The Allure and Danger of Anti-Modern Religion

From New York Magazine-

Similarly, Burton mentions the pleasures of the “liturgically elaborate” Episcopal Rite I Eucharist, which I loved in my days as an Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian. Only gradually did I comprehend that for all its gorgeously archaic language, Rite I was less “Catholic” than the modern Rite II, and was loaded with signs of its principal author Thomas Cranmer’s desire to move the Church of England toward what his era considered “modern” and “individualistic” worship practices. “Traditional” or “old” doesn’t necessarily mean more faithful to the kind of rigorous or meaningful religion “Weird Christians” seek.

There is no question that for contemporary millennials, the usages of pre-modern Christianity can become a means of rebelling against liberal relativist culture and its distant cousin, capitalist economics. But if the revolt again modernity is undertaken seriously, you can’t pick and choose like those “Cafeteria Catholics” whom Tradpunks likely despise. For every Latin Mass fancier who looks to pre-capitalist Christianity as an inspiration for left-wing solidarity with workers and immigrants, there’s someone who just as authentically finds refuge in pre-Enlightenment attitudes toward women, homosexuality, class privilege, and the fate of lesser breeds. Some Weird Christians may be Christian Socialists, but others are undoubtedly proto-fascists — both viewing capitalism as the work of the devil.

More here-

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/the-allure-and-danger-of-anti-modern-religion.html

Confirmation of Confirmation

From The Living Church-

There is no shortage these days of crises and semi-crises with which Episcopalians and other varieties of Anglicans can amuse themselves. The sexuality wars seem to have ebbed — sadly, not through reconciliation, but through one side achieving commanding victory. Continuing shrinkage of attendance and membership periodically sounds fresh alarms. The legitimacy of offering Holy Communion to the unbaptized is sure to raise hackles well into the future. Conversation around liturgical revision is continuing to grow in intensity.

In the midst of all this ferment, the subject of the “sacramental rite” (per the 1979 BCP) of confirmation remains an enduring presence, though it rarely achieves top-tier status. Lots of Episcopalians, lay and ordained, seem to think they know what confirmation is, but our canons and liturgical forms are, at best, ambiguous, and there’s nothing approaching broad agreement about how to interpret them. If one were pressed to describe a practical consensus on the issue, it would probably be something along the lines of “Confirmation is the sacrament of becoming an Episcopalian.” I suspect nobody would actually ever teach such a thing formally, but as we actually go about our life together as a church, that’s what it appears we believe.

More here-

https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2019/12/11/confirmation-of-confirmation/?fbclid=IwAR0HupsSgYgt_PTRbKV5xo8eMuKbFseduAjVX4aewc4eKt7cj5rsnUtGu0M

When Evangelicals go Anglican or Presbyterian

From Euangelion-

The phenomena of Evangelicals (usually of a non-denominational, baptistic, low-church variety) converting to Presbyterianism, Catholicism, Orthodox, or Anglicanism is interesting on theological and sociological levels.

Much has been written about the surge of evangelicals into liturgical churches (see here and here, plus the book Journeys of Faith: Evangelicalism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Anglicanism) and this phenomenon shows no signs of abating, if anything, it is picked up steam.
For those want to know more (or just keep their disgust fresh), I recommend a few things.

First, Scott Swain discusses his move from Baptist to Presbyterian on the podcast Church Grammar.
Second, a great article Ask an Anglican Pastor where Tish Harrison Warren answers some questions on evangelicals who want to go Anglican. She answers one question with these words:

When I first began attending an Anglican church, there were things I didn’t completely get or resonate with, like making the sign of the cross. I didn’t have a theological problem or any crisis of conscience about these parts of the liturgy; I just didn’t totally understand them, but I simply began to do them anyway, and I’m now very glad I did. Pick 2-3 new liturgical practices and practice them.

More here-

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2019/02/when-evangelicals-go-anglican-or-presbyterian/

Liturgical Revision and a New Conception of God

From The Living Church-

I generally support strategic revision of our liturgy in the direction of expansive language, because I think such language is biblical and because God is more (though not less) than the images that have nourished the Church the past two millennia. I also have great respect for the Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers’s gifts as a liturgical scholar. And I deeply share the concerns she raised in her recent interview in Sojourners (Aug. 7) on how overly masculine and patriarchal images have contributed to sexual abuse and inequality in the Church. The recent penitential liturgy at General Convention atoning for the Episcopal Church’s complicity in sexual abuse was long overdue, and Meyers served an essential role in its development and execution.

Nevertheless, I found myself somewhat perplexed by her remarks in the Sojourners interview, because these remarks seem to contradict her much more reserved comments made just a year earlier in Anglican Theological Review (Summer 2017). There, she insisted that BCP revision was not necessary  even given the need for expansive language and changes to the marriage liturgies. But in her more recent interview, she suggested that BCP revision is strongly needed to incorporate a new conception of God.

In Sojourners, Meyers mentioned a conversation between an Episcopalian and a peer:

More here-

https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2018/08/28/liturgical-revision-and-a-new-conception-of-god/

The Triumph of Color: Notes on the Anglo-Catholic Aesthetic

From Amish Catholic-

Two facts have become steadily clearer to me over the course of my life as a Roman Catholic. First, that we don’t do beauty like we used to. Our churches are rife with liturgical art as dated and outré as the plastic on your great aunt’s furniture. Many of our houses of worship are stuck in the 1970’s, riddled with patently ugly, non-figurative depictions of Christ and the saints. Abstract windows cast unseemly splashes of light over softwood pews. And there are far too many carpets. My own old parish at UVA, St. Thomas Aquinas, is just now overcoming its long “awkward phase” (symbolized by an enormous chrome statue of the Angelic Doctor that looked like a cross between Buddha and the Tin Man – unhappily placed right across the street from the Chabad House).

In short, we have a problem with beauty.

The second thing I realized is that the Anglo-Catholics—or at least, those corners of the Anglo-Catholic world that held onto their patrimony—do not. And it seems to me that much of the renewal in sacred art that we’re witnessing today is indebted to the Anglo-Catholics, as any browsing on New Liturgical Movement will show. There is a distinctive style associated with the AC tradition. My hope is that by examining a few of its exponents, we might come to get a better glimpse of the art that is renewing our own Church today.

More here-

https://amishcatholic.com/2017/12/22/the-triumph-of-color-notes-on-anglo-catholic-aesthetics/

Church of England Resurrects Tradition to Attract Millennials

From Church Leaders-

In the past we’ve touched on the delicate balance that churches must maintain while appealing to millennials without pandering or changing theology. But what if we’re focusing our efforts in the wrong places?

What if the loud music and fog machines are actually clouding the Holy Spirit and preventing people from connecting with God? What if, instead of adapting to a modernized culture with our church services, we kicked it old school? Like, really old.

Well, that’s exactly what the Church of England is doing. Despite growing secularism in the country, the church has seen attendance grow over the past several years with the help of a centuries-old liturgical tradition: Evensong. Choral Evensong is an evening prayer service that is delivered mostly through song, offering a restful, reflective time to worship God and pause from the busy-ness of life. The choir performs live and is often highly skilled and well-trained.

More here-

https://churchleaders.com/news/international/310736-evensong-church-of-england-resurrects-tradition-attract-millennials.html?utm_source=outreach-cl-daily-nl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text-link&utm_campaign=cl-daily-nl&maropost_id=743178810&mpweb=256-4632457-743178810

God's words and liturgy's echo

From Christian Century-

The historian of liturgy Hughes Oliphant Old once observed that “prayer, particularly Christian prayer, uses biblical language. . . . The Bible contains a vast number of paradigms for prayer and a thesaurus of words to handle the unique experience of prayer.” The Book of Common Prayer is a paradigmatic instance of the use of biblical language in prayer. If you are familiar with that tradition of prayers, you know more Bible than you realize.

Indeed, at a Sunday Eucharist in the Episcopal Church, words of scripture are almost the first words we say. After an opening hymn, the priest and the congregation exchange a greeting. During the season of Lent, that greeting is “Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins. His mercy endures forever.” During the season of Easter, it’s “Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.” 
During the rest of the year, the greeting is “Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And blessed be his kingdom, now and forever. Amen.”

More here-

https://www.christiancentury.org/article/gods-words-and-liturgys-echo

IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, A SAINT FOR ANGLICANS?

From The Living Church-

Anglican veneration of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the author of the Spiritual Exercises and founder of the Society of Jesus, at first glance appears odd or completely illogical. Unlike other theologians venerated by Anglicans, such as St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas, Ignatius’ work follows the Reformation, and stands in stark opposition to many of the distinguishing tenets of Anglicanism. The Jesuit Order was founded by St. Ignatius in Rome in 1540, six years after the 1534 English Act of Supremacy in which Henry VIII declared himself “Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England.” In contrast to Henry’s denial of papal supremacy, the priests in Ignatius’ new order were required to take a fourth vow (in addition to the traditional monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience) in which they “further promise a special obedience to the sovereign pontiff in regard to the missions, according to the same Apostolic Letters and the Constitutions” (Constitutions S.J., N°527). Moreover, in his letter regarding prayer for the nations, Ignatius, writing in 1553, commented that

Since the order of charity by which we must love the entire body of the Church in Jesus Christ her head requires that remedies be applied especially to that part of the body which is seriously and dangerously ill, we have determined that to the extent of our weak powers, we ought to devote the Society’s efforts with particular zeal to the aid of England, Germany, and the northern nations imperiled by the grievous disease of heresy.[1]

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/07/31/ignatius-of-loyola-a-saint-for-anglicans/

Liturgy for transgender transitions?

From Patheos-

There are liturgies that go with birth, coming of age, getting married, and dying.  Now it is being proposed to develop a liturgy to mark gender transitions.

The Church of England has voted to affirm transgendered individuals and to study developing a liturgy that would solemnize the decision or medical procedures whereby a man assumes a new identity as a woman, or a woman assumes a new identity as a man.

This would seem to stop short of re-baptism, as some transgender activists have called for.
This could go along with other liturgies for contemporary culture.  Some churches offer divorce ceremonies.  What other occasions might call for a liturgical blessing from liberal churches?

More here-

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2017/07/liturgy-for-transgender-transitions-draft/

I Don’t Want a Celebration of Life, I Want a Burial Service

From Anglican Pastor-

When I die, please don’t call my burial service a Celebration of Life. Don’t get me wrong, I hope that people will want to celebrate my life. I just don’t want this to replace my Christian burial.

I want to be buried according to the rites of a Christian. I want to be one more brother in Christ, saved by grace, who died in him and will rise with him. I want to be buried like those who have gone before me.

Grief and Joy

Death is a terrible thing. The burial rite acknowledges the grief and pain of death. It doesn’t hide away from sorrow and loss or need to pretend that death doesn’t happen. Yet it includes both sorrow and joy. “Happy are those who die in the Lord” and “O worthy and eternal Judge, do not let the pains of death turn us away from you at our last hour.” Its all there in a beautiful both/and.

More here-

http://anglicanpastor.com/i-dont-want-a-celebration-of-life-i-want-a-burial-service/

The Fascinating Story Behind the Rarest of Liturgical Devices: the Crotalus

From Church Pop-

The Holy Triduum is the shortest – but most important! – liturgical season of the year. Beginning with the liturgy on the evening of Holy Thursday, it lasts three days until Easter Sunday.

Due to some unique rules for the Triduum, if you attend Triduum liturgies, you may hear one of the rarest of liturgical instruments: the crotalus.

The what? Here’s an explanation.

In the Roman Rite, altar bells are not supposed to be rung after the Gloria in the liturgy on the evening of Holy Thursday, and are supposed to remain unused until the Gloria on Holy Saturday. This is supposed to make things more somber as we remember the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But, during this short period of time, is anything supposed to take its place? That’s where the crotalus comes in. The Church’s liturgical rubrics don’t prescribe a replacement for altar bells, but there is a long-standing tradition of using a wooden clapper or noise-maker in its place. This serves to both mark the same events as the altar bells, but in a less “sweet” way and thus maintain the somber tone.

More here- 

https://churchpop.com/2016/03/23/rarest-liturgical-objects-crotalus/

‘LET THE LITURGY BE’

From The Living Church-

To speak of mission is, in every instance, for the Church to speak of the being of God. The fundamental missions are the begetting of the Son by the Father, and the procession of the Spirit from the Father through the Son. To put this far too briefly, we can distinguish (but not separate) the being of God in himself, the “ontological” Trinity, and the being of God in relation to the created world, the “economic” Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that God is ever pouring himself out in love. This is first a description of his being. But it also describes his relationship with the world, which he was under no compulsion whatsoever to make.

The mission of the Son is nothing but to receive the love that is bestowed upon him from the Father, and to return that love to the Father in an act of counter-bestowal (and to complete the picture we might say that the kiss bestowed upon this exchange is the Holy Spirit). This dynamic exchange of love is just who God is. But in terms of the economic Trinity, the mission of the Son is the Father sending him into the world to be human: a full, complete, sinless, authentic human being. The Father gave the Son that mission, and the Son freely accepted it, not reckoning his divinity as something to cling to (cf. Phil. 2:6), but emptying himself in complete humility, which is to say complete obedience. The result was his death. He died because, although he was fully human, no one else was: everyone else was a sinner.

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2016/12/09/let-the-liturgy-be/

Churches need incense

From The Living Church-

For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among all nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. — Malachi 1:11

Since the Reformation, using incense in church has become a true badge of Catholicism in the West, even though its use is not discussed widely by the Reformers. Eastern Orthodox Christians simply take it for granted. John Calvin lumped it in with all kinds of other vain ceremonial trappings including “holy garments” and even “an altar” in his commentary on the Gospel of John. To Calvin, the worship “in spirit and in truth” that Jesus describes to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:23 has been completely obscured by popery, whose “shadows are not less thick than they formerly were under the Jewish religion.” To Calvin, religion is not about stuff.

More here

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2015/10/26/churches-need-incense/

Communiqué from the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation 2015

From ACNS-

Rites of Corporate Reconciliation

1. The International Anglican Liturgical Consultation met in Montreal, Canada from the 3rd to 8th August 2015. The Consultation was warmly welcomed and appreciated the facilities placed at its disposal by the Montreal Diocesan Synod Office. The Anglican Communion Office was represented at the meeting by the Revd Canon Dr John Gibaut, the Director of Unity, Faith and Order for the Anglican Communion.

2. Members were present from Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia, Australia, Canada, England, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Scotland, the Solomon Islands, Southern Africa, the United States of America, Uruguay and Wales. Unfortunately some members were again unable to attend the consultation because of visa problems.

3. We were able to support the attendance of some members through the bursary fund. Significant bursary donations will be needed to secure this assistance for future meetings.

More here-

http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2015/08/communique-from-the-international-anglican-liturgical-consultation-2015.aspx

Traditional Worship Is the Future

From Huffington-

Conservative Christians love to get their knickers in a twist over various things from time to time such as the horrifying possibility that a victim of sex trafficking might seek an abortion after a rape, or the completely made up issue of "religious discrimination" where apparently roaming gangs of LGBT couples are going around forcing god-fearing business owners to treat them with respect (or at least like any other paying customer).

Politics aside, a perpetual source of gleeful angst is when someone formerly deemed "one of us" dares to nuance an obscure theological teaching about heaven (Rob Bell), dares to be honest about doubt in the life of faith (Ryan Bell), dares, heaven forfend, to make a slight lateral move from Christian pop to secular pop (Amy Grant), or worst of all, becomes Episcopalian!

In the most recent kerfuffle, Christian author and blogger Rachel Held Evans has been excoriated in advance of her upcoming book, Searching For Sunday, where she speaks about her faith journey from Evangelical roots to sacramental worship that has led her to her current worshipping community at an Episcopal church. (And for the record, she herself points out, she's not even officially Episcopalian having not yet been confirmed).

More here-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vr-marianne-zahn/traditional-worship-is-the-future_b_7090656.html

Feeding the Five Thousand

From The Living Church-

When I was a very young man I made a conscious decision to be a church musician. I loved playing the organ, singing, and making music any way I could. I liked the men and women around me who were leaders in church music and found real joy in my studies at New York’s Union Theological Seminary in the late 1960s. After nearly 60 years of active service in music ministry I have seen drastic changes in how laity and clergy perceive what I do. I have directed the music in 11 different churches, mostly Episcopal but also Presbyterian and Methodist, with some deputizing in Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches. Whenever I served for more than a year we saw substantial growth in choir membership and more participation in congregational singing.

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/feeding-five-thousand

How the sign of peace disturbs me

From Catholic Herald-  (Snog?)

Isn’t ironic that the bit of the Mass where we exchange a “sign of peace” is the least peaceful bit of all? Everyone gets up, shakes hands, says hello, gives hugs and sometimes kisses. I’ve even witnessed a full-blown snog. It breaks up the Mass and, when conveyed with zealotry, transforms it into something it’s really not supposed to be: part hippie love fest, part election campaign (there’s always one fellow who dashes through the pews, clasping hands like he’s chasing votes). I don’t like it. Sometimes I don’t do it at all – which can cause great offence that I instantly regret.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to kneel it out during a church service in Kent. When the time came for the peace, I got to my knees and started praying. I heard the “peace be with you” fluttering around my head, and opened one eye to see if the flesh-pressing was up. Unfortunately, I caught the gaze of a nice old man in front. He might’ve thought I was confused, or foreign, or both, and so extended a hand to me. “Peace be with you!” he boomed. It had been so long since I’d replied, that I forgot the words. So I answered: “You too!” Something about the way I said it communicated disdain. The poor man withdrew his hand, looking deeply upset. In another triumph for Catholic guilt, I left Mass feeling wretched.

More here-

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/09/05/how-the-sign-of-peace-disturbs-me/

We Need More Than Liturgy

From Christianity Today-

I’ll give another example. This time I’ll pick on my own communion, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). Its bishops recently approved a new liturgy highlighting an older rite that calls congregants to recognize any unfinished business and to ask and grant forgiveness of one another before Communion. I find this a wonderful retrieval, as it beautifully captures the stress Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians gives to waiting for and discerning each other as the Body of Christ. But does this not require ACNA’s leaders to make peace with the Episcopal Church it departed from, often in very unhappy circumstances? If not, why not? How can the confession rite form the denomination from here on out, especially if its applicability is already considered conditional? Are these good and just forms, and will decision-makers hold themselves accountable to the people?

More here-

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/august-web-only/we-need-more-than-liturgy.html?paging=off

Synod seeks to amend robes canon

From The church Times (Really? Robe canons?)

WEARING robes could become optional for those officiating at some services, after the General Synod passed a motion calling for draft legislation to relax the current rules.

After a debate on Saturday at the University of York, the Synod passed a private member's motion by the Revd Christopher Hobbs, from the diocese of London, which called for robing to become optional in some circumstances.

"For holy communion there is no flexibility," Mr Hobbs said. "It makes no difference if it is café-style in a pub, outside in a field, in a hotel lounge or lobby. Surplice and alb is required, with scarf or stole."

Many members of the Synod agreed, arguing that, in some contexts, the wearing of robes was inappropriate or unhelpful for mission. Sam Follett, the youngest member of the Synod, said that, for Fresh Expressions, robes would often get in the way of reaching the unchurched.

More here-

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2014/18-july/news/uk/synod-seeks-to-amend-robes-canon

THERE IS PROBLEM IN CHRISTENDOM, FAITHFUL BEWARE – PRIMATE OKOH WARNS

From Nigeria-

The Primate of All Nigeria, Anglican Communion, the Most Revd Nicholas Okoh, weekend, warned Christian faithful to beware of false doctrine that can push them against God, noting that there is problem in Christendom.

Primate while condemning the action of the Church of England to rewrite christening rite said it is unfortunate that, the world because of knowledge are now trying to replace God with science.

The Church of England is trying out a new baptism service which drops all mention of the devil and sin from their Book of Common Prayer.

Instead of asking parents and godparents to ‘reject the devil and all rebellion against God’, it asks them to make a single broad pledge to ‘reject evil’.

Among other phrases abandoned in the experimental new christening rite are those referring to ‘the deceit and corruption of evil’, ‘the sins that separate us from God and neighbour’, and a promise to ‘fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ against sin, the world and the devil.’

More here-

http://www.codewit.com/nigeria-news/21382-there-is-problem-in-christendom-faithful-beware-primate-okoh-warns