The best hour of the day

On By Jesse ZinkIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

One of my favourite parts about traveling in South Sudan is how quickly I become in tune with the rhythm of the day, a rhythm that is largely governed by the sun.

I wake up with the sunrise, and I am often asleep within two hours—and oftentimes less—of sunset. Back home, electricity and a whole host of other conveniences allow me to block out what is happening outside—I can burn the candle at both ends (at my peril) much more easily than I can here.

During the day, my activity is concentrated in the morning and late afternoon. After lunch, when it is hot, I am fine to sit in the shade and read a book or have a nap. It’s what other people are doing, after all. And it’s too hot to do anything else.

But the absolute best time of day is between 6 and 7 in the evening. The sun is setting so it is cool enough to be active. But it hasn’t set all the way so there’s still plenty of daylight to see by. As I walk through town, I am aware of all the football and basketball games that are going on. I smell the cooking fires that are preparing dinner. I hear the children running off their last bits of energy, and the creaking pedals of bicycles as people return home. The light comes at such an angle that is an excellent time to take pictures. You get a whole new perspective on something when the sunlight is not directly overhead, baking it in the sun. In some places I have stayed, this is the time of day to say evening prayer—to gather chairs in a circle in a yard somewhere and pray for the day that is passing and intercede for the world as it passes by. It is a beautiful liminal hour between day and night, between activity and rest, between the public world of our day-to-day existence and the private world of our home life.

Then the sun dips below the horizon. In the gathering gloom, the mosquitos come out, generators come on, and people head indoors. The rare electricity of the generator means that it is time to charge one’s electronic devices and flip on the television. It is good to see the news of the world, and I appreciate having a charged computer on which to write items such as this. But sometimes the artificial noise can become too much, so I step outside again, look up at the stars that are appearing, and start counting down until tomorrow’s late afternoon and the beautiful hour that is coming again.

Thinking again about church membership: neglected evangelism tool?

On By Jesse ZinkIn Mission6 Comments

LarkNews has a satirical story about church membership:

Faith Community sent polite but firm letters to families who attend church services and “freebie events” but never volunteer, never tithe and do not belong to a small group or other ministry. The church estimates that of its 8,000 regular attendees, only half have volunteered in the past 3 years, and a third have never given to the church.

The story is funny, as it is meant to be, but it also gets me wondering about what we mean by church membership. The Episcopal Church has detailed canons about what it means to be a member of a congregation, how one transfers one’s membership to another congregation, etc. It’s all there in Title 1, Canon 17. Here’s a snippet:

A member of this Church removing from the congregation in which that person’s membership is recorded shall procure a certificate of membership indicating that that person is recorded as a member (or adult member) of this Church and whether or not such a member:

Upon acknowledgment that a member who has received such a certificate has been enrolled in another congregation of this or another Church, the Member of the Clergy in charge or Warden issuing the certificate shall remove the name of the person from the parish register.

I’ve been a member (I thought) of a handful of Episcopal congregations in my life. I have never once done this. Has anyone?

The thing is, I think membership might be something we want to reclaim more actively in the church. So much of the world today is about minimizing commitment—people want one-off obligations, if they want obligations at all. It’s not only churches that are having trouble getting people to join. It’s political parties, service organizations, and (famously) bowling leagues. (In my mind this lack of commitment is related to prevelance irony and sarcasm in society: why commit to something when you can make fun of it?)

But Christianity is (inter alia) about a life-long commitment to God in Christ, and the church is where we experience that commitment. Membership is how we express that commitment. Commitment is one of many ways in which Christianity is counter-cultural.

The trouble is, as attendance/membership has declined and the Euro-Atlantic world has become a more secular place, the church has responded not by highlighting the importance of commitment, but minimizing it. Here, take communion, some say. You don’t even have to be baptized! The Episcopal Church welcomes you! You can belong before you believe!

There may be good reasons to say these things, but the point here is that the church comes to sound more and more like the world around it: you don’t have to commit. Along the way, our canons on membership appear to have become a casualty.

I visited a church once that had membership forms. It was such an unusual thing to see that I picked one up. The form invited me to give my information and have a meeting with the priest. That kind of form I had seen before. But what this form also said was that if I became a member, I would publicly affirm my commitment to the church in a liturgical fashion during a Sunday service. I had not seen that before. I was a visitor so I didn’t fill out the form, but I found myself impressed by it. Among other things, it indicated to me that this place really took itself seriously. (This is not the only way of showing you take yourself seriously, of course.) I should say this church was going like gang-busters when I was there.

There can be a real reluctance in the world these days to draw in-out lines. But I wonder if that’s not what the church needs to do sometimes. This is not a hostile act. On the one hand, we might say, “These are members of the church, and this is what members of the church do.” (That, more or less, is what our canons already do.) On the other hand, we say to those not in the church, “And we can’t wait for you to come join us and be committed to the transforming love of God in Christ as well. And we’re so eager for you to join us, that we’re going to come to you and show you how we’ve experienced that grace.”

It would certainly be different than what the world is used to hearing.

I’m genuinely curious (as always) how you think this might play out in the congregation you know best.

MRI, Fifty Years On

On By Jesse ZinkIn Anglican Communion3 Comments

Fifty years ago this week, Anglicans from all over the world gathered in Toronto for the second post-war Anglican Congress. The meeting was fruitful in a whole variety of ways, but what it is especially remembered for is “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ,” a manifesto that set forth a new way of being the worldwide body of Christ.

In a Church Times op-ed this week, I argue that the vision set forth in MRI is as valuable and relevant to Anglicans now as it was fifty years ago:

In its emphasis on the patient work of building genuine relationships across lines of difference, the importance of genuinely coming to know one another in the context in which each lives, and above all in its recognition that God is always calling us to something greater than ourselves, MRI has much to teach us.

It is risky to reach out to those who are different from us, and daring to ask what we might learn from someone from a different background. But it is precisely these things that are at the heart of what it means to be God’s people in the world – a fact that is no less true today than it was in August 1963.

(Read the whole article here.)

By chance, the anniversary coincides with the news that Bishop James Tengatenga’s appointment at Dartmouth University has been rescinded. I have nothing to add to this depressing piece of news that has not been said elsewhere—particularly by Bishop Michael Ingham—except to note that the controversy over the appointment sadly demonstrates the point I was trying to make: it truly is challenging to reach out and encounter those who are genuinely different than us and see what it is we can give and receive from them.

The Church Times article on MRI is the first of two I’ve written about the anniversary. Look for a separate article coming soon in The Living Church.

And if you never have, why not take the time to read the text of MRI?

C of E vs. TEC

On By Jesse ZinkIn Church of England, Episcopal Church3 Comments

English bishop Nick Baines has posted about the differences between the Episcopal Church in the U.S. and the Church of England. After a year in the C of E, I thought I’d do the same from the perspective of an American in England, with the proviso that I am writing in broad generalities and, of course, from my own experience of the church.

  • In England, it is quite common to have baptisms outside the regular Sunday-morning service. In fact, I’d say this is when the majority happen. People request a “private” baptism. Often, huge numbers of friends and family attend these services. This takes place without a Eucharistic service. All of these things are exceptionally rare in the United States. I have very mixed feelings about the English practice.
  • Clergy stipends are standardized across dioceses in the Church of England. That means what a vicar of a hugely successful parish gets paid is not different from what the vicar of a struggling, multi-point benefice down the road gets paid. This is hugely different from the U.S. where one’s compensation is tied to the size of one’s church. I have this sense in the C of E that there is less ladder-climbing and competition among clergy, and more collegiality. I like it. For one thing, it ensures rural ministry is given adequate attention.
  • I came to England as a skeptic of Establishment and especially of the parish system, whereby every square inch of the country is under the care of some priest somewhere. But it is quickly growing on me. The default orientation of clergy here is towards their entire community, and not just towards that portion of it which darkens their doors on Sunday morning. There are American clergy who have this orientation too, of course, but I don’t get the sense it as widespread there as it is here. Here, it just has to be. Every soul in the parish is in your cure.
  • One result of the parish system is that priests mostly live where their people do—no matter if the socio-economic background of the parish is such that an educated professional might not usually chose to live there. In the United States, I know lots of commuting priests. There are fewer here.
  • In England, dioceses are larger (in terms of number of clergy and parishes, not geographic size, of course), which means bishops are more distant from their people, their ordinands, and their clergy. What’s more, to the best of my knowledge, there is no canonical requirement for a bishop to visit his parishes. In the American church, bishops have to visit every parish once every three (I think) years. Bishops (and archdeacons) only visit parishes when invited. This only makes the bishop seem more distant, if the only time you have seen him (and it is, sadly, only a him) is when he is presiding in his finest vestments in his ancient and towering cathedral.
  • The Church of England strikes me as much more heavily bureaucratic than the American church. I’m not quite sure how to illustrate that claim, but I think it has to do with Establishment and the larger size of the church relative to the population of the country.
  • On the other hand, the C of E has a pretty good system of raising up lay ministers—readers, licensed lay ministers, etc.—that some American dioceses could really learn from.

I’m sure there’s more, but those are a few that stick out. I’ve spent lots of time with the church in places like Nigeria, Sudan, China, Ecuador, and others, and know what it’s like to be in a church that challenges all my assumptions. But I don’t think I expected quite so many major differences between the American and English churches. And I’m sure there’s much more to learn in the years to come!

UPDATE: I realize I didn’t write a thing about Common Worship and the 1979 Book of Common Prayer! Will have to be a separate post altogether.

“Let the press come to me…”

On By Jesse ZinkIn GospelLeave a comment

Pope Francis’ impromptu press conference on a plane has lit up social media today. His comments on women, homosexuality, the Vatican bank, and much more have given people plenty to chew on.

Here’s one thing I found interesting: Francis stood there for nearly 90 minutes and answered questions. When was the last time any major public figure did that? President Obama? Nope. He gave a great speech on race last week, and then walked out without answering questions. When public figures make major campaign announcements—Hillary Clinton endorsing same-sex marriage, for instance—it is done in a polished video which we all watch, but of which none of us can ask questions.

What I love about this picture is how interested and engaged the pope seems with his questioner. How many public figures can you think of who feel that way about the press? The press? Keep your distance from them, please.

One of the defining characteristics of Jesus’ ministry was his accessibility: the children, the woman who grabbed at his cloak as he walked by, the woman sitting at the well, etc., etc. It’s something Francis has done as well, and something he talked about in his press conference:

I could be close to the people, greet them, embrace them, without armored cars. During the entire time, there wasn’t a single incident. I realize there’s always a risk of a crazy person, but having a bishop behind bulletproof glass is crazy, too. Between the two, I prefer the first kind of craziness.

I think accessibility is good—to the press, to the people, the sick, the young, the rich, the old, women, men, gay, straight. The more we are in relationship with people, the more we are engaging those who are different to us, the more we are open to what spontaneously happens, the more I think we are living into the world God is calling us to.

So whatever you think about what Francis said today—and there is a lot there to digest—I hope some other public figures follow his lead and wander to the back cabin of their planes on their next trip.

I’d prefer that kind of craziness, too.

The Congress-ification of the Church, Part II

On By Jesse ZinkIn Anglican CommunionLeave a comment

In February, the Anglican Church in Tanzania elected a new chief bishop (or primate, as Anglicans call them). It was a close election, in which the incumbent was narrowly defeated. Jacob Chimeledya, a diocesan bishop, won.

So far, so good. Different provinces have different rules for primates. Some are elected for a single, fixed term (the United States, Sudan), some are appointed for life (England), and some are allowed to run for a second term when the first ends, like Tanzania.

Unfortunately for Tanzanian Anglicans, a handful of conservative Anglicans got a bee in their bonnet about the election. It turns out the defeated incumbent was a more reliable supporter of their causes. So—briefly—they began to raise holy hell, denouncing the election in just about every form imaginable—despite the fact that none of those raising these charges appears to have been on hand for the election, nor had any special insight into the local dynamics that produced the outcome.

The vitriol became so significant that the Tanzanian provincial secretary was forced to issue an unprecedented statement explaining the election. For me, the key paragraph was this:

The internet can be used to develop relationships, but it can also be used to spread gossip and destabilize the church. None of those writing these false stories sought to confirm them with us. It is very sad that someone who did not attend the election would spoil what was confirmed by all our bishops as a fair and transparent election.

This has not stopped the vitriol, which continues in various corners of the Internet to this day.

The question this raises for me is this: is this what we really want to be as a world church? A global group of people on a perpetual witch hunt, determined to find enemies where none exist, see every situation through the lens of what matters most to us, and create conflict as a means of perpetuating our existence? That may be fine for a cabinet or Supreme Court nominee on Capitol Hill, but surely the church can model something a little different?

(Not incidentally, the faux-controversy over the election shows the mistake of placing so much emphasis on primates’ meetings, as Anglicans have increasingly done in the last decades. Primates are important—but not that important.)

In this context, Justin Welby’s attendance at the enthronement of now-Archbishop Chimeledya seems to me one of the most significant acts of his young archiepiscopacy. His presence said, essentially, “I believe you. I am with you.” In a needlessly controversial situation such as this, the power of that affirmation cannot be underestimated. Wouldn’t it be great if Tanzanian Anglicans heard a little bit more of that from their sisters and brothers around the world, rather than the vitriol and invective to which they have become accustomed?

The Congress-ification of the Church

On By Jesse ZinkIn Episcopal Church2 Comments
Really, I’ve said other things in my life besides “wise Latina”

Do you remember when Sonia Sotomayor was appointed to the Supreme Court? Within minutes of her appointment, there was a raging battle over a comment she had once made about a “wise Latina.” That phrase came to dominate much of the debate over her appointment—even though it was a single phrase uttered over the course of a lengthy career as a lawyer and judge. I remember thinking at the time, “Ummm… aren’t we missing the point here? Isn’t there so much more to talk about?”

Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings came to mind recently as I reflected on the blow-up over a sermon Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori preached in Venezuela in May. For about two sentences, she gave a reading of Paul’s actions in a passage in the Acts of the Apostles that was unusual. Although the rest of the sermon was about the glory of God—a deeply Biblical concept—conservative Anglicans pounced and used those few sentences as an opportunity to do one of their favourite things—beat up the Presiding Bishop.

There were some people in the world who were not going to support Sotomayor’s confirmation no matter what. By blowing the “wise Latina” comment out of proportion, they gave themselves cover to do what they were already going to do—and tried to bring a few others along with them.

Similarly, there are people in the church who will never find a single redeemable feature in the tenure of Jefferts Schori. So out of all the words and sentences and paragraphs the Presiding Bishop produces, they take a handful of sentences and blow them into an imbroglio of epic proportions—just to confirm themselves in the apparent rightness of what they already believe.

This is not to say that it is not worth debating either the “wise Latina” comment or the two sentences from the Presiding Bishop’s sermon. But it is to say that when conversation comes to focus so exclusively on these tiny portions, our common life suffers because we miss the much larger picture.

I’m not saying it’s not alright to disagree in the church. Nor I am saying it’s not alright to take issue with the Presiding Bishop—I’ve done it. What I am saying, however, is that artificially restricting our focus—as we have seen in this sermon “debate”—misses the point. And this is far from the only instance of this trend. We see something similar in the common view that the only salient feature of the “African church” is its views on sexuality. We end up arguing with caricatures of our opponents, instead of the real person God has created them to be.

Christians believe that honouring and valuing the whole of what someone has to offer—the whole of who God has created them to be—is a central theological virtue. In conversation and engagement with the whole of someone, we come to see what they have to offer to and receive from our common life together. Instead, most of the time, the church seems intent on spending all of its energy on manufactured and illusory controversies, thereby neatly avoiding substantive, honest, and mutually enriching conversation.

It’s one thing when Congress does this—but the church has a much deeper, broader, and exciting calling than that. We ignore it at our peril.

Short-circuiting discernment

On By Jesse ZinkIn Episcopal ChurchLeave a comment

In First Things, Jordan Hylden takes a despairing tone towards the Episcopal Church, saying essentially, “Oh, if only conservative Anglicans could see that Episcopalians are not completely disregarding the Bible in their flight into apostasy!”

If conservative Anglicans are ever to come to a détente with liberals over the issue of homosexuality—perhaps not to agree with them, but at least to come to terms with them—it would have to involve understanding that revisionists on this issue have genuinely grappled with the authoritative text of Holy Scripture. Their persistent concern is that liberals do not do this, but rather regard Scripture as outdated and no longer authoritative for Christian faith and life in the modern world.

This is faux-pious sanctimony. Episcopalians have been doing precisely what Hylden calls for for the last decade—and it has been comprehensively denigrated and dismissed by people who disagree with the conclusions Episcopalians have come to.

At the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in 2005, the Episcopal Church was invited to make a presentation about its approach to Scripture and, specifically, how Episcopalians reconciled Scripture with the ordination of an openly gay man as bishop. That presentation was lengthy, detailed, nuanced, and showed a “genuine grappling” with “the authoritative text of Holy Scripture.” It appears no one was listening.

Hylden cites the Bible in the Life of the Church project, a similarly lengthy and nuanced effort to explore how the Bible is read across the Communion. When its report was issued at the 2012 ACC meeting, many breakaway Anglicans immediately dismissed it because it appeared to permit conclusions to be drawn that they would not like.

(Hylden also bemoans the fact that South Carolina Episcopalians who left the church were not invited to the General Convention. This ignores the fact that the diocese was part of the church at the time—and most representatives walked out of Convention early.)

I think Hylden and I would agree that the key to Christian living is a community gathered around the authoritative text of Scripture to discern where God is calling them. That is what I find in the Episcopal Church, though I have my own frustrations from time to time about parts that Episcopalians tend to over- and under-emphasize. And I particularly welcome the part in Hylden’s piece when he seems to suggest that faithful Christians can disagree about a particular issue—say, homosexuality—but still recognize each other as members of the same body of Christ.

But my real frustration is when this process of communal discernment is short-circuited by the implicit requirement that the discernment produce certain outcomes. That seems to defeat the purpose of discernment. When various people can’t get that guarantee, they tend to abandon the process and start going on about how Episcopalians have abandoned Scripture—when precisely the opposite is true.

Making poverty history—and putting a whole new set of problems in its place

On By Jesse ZinkIn Episcopal Church1 Comment

The Economist recently had a lengthy take on the state of global poverty—and the news seems to be good!

In 1990, 43% of the population of developing countries lived in extreme poverty (then defined as subsisting on $1 a day); the absolute number was 1.9 billion people. By 2000 the proportion was down to a third. By 2010 it was 21% (or 1.2 billion; the poverty line was then $1.25, the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines in 2005 prices, adjusted for differences in purchasing power). The global poverty rate had been cut in half in 20 years.

That raised an obvious question. If extreme poverty could be halved in the past two decades, why should the other half not be got rid of in the next two? If 21% was possible in 2010, why not 1% in 2030?

The potential exists, it seems, to make extreme poverty history. Hallelujah!

The whole article is worth a read, but three points in particular stood out to me.

First, the Millenium Development Goals—the so-called Eight Commandments that were agreed to by world leaders in 2000 as a framework for reducing poverty—appear to have had almost no impact.

The leads to the second point. Poverty reduction happens because of economic growth. Economies in the poor world have been performing better, lifting many poor people out of extreme poverty.

News such as this should give Episcopalians pause. For much of the last decade, the MDGs have been the framework for much of the Episcopal Church’s global mission efforts. One result has been congregations and dioceses funnelling money to a host of causes around the world. Those of you who read my writing back when I was one of the church’s global missionaries will know that I’ve never put much stock in the MDGs. But I also want the Episcopal Church to be involved in global mission in a meaningful way. If the MDGs aren’t it, then what is?

That leads to the third point we might notice about the Economist‘s coverage: there is plenty of mention of the benefits of economic growth, but no mention of its costs—environmental, social, psychological. But it is clear that economic growth does have such costs: global warming is a genuine danger, the rapid urbanization of the world is creating a whole host of new issues, and the drive for consumption in a place like China is creating new feelings of isolation and anomie.

The conclusion I draw from all this is that there is a tremendous role for the church to play—but it’s not the role it has been playing to date. Rather than writing checks and transferring funds to limited impact, it seems the church can be the single organization that uses its unique network of transnational and intercultural relationships to advocate for those who lose out in the rush to economic growth, stand with those who suffer, and—most of all—articulates a vision of a world that is so much richer than being just a place where economic growth takes precedence over everything else. The church wants to make not only poverty history, but so too the host of issues that rush to take its place.

The MDGs “expire” in 2015 and one wonders what the Episcopal Church will do when that happens. The argument here is that the church needs to refocus itself on being nothing more and nothing less than what it is called to be: a global network of mutual relationships that advocates for a rich and integrated vision of a reconciled world. If we succeeded in doing that we might finally be worthy of being called what we really are: the body of Christ.

An odd couple: Pope Francis and Katharine Jefferts Schori

On By Jesse ZinkIn Ecumenical3 Comments

Pope Francis and Justin Welby hung out at the Vatican today. It’s easy to miss the significance of this. Less than 50 years ago, then pope Paul VI and then-Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey met in Rome. It was practically a revolution that the meeting should take place. Paul VI couldn’t really recognize Ramsey as a bishop—what with Apostolicae Curae declaring Anglican orders “absolutely null and utterly void”—but he did famously give Ramsey his ring, a de facto acknowledgement of Ramsey’s position.

Really, Paul VI gave him the ring because he had dared Ramsey to wear the most ridiculous piece of headgear he could find.

Today, Welby wore that ring and Francis kept calling Welby “your grace,” a different way of acknowledging Welby’s position. No one is surprised by this anymore. Of course, the pope and the archbishop of Canterbury would get on. It’s just how it goes.

I’m as happy as anyone else that the two of them spent some time together and I hope there is more to come. But it doesn’t seem like enough anymore. Since that Paul-Ramsey meeting, there’s been a major change in Anglicanism—we ordain women on a regular basis, and some women are now bishops. As I’ve argued before, Anglicans should not see women’s ordination as an obstacle to unity, but as a gift to the relationship.

Just waiting for that invitation, Francis

So the pictures of Pope Francis and Justin Welby are great, but here’s the picture I want to see: Pope Francis and Katharine Jefferts Schori praying together, him in his white and her in a purple cassock. It would be as significant a moment as Paul VI giving Ramsey his ring. (I’d settle for any other woman bishop out there, actually. If Francis wanted to stay in the British Isles, he could go with Jana Jeruma Grinberga, whom Welby highlighted at his enthronement.)

You bet! It’s in the mail.

What Paul VI seemed to understand is that sometimes the rules and regulations are a bit outdated. You might not be able to change them, but you can, you know, circumvent them to acknowledge a present reality. I wonder if Pope Francis can see the same thing about women’s ordination.

Obviously, I’m not holding my breath on this one, but this pope has been full of surprises. Maybe he has one more up his sleeve…