episcopal Church services, every single one of them has referred to the Trinity and to Jesus Christ.
And trust me, I DO check.
quote:
its confusion of the Gospel with American Progressive politics.
I know enough Roman Catholics to know the difference between your sect and mine in this regard is only one of degree. I assure you I can, and do, rail against the liberal social Gospel as strongly as anyone.
Just out of idle curiosity, are you a recent convert, or do you just not know that many Episcopalians? Because your judgments about them are either unfair or uninformed.
Zach
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
Zach, let me just say don't take this personally, you're not what I'm talking about, and if you're in a parish that hasn't gone down the rabbit hole that's great. But a whole lot of TEC, especially the increasingly ridiculous national church, has. If you love your parish, if you want to stay in it, great. Good for you. I, personally, just couldn't do it anymore.
As to how well I know it, let me put it this way: my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather on one side of my family were all priests in The Episcopal Church. I know it well enough to know I needed to leave.
As to Trinitarian forms, the liturgy isn't the problem, at least not yet. Read
this, it expresses my view pretty well on what I mean by creeping Unitarianism.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
quote:
TEC is not the Anglican Communion.
I know, and what I'm saying really only applies to TEC and its counterpart in Canada.
CofE and Australia aren't there...yet.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
I have to take it personally, because I am an Episcopalian and you won't stop talking ignorant, hateful crap about us. You may have lost your faith in the Episcopal Church but I haven't.
Some advise I heard from the Catholic poster Trisagion once: You left. Get over it. Don't talk about the Episcopal Church, don't read about it, and try not to think about it for at least 5 years, because it will take the long for you to think about it with any objectivity.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Speaking of justice...how about points for using gerunds as theological terms?
GC77: The Justicing.
Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I have to take it personally, because I am an Episcopalian and you won't stop talking ignorant, hateful crap about us. You may have lost your faith in the Episcopal Church but I haven't.
Whilst I think Unreformed's criticisms of the ECUSA are way over the top, it does seem to me that said body has a tendency to shoot itself in the foot with a frequency that looks almost willful. The prayer quoted in the OP is an example of that. It's as if they've responded to accusations of being a Church for aging hippies by choosing to present a public face clad entirely in tie-dye. Now, I've been to America and I know enough American Episcopalians to know that this image isn't an accurate reflection of the vast majority of Episcopalians, but it is the one the national church seems keen to present at events like its General Convention. The American Episcopalians always seem to be lumped in with the Canadians, but in this respect they seem closer to the Kiwis, whose public image is also very flaky (mostly because they have a ridiculous Prayer Book, but the fact that one of their bishops is a middle aged white man with dreadlocks doesn't help).
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
I am the last to say that the Episcopal Church doesn't have problems. The future of the Episcopal Church is, indeed, a matter of great anxiety for me. But the sickness is not unto death. We have enough problems without the ones that Unreformed blows way out of proportion or just flat out imagines in his fevered mind.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by (S)pike couchant:
Whilst I think Unreformed's criticisms of the ECUSA are way over the top, it does seem to me that said body has a tendency to shoot itself in the foot with a frequency that looks almost willful. The prayer quoted in the OP is an example of that. It's as if they've responded to accusations of being a Church for aging hippies by choosing to present a public face clad entirely in tie-dye. Now, I've been to America and I know enough American Episcopalians to know that this image isn't an accurate reflection of the vast majority of Episcopalians, but it is the one the national church seems keen to present at events like its General Convention.
I think the problem is that the majority of leaders in the church, the ones who have positions as bishops or prominent clergy or the time and resources to travel 10 days for General Convention (plus a few days for diocesan convention, plus all the time spent doing work as wardens and vestry members) came of age during the late 60s and 70s. They're the generation of counterculture and breaking down tradition and boundaries.
That's why the Liturgy and Church Music committee was flabbergasted when it turned out that it was the baby boomers only who want to replace the old hymnal with guitar sing-alongs and drum circles, and the younger church-goers prefer more traditional fare.
That's why the vast majority of people in the pews prefer a plain old Rite I or II Eucharist with standard hymns and anthems, while the Convention folks attend Sacred Circles and crap from "Enriching our Worship" and interpretive dance and Gender-transcendent Eucharists. When they have to do something from the Book of Common Prayer, they do Eucharistic Prayer C (of course).
And as they get weirder and start pushing more controversial theologies, the conservatives in leadership leave, leaving the top brass to become stranger still. We're about to have trial use of prayers for germs, ffs.
I've been following the General Convention and it seems like what goes on there is just ridiculously far removed from the day-to-day worship of most Episcopalians. I think most Episcopalians who still go to church on a regular basis (and that hasn't really been a hallmark of ours for a while) want something familiarly traditional and dignified but not overly political in either direction. They don't want experimental liturgies and they don't want to be activists for what amounts to the Green Party in robes.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
One can sense that dynamic in some of the resolutions, Mockingale. The resolution on church music beings with the terse comment "A majority of respondents to the hymnal revision feasibility study conducted in 2010-2011 do not favor revision
of The Hymnal 1982" but goes on to day "A task force on congregational song will help discover and develop both music and musical leadership that contribute to congregational vitality."
The subtext would be almost hilarious if it all wasn't a bunch of bored liturgists determined to drag the Church in a direction hardly anyone wants to go.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
Unreformed criticizes TEC mainly for creeping Unitarianism and mistaking progressive politics for the gospel. While I understand what he's saying about creeping Unitarianism, the charge is overblown. As evidence, he points to the blog of a person who holds no official position in TEC and whose own bio claims only a tenuous connection The Episcopal Church. Unfortunately, TEC is guilty beyond a reasonably doubt of mistaking progressive politics for the gospel. However, most younger Episcopalians see the errors of the previous two generations and will likely correct both the problems mentioned by Unreformed. What will be left when the Hippies finally relinquish power? Only God knows.
Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
I think the problem is that the majority of leaders in the church, the ones who have positions as bishops or prominent clergy or the time and resources to travel 10 days for General Convention (plus a few days for diocesan convention, plus all the time spent doing work as wardens and vestry members) came of age during the late 60s and 70s. They're the generation of counterculture and breaking down tradition and boundaries.
That has the unmistakable whiff of truth. Mind you, it's not that the younger generation aren't interested in challenging received assumptions, it's just that they seem able to do it in a more mature manner. I seem to recall, many years ago, my prep school Latin master telling his charges that 'the people who most want to be seen as rebels and individualists are generally just conformists by a different name; real individualists have enough confidence in themselves that they don't feel need to rebel over silly things'. His advice was right then, and it's right now.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
One can sense that dynamic in some of the resolutions, Mockingale. The resolution on church music beings with the terse comment "A majority of respondents to the hymnal revision feasibility study conducted in 2010-2011 do not favor revision
of The Hymnal 1982" but goes on to day "A task force on congregational song will help discover and develop both music and musical leadership that contribute to congregational vitality."
The subtext would be almost hilarious if it all wasn't a bunch of bored liturgists determined to drag the Church in a direction hardly anyone wants to go.
We, the unwashed masses in the pews, have no idea what we really want, of course. We don't have the benefit of a Berkeley Div School education, 27 years of General Convention and a heaping dose of "The Holy Spirit" to help us discern what is right and true.
The sad thing is that they'll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a musical paperweight rather than feeding the hungry and educating the poor.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
What will be left when the Hippies finally relinquish power? Only God knows.
"Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass."
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
quote:
When they have to do something from the Book of Common Prayer, they do Eucharistic Prayer C (of course).
Strangely, I don't mind Eucharistic Prayer C and think its entirely orthodox, if a tad 1970s. I don't understand the big problem some traditionalists have with it.
It IS disturbing though that the national leadership of TEC seems to think the '79 BCP is too conservative.
Just wait until they make it easier to "edit" and "update" the prayer book, as proposed at GC.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
Beeswax, from lurking here before registering I think you and I have the exact same problems with TEC, I just concluded they're far more serious and developed than you did. I wish you luck in reversing them.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
quote:
When they have to do something from the Book of Common Prayer, they do Eucharistic Prayer C (of course).
Strangely, I don't mind Eucharistic Prayer C and think its entirely orthodox, if a tad 1970s. I don't understand the big problem some traditionalists have with it.
It IS disturbing though that the national leadership of TEC seems to think the '79 BCP is too conservative.
Just wait until they make it easier to "edit" and "update" the prayer book, as proposed at GC.
It's not that there's a theological problem with it. There are not many theological problems I'm aware of with the Enriching Our Worship alternate eucharistic prayers, either - it's just that the language unnecessarily monkeys with tradition and good taste in favor of what is faddish.
I'm sure that in the adolescent days of the space program Eucharistic Prayer C seemed fresh and relevant and like the wave of the future to all of the liturgy wonks that got it into the new BCP. By the 80s it was seriously dated. It's just unpopular.
That's the thing that I was trying to explain - there's a vast difference between the things you might see at General Convention worship and hear from some of the more out-there clergy and what you'll typically see and hear in real Episcopal parishes.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
I'm sure that in the adolescent days of the space program Eucharistic Prayer C seemed fresh and relevant and like the wave of the future to all of the liturgy wonks that got it into the new BCP. By the 80s it was seriously dated. It's just unpopular.
Now that I think about it, it's like going back and watching old tapes of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It's not that the content is bad information, it's just that it's presented with ridiculously flowery popular science language and cheesy synth music and bad hair.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
Prayer C deserves a Tangerine Dream soundtrack.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Prayer C deserves a Tangerine Dream soundtrack.
Coming soon to the Hymnal 2015.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
All is not lost: resolution C029 has been amended to reaffirm baptism as the entry point to the Holy Eucharist (basically the opposite of what it said before) and C040: Open Table seems doomed to failure. Holy Women Holy Men is still around, but is to be revised with stricter adherence to standards set in 2006 (which were not followed when the calendar was put together).
Posted by Choirboy (# 9659) on
:
I would have thought that in Elizabethan England, one could have seen the stars quite well while on land.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
All is not lost: resolution C029 has been amended to reaffirm baptism as the entry point to the Holy Eucharist (basically the opposite of what it said before) and C040: Open Table seems doomed to failure. Holy Women Holy Men is still around, but is to be revised with stricter adherence to standards set in 2006 (which were not followed when the calendar was put together).
I talk about this stuff mostly with amusement. The open table garbage had me worried in the weeks leading up the convention, but short of a new prayer book eliminating the creeds or denying the divinity of Jesus or the Trinity or requiring priests to violate their consciences on matters of conservative doctrine, I can't see myself leaving. Let the div school alums have their reunion and pretend to be super-relevant and prophetic for a week every three years and then leave the real life of the church to the foot soldiers.
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
:
There is, as others have said, a lack of wide, deep spiritual, religious and historic vision in the ageing leaders of TEC.
It's about the whole Church setup: what it's for; what it should be doing and where it's going.
I think TEC needs to know what those who have left and those who are disaffected think. It might then possibly do something about not losing the latter. Church membership is voluntary and TEC does need a heck of a lot more than the fans of its current hierarchy.
It's the same problem in the Anglican Communion throughout the developed world. Does the hierarchy just go along with their cheer squad or does it look at what patently needs fixing and do something so as to become a more inviting body to those outside?
I am sure those outside, reading the occasional articles on the Communion in the press, feel it is pretty irrelevant to their lives. Those who are involved in the boring minutiae of Anglican politics (which sadly is what most of it seems) don't see that. It's all terribly sad.
Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on
:
Sir Pellinore makes a point-- church leaders often live in a world of platitudes, reinforced by their peers. While they are challenged by many things and respond well to them, I think that it helps that they realize that their received-wisdom is not always acceptable nor is it always wise.
Like politicans and senior managers, they boil out their compromises internally and then bring them to their wider public to defend. While they do not always like it, I have always thought it helpful to be specific and perceptive (and sympathetic) while putting forth one's dissent. They need this a lot more than they think. Most of the time, opposition is loyal opposition.
My first boss, many years ago, told me that I was most valuable to him when I knew my job and I was able to tell him why I disagreed.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
There is, as others have said, a lack of wide, deep spiritual, religious and historic vision in the ageing leaders of TEC.
It's about the whole Church setup: what it's for; what it should be doing and where it's going.
I think TEC needs to know what those who have left and those who are disaffected think. It might then possibly do something about not losing the latter. Church membership is voluntary and TEC does need a heck of a lot more than the fans of its current hierarchy.
It's the same problem in the Anglican Communion throughout the developed world. Does the hierarchy just go along with their cheer squad or does it look at what patently needs fixing and do something so as to become a more inviting body to those outside?
I am sure those outside, reading the occasional articles on the Communion in the press, feel it is pretty irrelevant to their lives. Those who are involved in the boring minutiae of Anglican politics (which sadly is what most of it seems) don't see that. It's all terribly sad.
I wouldn't disagree with any of this, but can't think of a denomination this wouldn't apply to equally.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
I'm sure that in the adolescent days of the space program Eucharistic Prayer C seemed fresh and relevant and like the wave of the future to all of the liturgy wonks that got it into the new BCP. By the 80s it was seriously dated. It's just unpopular.
Now that I think about it, it's like going back and watching old tapes of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It's not that the content is bad information, it's just that it's presented with ridiculously flowery popular science language and cheesy synth music and bad hair.
But when was the last time anyone has actually heard Prayer "C" used? There is certainly no requirement to use it and, at least in my experience, it's one that most priests ignore (like other parts of this and the last BCPs for that matter.)
My, rather AffCath, parish alternates between Rite I from Advent to Lent, and Rite II with Prayer A, the rest of the year. We've never used any alternative, experimental or trial liturgies and I am unaware that this is going on in a principal Sunday service anywhere in the area.
As BA notes, the younger priests, in this diocese at least, seem mostly to be MOTR AffCath types - more traditional, conservative and sacramentally-oriented on theology and liturgy but comfortable with women priests and bishops, as well as gays.
And ISTM the Episcopal Church (apart from GC, perhaps) has been drifting in a more theologically and liturgically conservative direction in recent years. I thought it was, at first, a knee-jerk reaction to Spong's splash, but now think it's symptomatic of a deeper cultural shift. Personally I welcome it, though I have strong doubts that it will in any way mitigate the demographic and financial slide we're in.
[ 11. July 2012, 02:39: Message edited by: ToujoursDan ]
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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TourjoursD
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
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TEC tends to be caricatured in the media as theologically liberal. But on the basic creedal matters of Christianity, I don't think any current TEC bishop has ever openly dissented from small-c catholic Christianity.
The Bishops, James Pike and John Spong were noticeable because they were not of the mainstream. I think I read an article 10 years ago that stated that Spong receives his warmest audiences in UU churches, rather than Episcopal churches.
Perhaps that is what frustrates some of the conservatives. It isn't that radical liberals are supporting LGBT equality and women bishops, it's that mainstream, orthodox Christians who affirm the Creeds are actually progressive on social matters.
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
TourjoursD
OK now maybe on the desktop rather than the iphone I can actually post this message. What I was going to say in response to TourjoursDan's recent post is that I have been to two Masses at Church of the Ascension 5th Avenue (at 10th Street, Downtown Manhattan) last Summer at which the Star Trek Canon was used. The services were quite well orchestrated. Even though I would have preferred a straight Rite II (and I am actually a Rite I person), they were basically fine.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
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Uhh, affirming disordered sex acts and women's ordination is, in fact, departing from "small c" catholicism, at least according to the definition I hear constantly from Anglicans ("all things believed everywhere by all Christians at all times") or something similar.
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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Oh Unreformed, get thee to Dead Horses; cloister thyself.
And here you had claimed it wasn't dead horses that had driven you out of TEC!
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
"small c" catholicism, at least according to the definition I hear constantly from Anglicans ("all things believed everywhere by all Christians at all times") or something similar.
Since when has "small c" catholicism meant that? Hate to tell you but there has never been a time since the death of Christ where all Christians believed the same thing on theological or moral matters. Even the disciples and apostles had arguments.
AFAIC "Small c catholism" is what is in the creeds.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Oh Unreformed, get thee to Dead Horses; cloister thyself.
And here you had claimed it wasn't dead horses that had driven you out of TEC!
Nope, they didn't. In fact my views on two out of the three DH's changed while I was converting, and not without a lot of struggle.
I'm merely pointing out that the positions of many TEC bishops on these issues has already put them outside of the catholic faith. That alone is enough.
[ 11. July 2012, 03:14: Message edited by: Unreformed ]
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
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I would think that the RC's position on Papal Authority and infallibility, the nature of Mary, Transubstantiation, etc. puts them out of the "small c" catholic faith, since they are unique positions shared by no other Christian body and arrived at long after the ecumenical agreements.
But people define catholic faith to be whatever they want, it seems.
[ 11. July 2012, 03:16: Message edited by: ToujoursDan ]
Posted by Martin L (# 11804) on
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For what it's worth, I have visited many, many, many Episcopal churches, and never once have I encountered anything that was not overtly Trinitarian, right down to male pronouns. Only once did I encounter Prayer C, and even though I feel it to be a bit dated, I will admit to being excited to finally be able to use it.
I have never encountered a priest ponificating about any of the hot-button issues du hour. They just seem to preach the gospel and move on with it. Forgive me, but the average Episcopal church in America is about as plain old normal, uncontroversial, and predictable, right down to the Community Mass Gloria.
Concerning the resolutions about admission to Holy Communion, my own ELCA synod (think diocese) memorialized a resolution seeking clarification about a conflict in our documents: the statement on sacramental practices reserves Holy Communion to the baptized, but our full communion agreements instruct us to communicate those who receive communion in their own churches. What if they are not baptized, but their own church doesn't have the baptism requirement we do? This is why the issue surfaced. The fact that my synod memorialized it means little, it will simple bring attention to the issue when the next Churchwide Assembly occurs. What TEC does will certainly inform our decision, but not necessarily be the same.
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Oh Unreformed, get thee to Dead Horses; cloister thyself.
And here you had claimed it wasn't dead horses that had driven you out of TEC!
Nope, they didn't. In fact my views on two out of the three DH's changed while I was converting, and not without a lot of struggle.
I'm merely pointing out that the positions of many TEC bishops on these issues has already put them outside of the catholic faith. That alone is enough.
Well one can argue by your logic that Christian anti-Semiticism is part of small c-catholicism. Christian anti-Semiticism was pretty much the dominant view of most Churches until the 20th century.
I can agree that there is not always an easy way of delineating between what is essential to the faith and what Christians in good conscience could disagree. Admittedly, as an Anglo-catholic, I feel strongly about the Real Presence in the Eucharist and I'm tempted to make that an essential doctrine, at least in Anglicanism, although I pause, knowing that some of my more low church Anglican friends would find it deeply offensive.
But the idea that there is no distinction between essentials and non-essentials is a recipe for disaster. It could potentially mean that disagreements about who to vote for, could potentially be used to turf people out. Hardly conducive to Church unity.
[ 11. July 2012, 03:21: Message edited by: Anglican_Brat ]
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
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quote:
Christian anti-Semiticism was pretty much the dominant view of most Churches until the 20th century.
So the Twelve Apostles were anti-semitic? How about Paul?
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
But when was the last time anyone has actually heard Prayer "C" used?
This morning.
We use all four prayers for our weekday Eucharists, and this morning our Rector chose "C."
We also use it for the Sunday Eucharists during Advent.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
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All bodies have changed their positions on theological and moral matters.
The Roman Catholic Church used to affirm that Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus meant that identifiable Jews, Muslims, Protestants and everyone who wasn't a baptized Catholic was going to hell, period. Vatican II changed all that and now we're possibly "anonymous Catholics" who could obtain salvation through the Catholic Church even if we don't join it. But somehow we're supposed to believe this isn't a major change in doctrine.
The Eastern Orthodox Church used to forbid divorce and remarriage. Now someone can be remarried up to three times.
So it's hard to believe that allowing gay people to form relationships, or allowing women to be ordain puts us outside the fold, unless one is picking and choosing what makes one "small c" catholic arbitrarily.
Again, as I have always understood it, the Creeds are the timeless anchor on which orthodox Christianity is built and the TEC as a body has always affirmed the creeds.
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
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quote:
I have never encountered a priest ponificating about any of the hot-button issues du hour. They just seem to preach the gospel and move on with it. Forgive me, but the average Episcopal church in America is about as plain old normal, uncontroversial, and predictable, right down to the Community Mass Gloria.
I think part of the problem is the media. Most parishes in my experience, even the ones who are very adamant about their progressive politics and inclusion, tend to settle down for the usual day-to-day business of ministry and pastoral care. The media very rarely cares to depict the regular operations of a church. It is only when the church makes news, either by making a public pronouncement on an issue, or doing something completely out of the ordinary (which BTW, given that in America, the default impression by many non-churchgoers of Christianity is that it is a right-wing, reactionary faith stuck in the 1950s), explains why a church that decides to welcome LGBT people might be big news.
Most mainline churches have gotten a rap since the 1980s of being theologically liberal. While it is definitely true that mainline churches tend not to kick people out simply by having theological views that are not orthodox, this doesn't necessarily mean that those so-called heterodox beliefs represent the majority in the denomination. If there is any bias in mainline Christianity, it is a bias in favor of church unity and a reluctance to countenance schism and division.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
But when was the last time anyone has actually heard Prayer "C" used?
This morning.
We use all four prayers for our weekday Eucharists, and this morning our Rector chose "C."
We also use it for the Sunday Eucharists during Advent.
I stand corrected, twice. ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on
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Toujours Dan writes:
quote:
The Eastern Orthodox Church used to forbid divorce and remarriage. Now someone can be remarried up to three times.
Alas, not so. Divorces and remarriages can be found in Byzantine imperial families and certainly has featured in Russian Orthodox life in North America from the 1880s. In fact, the Orthodox approach of pastoral counselling, ecclesiastical courts for the divorce, and second marriage services containing a penitential element was the basis of the ACoC's canon and regulations in the 1960s when Canadian Anglicans moved to permit the remarriage of divorced Christians (of course, that particular discipline has now gone down the tubes, but that is for another thread). My source is the late Archdeacon Douglas Christie, one of the drafters of the canon.
Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on
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Coming back to the op, I understand the issue here as being that of people attempting to deal with the past. This may or may not be done in the wrong way, but I believe that this is the background issue at work here. I'd take someone who gets offended by a past human rights abuse and expresses it clumsily over arsey comments about those who do so any day.
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Oh Unreformed, get thee to Dead Horses; cloister thyself.
And here you had claimed it wasn't dead horses that had driven you out of TEC!
Nope, they didn't. In fact my views on two out of the three DH's changed while I was converting, and not without a lot of struggle.
I'm merely pointing out that the positions of many TEC bishops on these issues has already put them outside of the catholic faith. That alone is enough.
So anyone who disagrees with you about the ordination of women, and homosexuality, is "outside the catholic faith"? Your humility amazes me.
Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Perhaps that is what frustrates some of the conservatives. It isn't that radical liberals are supporting LGBT equality and women bishops, it's that mainstream, orthodox Christians who affirm the Creeds are actually progressive on social matters.
By that logic, the conservatives real nemesis should be people like the Rev'd Professor Graham Ward, Rowan Williams in his pre-Archbishop phase, and perhaps Prof. Milbank (although I think he's perhaps slightly more conservative socially than the others). Or has Radical Orthodoxy not really crossed the pond?
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on
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quote:
Coming back to the op, I understand the issue here as being that of people attempting to deal with the past. This may or may not be done in the wrong way, but I believe that this is the background issue at work here. I'd take someone who gets offended by a past human rights abuse and expresses it clumsily over arsey comments about those who do so any day.
The issue is whether or not we can legitimately expect people of the past to conform to 21st century ethical norms. As a historian I would say that we can't, and that any attempt to do so quickly becomes ridiculous. For example just about every man born before about 1960 had ideas about women which would be deemed unacceptable now.
PS I'm Irish and Catholic by background. For all I know Drake polished off a few of my remote ancestors and I'm not sitting here crying into my pint about it. No doubt my ancestors did their fair share of killing. It was a brutal age. *shrug*
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
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I think Augustine the Aleut was spot on when he pinpointed what I would call institutional inertia as a major problem in religious institutions.
Specifically targeting perceived problems can be a good strategy if those in authority are willing to listen.
Obviously there are cases where the message is not listened to; ignored as being counter to current policy or put in the "too hard" basket. If the people delivering the message feel strongly enough they will either stay and continue agitating or leave.
TEC is, I understand, far from being totally monochrome and the theological colleges seem, generally, to be of a relatively higher standard than in Australia.
My real concern for TEC, as for most Western Christianity, is that it does not become a sort of sideshow apart from real life.
Developing some real, deep, genuinely Anglican spirituality might help. I don't see this happening in many places and I suspect it is this lack of a spiritual dimension, whilst the endless talkfests and ceremonial continue, which is the cause of the ongoing problem.
Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on
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The thing is, Yerevan, if everyone did that then we wouldn't have things like tours in former concentration camps, tours which have one aim (among others) of enabling people to reflect on what happened in order to be self-critical. Doing so avoids relativising ("ah well, that kind of thing was normal then") but invites one into learning not just about, but from the past. That values were different then offers no excuse.
Taking a critical approach to history doesn't involve "crying into ones pint" (that was the kind of arsey remark I was on about) but invites us to reflect on values. A reflected society is one which is able to have a critical look at the values that people used to have. I'd rather have people discussing whether it's OK to use a prayer written (or not) by someone who did dodgy things than than not taking a critical approach to the person.
Of course, one can make clear the context that the person involved was doing their actions in. That's where I can possibly share your view. The context can help to explain why such actions take place. However, they don't excuse them. This brings my values and the values of other people I know who work with history into play, values that lead to judgements. Simply by deciding about what history to talk about and how that history is to be understood we have using our own values. A value could be, for example, that the context wholly explains the person. I note (not with you) that this value wasn't applied to the civic unrest last year in parts of GB whereby looting happened by many people. There individual actions were seen as individual acts of choice.
Talk of whether or not we should exercise our faculty of moral judgement to people of the past is actual an exchange of our own values.
[ 11. July 2012, 10:45: Message edited by: Rosa Winkel ]
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
But when was the last time anyone has actually heard Prayer "C" used?
At my parish, the entire Easter season this year. But the place is basically a proving-ground for Berkeley Divinity students and alums, so it's not entirely unexpected for the clergy to experiment. Actually, for as liberal and academic as the community is, our services are still remarkably middle-of-the-road.
The only real avant-garde liturgy I've noticed is that we all stand around the altar during the Eucharist portion of the service, and occasionally we break out some Taize chants. Other than that, we're friendly middle-high.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
At my parish, the entire Easter season this year. But the place is basically a proving-ground for Berkeley Divinity students and alums, so it's not entirely unexpected for the clergy to experiment. Actually, for as liberal and academic as the community is, our services are still remarkably middle-of-the-road.
The people at Berkeley Divinity School don't even pronounce Berkeley right.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
At my parish, the entire Easter season this year. But the place is basically a proving-ground for Berkeley Divinity students and alums, so it's not entirely unexpected for the clergy to experiment. Actually, for as liberal and academic as the community is, our services are still remarkably middle-of-the-road.
The people at Berkeley Divinity School don't even pronounce Berkeley right.
*sniff* Someone has spent too much time in Cambridge.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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Any student taking Philosophy 101 at Bugtussle Community College could tell you the people at Berkeley Divinity School don't pronounce Berkeley right.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Any student taking Philosophy 101 at Bugtussle Community College could tell you the people at Berkeley Divinity School don't pronounce Berkeley right.
For the record, it was Philosophy 111 at Purdue University. ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
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There's a "residential college" (dorm compound) at Yale, and an Episcopal school in Tampa (which some of my friends went to) - both pronounced like the city in California, though both are named after the bishop.
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
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Since Berkley Castle and Berkley Square in England are both named directly by/for the family, it seems safe to assume that the correct pronunciation is not that of the American university.
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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It's the same vowel shift you have from the British Eng word, clerk - pronounced "clark" - and the American Eng pronunciation of the er blend in the same manner as "herd" or "nerd". At least it's not as shocking as the Americanisation of various English place names such as the town in Pennsylvania known as "Chigh-chester" (for Chichester)or numerous other examples that I don't even want to think of at the moment.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
At my parish, the entire Easter season this year. But the place is basically a proving-ground for Berkeley Divinity students and alums, so it's not entirely unexpected for the clergy to experiment. Actually, for as liberal and academic as the community is, our services are still remarkably middle-of-the-road.
The people at Berkeley Divinity School don't even pronounce Berkeley right.
since 'right' is an adverb, wouldn't 'correctly' be better!!!!!
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
At my parish, the entire Easter season this year. But the place is basically a proving-ground for Berkeley Divinity students and alums, so it's not entirely unexpected for the clergy to experiment. Actually, for as liberal and academic as the community is, our services are still remarkably middle-of-the-road.
The people at Berkeley Divinity School don't even pronounce Berkeley right.
since 'right' is an adverb, wouldn't 'correctly' be better!!!!!
"Correctly" is also an adverb.
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
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So this is what outrage about the Presiding Bishop's choice of prayers comes to? Good to know.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
At my parish, the entire Easter season this year. But the place is basically a proving-ground for Berkeley Divinity students and alums, so it's not entirely unexpected for the clergy to experiment. Actually, for as liberal and academic as the community is, our services are still remarkably middle-of-the-road.
The people at Berkeley Divinity School don't even pronounce Berkeley right.
since 'right' is an adverb, wouldn't 'correctly' be better!!!!!
"Correctly" is also an adverb.
I know - but was wondering it there is a word 'rightly'
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
So this is what outrage about the Presiding Bishop's choice of prayers comes to? Good to know.
That, and temper tantrums about her taste in vestments.
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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Well, the latter has to be discussed in Eccles. Maybe we could start a separate PB Tattler thread with choice pics of ++KJS's vestments -- sort of a show and tell.
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Well, the latter has to be discussed in Eccles. Maybe we could start a separate PB Tattler thread with choice pics of ++KJS's vestments -- sort of a show and tell.
There's already a blog for that
here. But don't worry they don't just pick on Episcopalians. Catholics get it just as bad.
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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At St. Clement's Philadelphia I can simply pretend that all churches have vestments of heavy brocade and watered silk, and high mass sets complete with maniples and humeral veils; and that fiddleback chasubles are normative.
Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
At St. Clement's Philadelphia I can simply pretend that all churches have vestments of heavy brocade and watered silk, and high mass sets complete with maniples and humeral veils; and that fiddleback chasubles are normative.
Ah, would that it were so! I have no objection to gothic vestments, however, so long as they are tasteful and made of the finest material. S. Clement's, however, is surely a great beacon of hope for the Anglican Church today.
Posted by SeraphimSarov (# 4335) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
So this is what outrage about the Presiding Bishop's choice of prayers comes to? Good to know.
That, and temper tantrums about her taste in vestments.
What taste?
Posted by SeraphimSarov (# 4335) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
At St. Clement's Philadelphia I can simply pretend that all churches have vestments of heavy brocade and watered silk, and high mass sets complete with maniples and humeral veils; and that fiddleback chasubles are normative.
"this play acting at being Catholics is positively sick making "
-Evelyn Waugh to John Betjeman
Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SeraphimSarov:
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
At St. Clement's Philadelphia I can simply pretend that all churches have vestments of heavy brocade and watered silk, and high mass sets complete with maniples and humeral veils; and that fiddleback chasubles are normative.
"this play acting at being Catholics is positively sick making "
-Evelyn Waugh to John Betjeman
I disagree with Mr. Waugh. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. You don't see so many people play-acting at being Orthodox in other denominations, do you? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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I agree Unreformed. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Most of the Roman Catholics in the West are playacting at being Anglican.
Posted by venbede (# 16669) on
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At the church where I regularly woshipped as a teenager in a seaside resort in Devon, there was a stained glass window of Drake, (Drake he was a Devon man) and also one of Sir Winston Churchill erected while Churchill was still a sitting Conservative member of parliament. (The town was what was in a safe Conservative parliamentary constituency.)
Posted by Grammatica (# 13248) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Since Berkley Castle and Berkley Square in England are both named directly by/for the family, it seems safe to assume that the correct pronunciation is not that of the American university.
It seems safe to say that speakers of British English and speakers of American English pronounce "Berkeley" differently. One might expect the citizens of Berkeley, California to know whether they are mispronouncing the name of their own city.
UC Berkeley (parenthetically) has one of the world's great departments of linguistics, and Stanford, just across the way, has another.
I await with interest the British contingent's consensus on the correct pronunciations of Milan, Ohio, Cairo, Illinois, and Natchitoches, Louisiana. I am certain that all of us in the former colonies are eager to be instructed by you.
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