conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

Have you emailed him to ask him what he thinks and means? He'll be able to tell you, if he's willing. We won't, no matter how willing we may be.

Well, Vatican II is an example for the church how not to try to be relevant! It ended up being about as hip today as paisley Nehru jackets. Or the 'Star Wars' canon in the new American Prayer Book (my Central Church friend Charley read it to me once at a party).

More seriously 'relevance' for Christians is, for example, 'How do I apply the teachings and grace of God in my "real" life, as a newspaper sub-editor, or son, or husband?' and so on, not 'How can we have the laity do the clergy's jobs in church?' or 'Let's have a ukelele at Mass!' IOW how do I make my everyday life apply that grace/conform to the reality explained in those teachings? (This conforming to reality was how the Schoolmen rightly understood 'reason' as in Hooker's mythical three-legged stool.)

Interestingly and ironically functional congregationalism has preserved a few traditional Anglo-Catholic parishes to this day as the PCC/vestry and search committee make sure the priest stands in the tradition of that parish. (In the RC system they'd all be squashed.)

As for women, on the feast of the Assumption I met a lovely, very intelligent young one who's just graduated from a small, well-thought-of liberal college and... is a traditional Anglo-Catholic vocation. She wants to be a nun. Anyway, she is a convert from conservative Protestantism and told me that unlike the Catholic, sacerdotalist argument for the apostolic ministry as handed down (in persona Christi etc.) the Protestants who object to women in authority in church (1 Timothy about headship and all that) often have NO place for women to exercise ANY kind of ministry. Not so the church. Like Mr LaBouf my father confessor was taught by old-fashioned Sisters of St Joseph and loved every minute of it (no first-hand 'how the nun hit me' stories... speaking of 'chicks with authority', LOL). Fr Andrew Greeley, not my kind of churchman (he has a funny sentimental, condescending liking for tradition) but a legitimate sociologist, has pointed out that those nuns were often among the best-educated women with advanced degrees and so on. Not to mention running hospitals and suchlike. Managing one of those systems... now *that's* authority. I'm *not* saying things were idyllic then for everybody but as you say, 'I'm just sayin''.

As for the unhappy American Baptist congo, based on what little I know of that very decentralised polity the secular court may be a last resort for them.

Megan, I thought about it. But I need to get my frustration out first. I don't want to be uncharitable.

That being said, what do you think it means for you? Let's put his ideas to the side. How do you understand the notion of making faith relevant?

My first bit of shock at reading the article was, "Wait, why did they hire him? Didn't they ask about his theology?" My experience with the ABC is that they have the same call/interview process that ECUSA does. No one is randomly assigned, for good or ill, to a church.

Tripp, I'm as confused as you are. I think, especially after the discussion over at my place, I can see where Fogey's coming from, even if I wouldn't necessarily agree. :) But that just leaves me as confused as you about the "relevance" comment. That seems like a cop-out, a way to shake off criticism more than an explanation. You could toss that comment out any time, at any place. "I'm doing what I'm doing to make church more relevant to the world today." And how do you question that? It sounds so appropriate! We all know that church needs to be more relevant to the current world situation, otherwise we'll lose members! Christ wants us to make the Word relevant to the people we serve!

But then you did deeper and find that, without a lot more explanation, it means nothing.

I'm equally confused: If a group of nuns was able to teach a man spiritual values decades ago, did something change other than his theology?

There is definitely more to this then what we are reading. There was probably a very large lawsuit waiting to be filed if he had given another reason for the dismissal; I think this interpretation is a cop-out. Will be interesting to see if Tony Campolla has anything to say about this situation.

Well for one I think it is one of those phrases we use to convince ourselves we are being faithful when we just might not have a clue.
I think this language is attempting to get at what the Young Fogey describes. Though most times when this is the focus you get things like the "Star Wars" canon in the BCP and much worse things in non-liturgical traditions.
I wrote a post at the end of May critiquing this focus on relavance that is so popular these days. That's pretty much what I think.

Mom,

You bring up an interesting point. God forbid you are correct. If the interpretation is simply some way to cover their tracks as they reshuffle leadership...well, that is a different issue all together.

Larry, I will link to the post that you reference.

Mark J, I hope the nuns did right by you! ;-)

YF, someday you and I will tangle over the V2 stuff. Heh. I think I'll learn a lot. But that aside, you are right that the absense of sacramental theology compells more literal Baptists to reduce leadership to a men's club. There are no places in the church for women other than the pot luck. I doubt that the home is an option for leadership in many cases.

As a non-Baptist with an interest in language, he might mean one of two things: (a) Making the church relevant to the world = making sure those in/of the world do not mistake the church for just a pretty, tuneful outpost of the world, with ice cream socials. (b) He could be coming from a place, culturally, where making the church relevant to the world means making the church more socially conservative because the world is/should be more socially conservative. I have a hard time believing it's (b). You may have hit on something in "an escape or alternative community," but I'd like to think that the guy is more sophisticated than that. As to churchly relevance in general, it always sounds to me like code for "unspecified outreach missions," and I'm usually not the person that religious thinkers are aiming for when they want to make faith more relevant. In my ideal world, it would mean making theology less obscure and unwieldy by giving us a clear historical and cultural perspective on the scriptures. Etymologically, "relevance" is related both to lightening one's load, taking possession of property, and lifting up (e.g. as an example). Making faith a lighter burden, making faith something you can own (up to), making faith a more widely-recognized virtue... you know, juxtaposed with the (eerily cohesive) texts for this sunday, the puzzle of religious relevance seems very apposite, if not downright sermonesque.

I can grant the ecclesiology behind an all-male clergy. I may not agree with it, but I know where it comes from and those who support and practice all male clergy have a lot more biblical standing than those who do not. What gets me, and what makes the pastor's statement sound odd to me, is that this woman was not serving in a clerical role.

In my view, what we allow and provide for in church should be a reflection of our truest values and beliefs. Two examples:

A)If I swear outside of Church, I let myself off the hook, but I make sure to never swear in Church. I don't think it's right to say F*** and S*** anywhere, probably, but I don't swear in church.

B) I am not always that friendly on the street, but I try to greet everyone and and be as friendly and welcoming of everyone I see outside of the church, in the narthex or in Founder's Hall before or after church.

In A, I'm keeping something (generally bad) that I allow outside of church from coming into church. I keep it from coming in because I think that it is not sacred. There's a reason it's called profanity.

In B, I hold myself to a higher standard of hospitality in and around church, because hopefully, if I do it a little while each week, it will become something I do, and others do, even when we or they are not around church.

In either case, there's an admission that some of the things that we do or don't in church are more correct, more (universally?) appropriate than what we do out of church. The way I see it, the pastor's actions either fall into A) excluding the profane or B) holding the church community, when meeting and acting as church, to a higher standard than in the members' everyday lives.

Either way, for this pastor, I don't think that he can honestly say that he thinks women can do any job outside of church and limit a woman's ability to teach sunday school. If there's more to this case –questions about this woman's competency, for example— then I sure wish it would come to light, becuase I think this guy's talkin' some doublespeak.

'I think, especially after the discussion over at my place, I can see where Fogey's coming from, even if I wouldn't necessarily agree. :)'

That makes it all worthwhile. Thank you, Father.