A Floridian Rip Van Winkle Meets the Body Snatchers
I am a fifth generation Floridian. My nephews and niece are six generation Florida crackers. My ancestors were among the first settlers in north Florida and pioneers in then rural Dade County. I have lived in every part of this state from the southeast coast where I was born to the Gulf Coast to the Panhandle. With the exception of some summers abroad and a four year hiatus to northern California (which I will always see as my second home), I have lived in this state all of my 54 years.
These days in the post-Jeb Bush era in Florida, I find myself on the set of a bizarre movie in which Rip Van Winkle meets the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Daily we see legislators who look like human beings, sound like human beings, but it is clear they are not fully human. Both brain and heart seem to be missing though the greed function is still intact. And what seems clear is that they are here to take over and eventually destroy this state recasting it in their own image. Like Rip Van Winkle, I look around me, shake my head and wonder how long I've been asleep and how I could have awoken to such a different Florida from the one in which I grew up.
Amidst the latest gossip about Brittany and Heath this past week were stories of public school closings and teacher layoffs. At the university where I work, the administration is asking departments to consider how they will cut 20% from their budgets even as the university continues to admit ever more students to the university. This translates to cutting positions and in some cases, whole programs. A young woman who adjuncts for the department teaches in nearby Seminole County, a Republican bastion and a wealthy county. She reports an assembly in which it was announced 23 of her colleagues would be let go at the end of the current school year.
This is unprecedented in Florida. And while such cuts are happening in other places around the country (California was announcing 10% cuts in public school budgets when I was there in March), Florida was already a poorly funded system to begin with. And it's hardly just the schools being slashed. Health care to seniors, the indigent and children are on the chopping block. Any spending which ameliorates human suffering is in danger in this state.
That hardly means the legislature has not been busy. They've busily debated whether to pass laws to criminalize droopy pants which reveal underwear. They've passed a resolution which apologizes for slavery a mere 143 years after its end (with no financial reparation, of course). And they've made it possible in a state where gun violence has become the norm of public schools, convenience stores, club parking lots and now amusement parks to bring guns to work. So, a less educated public can now tote guns into public spaces but only so long as they pull their pants up and feel duly sorry that our white ancestors enslaved our black ancestors. Fellini could not have written a better script if he tried.
Of course, such idiocy could not occur without a lapdog press. And, in all fairness, we are participants in this devil's bargain. It's a bit like the Soviet Union where the people pretended to work and the government pretended to pay them. Here, the corporate media pretends to inform us with half truths and we pretend they're informing us. Of course, how much press real news stories get in the first place is always dependant upon the latest "breaking news" of Brittany's latest meltdown or the most recent shootout. (Isn't something that breaks into our consciousness simply news?)
While our legislators have been busy defunding the state government and dealing with non-issues, our local representative of the global corporate media monopoly has repeatedly told the lie that the cuts in our schools and social services are due to unexpected drops in revenues due to the bust in the inflated housing market. Such explanations are only too absurd for anyone with the capacity and the will to recall the last election when Floridians voted themselves $250 tax rebates at the expense of the very schools and social services now being slashed. And, if they sift through the "news" about the local corporate entertainment unit Orlando Magic and about how live broadcasts from one's laptop can provide "reality show" entertainment for the world, they might even find the story about the proposed 25% further cut in the property taxes which support schools which appears headed for our ballot this fall. Sadly, I have no doubt that Floridians will both instantly recognize that such cuts are socially irresponsible and self-centered but behind the curtain of the voting booths will readily pull the lever to approve them.
There is an apocryphal story of the pastor of a small parish who began his annual stewardship sermon with the following: "Today I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we have the money to operate our parish another year. The bad news is that it's still in your pockets." Florida has devolved into a state of wealthy haves - retirees and corporations - whose bought and paid for legislators have protected their interests at the expense of all the rest of us have not schmucks. The responses of local governments struggling to keep their heads above water has been to increase tolls, fees and charges for services, and to pass local option sales taxes. All of these are by definition the epitome of regressive taxation, a reverse Robin Hood where the poor carry the burden for the whole society while the wealthy enjoy the free ride and demand services.
What is more troubling to me is that I see this trend toward privatization and patronage, toward defunding public institutions while demanding ever more micromanaged accountability, toward providing a good life for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else as representing a looming failure of the social contract. Locke's theory, which underpins the American republic - itself in danger of floundering and failing - provides that the people agree to give up some of their natural rights - life, liberty and property - to adequately and consistently fund the government thus formed whose duty is to protect those remaining natural rights which remain. The social contract is not about individuals. It's about the "general welfare" our Preamble speaks of. It recognizes Ronald Reagan's question of "Are you better off than you were four years ago" to be a betrayal of every citizen's social responsibility to the common good.
The current Speaker of the Florida House is a handsome grandson of Batista era exiles to Miami. The US supported Batista regime featured American corporate control over virtually every aspect of Cuba, widespread organized crime connected to gambling and prostitution, low literacy rates, squalid housing and miserable public health. It may have been good for an elite few who benefited from the misery of many. But it also set the stage for a Castro socialist revolution in which anything would be seen as better than more Batista misery. There is no small amount of irony in seeing the grandson of Batista exiles leading the charge to make Florida look much like the Cuba of his forebears.
But what troubles me most is the apparent indifference of most Floridians to this melt down of a state which once held great promise. What a far cry from the Florida of the 1970s in which hope for a new Florida with good schools and a decent standard of living for all were actually considered to be a possible dream. But Bushes and Batista legacies do not come to power without the consent of the governed. What troubles my soul is the knowledge that at some level, this is the Florida that today's residents of Florida - 3/4 of whom were not actually born here- either want or are willing to accept. As I rub the Rip Van Winkle sleep from eyes, I wonder, how could this have happened? And I wonder what legacy my generation of Floridians will bestow upon the sixth generation now growing up in this state I once loved and returned from California to serve.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Contempt of Calvin and the Bare Minimum of Faith
To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, it is to kill a man. When the Genevans killed Servetus, they did not defend a doctrine, they killed a man. - Sebastian Castellion, Contra Libellum Calvini
I am currently reading a provocative book by Perez Zagorin entitled How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U. Press, 2003) for which I must thank my dear friend and fellow Francis-Clare Community member Leecie Doyle who continues to bring me articles and book reviews to aid my ongoing study and reflection. Among the many interesting points that Zagorin provides his reader is his history of Sebastian Castellio whose battles against the zealous, vindictive and murderous John Calvin are well detailed. If I thought I disliked Calvin before with his distant, disapproving father, er, god, whose smug, self-affirming elect regularly demonstrated their condescension toward the many damned (translation: those who didn't agree with them), I think my ability to look with much human kindness toward Calvin has been definitely strained beyond repair.
Catellio was quick to point out that there are very few genuine articles of faith upon which a case of heresy could be made. As he regularly said, contempt of Calvin was hardly heresy. It simply meant people disagreed with him about their faith, a pattern, he noted, that is much more consonant with Christian history than any appearances of agreement, most of them coming under the coercive power of tyrants like Calvin. In one of his many works taking Calvin to task, Castellio said, "After a careful investigation into the meaning of the term heretic, I can discover no more than this, that we regard those as heretics with whom we disagree." [De haereticus] Castellio repeatedly asserted what today seems obvious: the fact we don't agree about religion does not mean religious holders of power are somehow invested with a "Kill One Heretic Free" card.
What has struck me repeatedly as I've read Zagorin's book is that notions of orthodoxy are readily used to prevent the critical consideration of ideas the asserters of orthodoxy consider sacred to them but which may or may not have much to say to others. There is a myth pattern buzzing around just under the surface of most notions of orthodoxy that goes like this: At some point in Christian history, everyone believed the same things, liked each other and got along famously. Of course, that's a common myth pattern called "the Golden Age" and versions of that myth pattern can be found in most human religious myth systems including a fall from an idyllic past which accounts for the conflicts of the present. It also is often accompanied by notions of the need to appease a tyrannical deity in order to get back to the idyllic past. It's a pattern well developed by Calvin and his Reformation era revisionists who posited a pure "early church" from which the corrupt Roman Catholic institution devolved.
The reality is that the followers of Jesus did not agree among each other about who he was and what he was about. The followers of Paul - who himself never knew Jesus - agreed even less, as his letters to the various churches readily reflect. A common thread in those letters goes something like this: Would you all at least try to get along? Would you try to act like you like each other? Would you exercise a little humility upon occasion and consider that your take on things might not be the final word but perhaps one of many words one could say about the matters at hand? People don't write letters like that unless they need to. The reality is that the movement which emerged around the figure of Jesus who quickly became the christos through the hagiography of Paul was never monolithic, never univocal in their statements about their faith and were at least as contentious among each other as Christians are today.
There was no Golden Age despite our most cherished wishful thinking, just a very contentious human phenomenon that continues today. Our battles within Anglicanism and other churches today are much more like the early church than the mythical "early church" constructed out of whole cloth by the Reformers. Hence, when we hear people using words like "orthodox," which by implication means
By "Love G_d" I mean that one recognizes the intimacy with which creature and Creator are related. G-d is as close as the ruach, the very breath we breathe and everywhere we look around us, we see the divine, as Francis taught us. Most indigenous religions are religions of gratitude, of recognition of the goodness of the Creator and humanity's contingency upon that goodness. To be grateful, to recognize and value our intimate relatedness to our Creator, is to Love G_d.
By "Follow Jesus" I mean that Jesus provides an example of a particular way of life marked by awareness of those in need of human attention - the poor, the sick, the outcast. Jesus' life is marked by post-conventional moral reasoning - forgiving one's enemies, forgiving debts, resisting imperial evils. Jesus recognizes that the relatedness to which human beings are called as the means of being fully human can only be maintained by forgiveness of human imperfection. Moreover, the myth pattern around Jesus and resurrection embody the very human hope for life after death, a hope I share even as I recognize there is little empirical evidence to suggest that hope will be realized. Jesus knew hope to be essential to human welfare. Following Jesus provides human beings with a means of being fully human in this life and hope that a life to come will follow.
By "Be the Kingdom," I mean that the Way of Jesus existed then and now in a web of social relatedness. If the poor are blessed, there are implications for socially constructed politico-economic systems which perpetuate and exploit poverty. If enemies are to be forgiven and not combated, there are implications for imperial systems that invade other countries and destroy other peoples. If the value of being neighbor to the other requires transcending self-interest and historical-cultural prejudices to assist the non-Samaritan on the road to Jericho, there are implications for an unlimited consumerist system which teaches its pupils "It's all about me."
So what of the stuff of ordinary orthodox/heretic conflict? What of Jesus' divine nature, of Trinitarian theology, of original sin and atonement, of the validity of the sacraments and religious orders? Like Castellio, I recognize those concerns to be highly important to the holders of institutional power as well as to those whose primary concerns are for existential security. But, ultimately, they are not the essentials of a faith worth professing nor are they subjects upon which followers of Jesus have ever agreed upon. Salvation is G-d's business, not ours, and one I am happy to leave in G-d's capable hands. The church on a good day is a means of following the Way of Jesus and living into relatedness with G-d and each other but never an end in itself. And notions of "validity" in regard to orders or sacraments are, well, just plain silly and self-serving. These are the matters over which well-intentioned people may readily disagree, as Castellio observed, but they are hardly matters of an ultimate nature upon which the orthodox may cast the heretics into outer darkness, much less feel empowered to kill another child of G-d.
Clearly there is more to say about these ideas but not today. My grading is calling to me and I've feigned deafness this morning long beyond its plausibility. Besides, somehow I missed the "revealed truth" gene and inherited instead the "work in progress" gene. This is a reflective beginning point at a time in my life when I am examining from whence I have come, where I am now and where G-d might be leading me in the future.
Stay tuned.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, it is to kill a man. When the Genevans killed Servetus, they did not defend a doctrine, they killed a man. - Sebastian Castellion, Contra Libellum Calvini
I am currently reading a provocative book by Perez Zagorin entitled How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U. Press, 2003) for which I must thank my dear friend and fellow Francis-Clare Community member Leecie Doyle who continues to bring me articles and book reviews to aid my ongoing study and reflection. Among the many interesting points that Zagorin provides his reader is his history of Sebastian Castellio whose battles against the zealous, vindictive and murderous John Calvin are well detailed. If I thought I disliked Calvin before with his distant, disapproving father, er, god, whose smug, self-affirming elect regularly demonstrated their condescension toward the many damned (translation: those who didn't agree with them), I think my ability to look with much human kindness toward Calvin has been definitely strained beyond repair.
Catellio was quick to point out that there are very few genuine articles of faith upon which a case of heresy could be made. As he regularly said, contempt of Calvin was hardly heresy. It simply meant people disagreed with him about their faith, a pattern, he noted, that is much more consonant with Christian history than any appearances of agreement, most of them coming under the coercive power of tyrants like Calvin. In one of his many works taking Calvin to task, Castellio said, "After a careful investigation into the meaning of the term heretic, I can discover no more than this, that we regard those as heretics with whom we disagree." [De haereticus] Castellio repeatedly asserted what today seems obvious: the fact we don't agree about religion does not mean religious holders of power are somehow invested with a "Kill One Heretic Free" card.
What has struck me repeatedly as I've read Zagorin's book is that notions of orthodoxy are readily used to prevent the critical consideration of ideas the asserters of orthodoxy consider sacred to them but which may or may not have much to say to others. There is a myth pattern buzzing around just under the surface of most notions of orthodoxy that goes like this: At some point in Christian history, everyone believed the same things, liked each other and got along famously. Of course, that's a common myth pattern called "the Golden Age" and versions of that myth pattern can be found in most human religious myth systems including a fall from an idyllic past which accounts for the conflicts of the present. It also is often accompanied by notions of the need to appease a tyrannical deity in order to get back to the idyllic past. It's a pattern well developed by Calvin and his Reformation era revisionists who posited a pure "early church" from which the corrupt Roman Catholic institution devolved.
The reality is that the followers of Jesus did not agree among each other about who he was and what he was about. The followers of Paul - who himself never knew Jesus - agreed even less, as his letters to the various churches readily reflect. A common thread in those letters goes something like this: Would you all at least try to get along? Would you try to act like you like each other? Would you exercise a little humility upon occasion and consider that your take on things might not be the final word but perhaps one of many words one could say about the matters at hand? People don't write letters like that unless they need to. The reality is that the movement which emerged around the figure of Jesus who quickly became the christos through the hagiography of Paul was never monolithic, never univocal in their statements about their faith and were at least as contentious among each other as Christians are today.
There was no Golden Age despite our most cherished wishful thinking, just a very contentious human phenomenon that continues today. Our battles within Anglicanism and other churches today are much more like the early church than the mythical "early church" constructed out of whole cloth by the Reformers. Hence, when we hear people using words like "orthodox," which by implication means
- that our position is consonant with that of "the tradition" and thus by implication carries the imprimatur of G-d himself, and
- that those who disagree are heretics,
what we're hearing is simply an attempt to play a trump card, to remove the ideas from discussion and to prevent their examination in the light of critical thought. It's easy to have all the answers when one prevents any questions from being posed. Notions of "orthodox" are thinly veiled self-affirmations, attempted end runs on the question of credibility and, given the complex history of Christian thought, little more.
So, what difference does all this make to me? Maybe a lot. I find myself on the other side now of a dark night of the soul in which for a time I saw myself alternatively as post-Christian if not ex-Christian. I had for awhile thrown up my hands and excused myself from further wrestling with the phenomenon of having Jesus and his ensuing faith tradition normatively defined in the public eye in the most superficial and superstitious manner. My recent journey to the spring meeting of the Jesus Seminar has helped me recognize that I am not alone in my unwillingness to either simply buy into what is largely unmindful patent formulae or alternatively excuse myself from the table. Misery likes company, I guess. But it's a hell of a lot more authentic than buying into a given paradigm simply for the cheap mutual affirmation and superficial existential security it provides.
So, here's where Castellio has helped me most. As Zagorin reports, Castellio, much in the vein of Erasmus (one of my all time heroes) saw the essentials of the faith as few. While I have long heard the line from the 39 Articles quotes, "all things necessary for salvation" in relation to scripture, I had never really considered that "all things" might be a handful or less.
When I was ordained deacon, my service booklet cover contained the wisdom of the prophet Micah: "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with G-d?" That would be a good minimalist credo for certain. Over the years since ordination I find myself coming back to the two Great Commandments of Judaism which Jesus would certainly have known and is quoted in Matthew's gospel as repeating: Love G_d with all you have and love your neighbor as yourself. That also seems like an adequate credo that does not require the ongoing contextualizing in one's head and crossing of one's fingers that the weekly recitation of either the Apostles or Nicene Creeds require of anyone with the ability to critically reflect upon their faith.
Monday morning as I was awakening, my small still voice was whispering in my ear the following "essentials" that perhaps reflect where I am in my faith journey today:
- Love G-d
- Follow Jesus
- Be the Kingdom
By "Love G_d" I mean that one recognizes the intimacy with which creature and Creator are related. G-d is as close as the ruach, the very breath we breathe and everywhere we look around us, we see the divine, as Francis taught us. Most indigenous religions are religions of gratitude, of recognition of the goodness of the Creator and humanity's contingency upon that goodness. To be grateful, to recognize and value our intimate relatedness to our Creator, is to Love G_d.
By "Follow Jesus" I mean that Jesus provides an example of a particular way of life marked by awareness of those in need of human attention - the poor, the sick, the outcast. Jesus' life is marked by post-conventional moral reasoning - forgiving one's enemies, forgiving debts, resisting imperial evils. Jesus recognizes that the relatedness to which human beings are called as the means of being fully human can only be maintained by forgiveness of human imperfection. Moreover, the myth pattern around Jesus and resurrection embody the very human hope for life after death, a hope I share even as I recognize there is little empirical evidence to suggest that hope will be realized. Jesus knew hope to be essential to human welfare. Following Jesus provides human beings with a means of being fully human in this life and hope that a life to come will follow.
By "Be the Kingdom," I mean that the Way of Jesus existed then and now in a web of social relatedness. If the poor are blessed, there are implications for socially constructed politico-economic systems which perpetuate and exploit poverty. If enemies are to be forgiven and not combated, there are implications for imperial systems that invade other countries and destroy other peoples. If the value of being neighbor to the other requires transcending self-interest and historical-cultural prejudices to assist the non-Samaritan on the road to Jericho, there are implications for an unlimited consumerist system which teaches its pupils "It's all about me."
So what of the stuff of ordinary orthodox/heretic conflict? What of Jesus' divine nature, of Trinitarian theology, of original sin and atonement, of the validity of the sacraments and religious orders? Like Castellio, I recognize those concerns to be highly important to the holders of institutional power as well as to those whose primary concerns are for existential security. But, ultimately, they are not the essentials of a faith worth professing nor are they subjects upon which followers of Jesus have ever agreed upon. Salvation is G-d's business, not ours, and one I am happy to leave in G-d's capable hands. The church on a good day is a means of following the Way of Jesus and living into relatedness with G-d and each other but never an end in itself. And notions of "validity" in regard to orders or sacraments are, well, just plain silly and self-serving. These are the matters over which well-intentioned people may readily disagree, as Castellio observed, but they are hardly matters of an ultimate nature upon which the orthodox may cast the heretics into outer darkness, much less feel empowered to kill another child of G-d.
Clearly there is more to say about these ideas but not today. My grading is calling to me and I've feigned deafness this morning long beyond its plausibility. Besides, somehow I missed the "revealed truth" gene and inherited instead the "work in progress" gene. This is a reflective beginning point at a time in my life when I am examining from whence I have come, where I am now and where G-d might be leading me in the future.
Stay tuned.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Limits of Comprehensiveness ?
From today's email comes this question:
"Where do Episcopalians go to find the limits of inclusion in order that we might arrive at comprehensiveness? Who (and/or what) defines it? Answer THAT question and I think we are getting closer to what SHOULD be core for us." Charlie Holt cCentral Florida
Here's my response:
I think Charlie's question is worth serious consideration. Rev. Holt lives in a county that was estimated by the US Census Bureau in 2006 to be about 70% white, non-Hispanic. That means that 3 of every ten Seminole County residents are either African-American, Latino or Asian/American Indian. Most parishes in Seminole County do not reflect the population of the surrounding county. That picture becomes even more pointed in nearby Orlando in Orange County, where I live. It is home of more than one million people which this year has become, like its California counterpart, a minority/majority county with no single ethnic/racial group constituting a majority. While some parishes here have made efforts to become the multicultural reflection of the populace they serve, the reality is that most of the parishes reflect the upper middle class white populations to which the Episcopal Church has traditionally served as a chaplaincy.
What is sad about this reality is the missed opportunity it represents. At St. Philips, the parish from which I was ordained deacon in San Jose, CA - a metropolitan area which has had a minority/majority population for two decades now - the gospel was read each Sunday in several languages. The altars and symbols surrounding the seating in the round reflected the Asian, Latino, American Indian and African-American cultures which, together with the white suburban population which began the parish years before, contributed to a rich cultural tapestry. The clergy reflected its Asian, American Indian, African American, Latino as well as white non-Hispanic parishioners. This was a place which recognized cultural diversity as a strength, an asset and the Diocese of El Camino Real in which it was located had made great efforts to be an inviting place for its multicultural population to worship together as the many colored people of G-d with some success.
But multicultural diversity comes at a price for many. Peoples from different cultural backgrounds come with different worldviews and presumptions about the faith. Foregone conclusions about what "everybody knows" - from human sexuality to the essentials of the faith - come into question. People in healthy multicultural contexts are required to continually check their own presumptions. They are required to commit to continual personal, cultural and spiritual growth. Perhaps more importantly, those of us who are white, non-Hispanic, are accustomed to being in control of our society and its institutions. Multicultural institutions place many of us in a situation to which we are totally unaccustomed - being out of control, one of many, rather than being at the top of the decision making hierarchy.
What this reality translates to is a lot of hard work. It translates to the requirement that one endure cognitive dissonance and to question one's own motives. It translates to loosening the grip on understandings one thought one held with absolute certainty and the embrace of the humbling experience of recognizing the limits of one's thinking and experience. Little wonder many people are more ready to talk about the limits of comprehensiveness than to recognize and act upon the opportunities for growth and enrichment that exist right under their noses.
But there is a more fundamental aspect to this question that must be recognized. Implicit within Rev. Holt's question is the presumption that there must be limits to inclusion and comprehensiveness and that the church must somehow define and defend those borders. It is a common presumption but a presumption - not a self-evident fact - nonetheless.
It is hardly a revelation that human beings have historically tended to surround themselves with like-minded, like-situated people who most often look like them. Nor is it news that they do this because they seek security. Having all theological questions settled for all times is seen by many people as very important. By preventing those who are different from being present, one can effectively prevent troubling questions about one's attitudes, one's prejudices, one's worldview, and yes, one's faith from ever being raised. At a very basic level, it is the idol of comfort which is being worshipped, a rousing chorus of "Oh, Come Let Us Adore Us."
I think any of us who confront people with change - whether it be in the classroom as I do (having long ago given up any thoughts of serving in the Diocese of Central Florida) or in the General Conventions of the church - must be aware of the pastoral implications of that demand. What the Church is asking people like Charlie Holt and his suburban parish to do is to recognize the limits of what so many have brought to the process of being church - limits of thinking, limits of experience, limits of the heart, limits of the spirit. And then they are asked to justify those limits in the light of the Great Commandments - loving the G-d of the universe more than our beloved but limited constructions of G-d and loving our neighbors as ourselves. On a good day, it is far from an easy - or painless -task.
Before we can even begin to answer Rev. Holt's question, presuming it is not merely rhetorical, there is a preliminary question we must broach: How hard are you willing to work at it? To quote Charlie, "Answer THAT question and I think we are getting closer to what SHOULD be core for us."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From today's email comes this question:
"Where do Episcopalians go to find the limits of inclusion in order that we might arrive at comprehensiveness? Who (and/or what) defines it? Answer THAT question and I think we are getting closer to what SHOULD be core for us." Charlie Holt cCentral Florida
Here's my response:
I think Charlie's question is worth serious consideration. Rev. Holt lives in a county that was estimated by the US Census Bureau in 2006 to be about 70% white, non-Hispanic. That means that 3 of every ten Seminole County residents are either African-American, Latino or Asian/American Indian. Most parishes in Seminole County do not reflect the population of the surrounding county. That picture becomes even more pointed in nearby Orlando in Orange County, where I live. It is home of more than one million people which this year has become, like its California counterpart, a minority/majority county with no single ethnic/racial group constituting a majority. While some parishes here have made efforts to become the multicultural reflection of the populace they serve, the reality is that most of the parishes reflect the upper middle class white populations to which the Episcopal Church has traditionally served as a chaplaincy.
What is sad about this reality is the missed opportunity it represents. At St. Philips, the parish from which I was ordained deacon in San Jose, CA - a metropolitan area which has had a minority/majority population for two decades now - the gospel was read each Sunday in several languages. The altars and symbols surrounding the seating in the round reflected the Asian, Latino, American Indian and African-American cultures which, together with the white suburban population which began the parish years before, contributed to a rich cultural tapestry. The clergy reflected its Asian, American Indian, African American, Latino as well as white non-Hispanic parishioners. This was a place which recognized cultural diversity as a strength, an asset and the Diocese of El Camino Real in which it was located had made great efforts to be an inviting place for its multicultural population to worship together as the many colored people of G-d with some success.
But multicultural diversity comes at a price for many. Peoples from different cultural backgrounds come with different worldviews and presumptions about the faith. Foregone conclusions about what "everybody knows" - from human sexuality to the essentials of the faith - come into question. People in healthy multicultural contexts are required to continually check their own presumptions. They are required to commit to continual personal, cultural and spiritual growth. Perhaps more importantly, those of us who are white, non-Hispanic, are accustomed to being in control of our society and its institutions. Multicultural institutions place many of us in a situation to which we are totally unaccustomed - being out of control, one of many, rather than being at the top of the decision making hierarchy.
What this reality translates to is a lot of hard work. It translates to the requirement that one endure cognitive dissonance and to question one's own motives. It translates to loosening the grip on understandings one thought one held with absolute certainty and the embrace of the humbling experience of recognizing the limits of one's thinking and experience. Little wonder many people are more ready to talk about the limits of comprehensiveness than to recognize and act upon the opportunities for growth and enrichment that exist right under their noses.
But there is a more fundamental aspect to this question that must be recognized. Implicit within Rev. Holt's question is the presumption that there must be limits to inclusion and comprehensiveness and that the church must somehow define and defend those borders. It is a common presumption but a presumption - not a self-evident fact - nonetheless.
It is hardly a revelation that human beings have historically tended to surround themselves with like-minded, like-situated people who most often look like them. Nor is it news that they do this because they seek security. Having all theological questions settled for all times is seen by many people as very important. By preventing those who are different from being present, one can effectively prevent troubling questions about one's attitudes, one's prejudices, one's worldview, and yes, one's faith from ever being raised. At a very basic level, it is the idol of comfort which is being worshipped, a rousing chorus of "Oh, Come Let Us Adore Us."
I think any of us who confront people with change - whether it be in the classroom as I do (having long ago given up any thoughts of serving in the Diocese of Central Florida) or in the General Conventions of the church - must be aware of the pastoral implications of that demand. What the Church is asking people like Charlie Holt and his suburban parish to do is to recognize the limits of what so many have brought to the process of being church - limits of thinking, limits of experience, limits of the heart, limits of the spirit. And then they are asked to justify those limits in the light of the Great Commandments - loving the G-d of the universe more than our beloved but limited constructions of G-d and loving our neighbors as ourselves. On a good day, it is far from an easy - or painless -task.
Before we can even begin to answer Rev. Holt's question, presuming it is not merely rhetorical, there is a preliminary question we must broach: How hard are you willing to work at it? To quote Charlie, "Answer THAT question and I think we are getting closer to what SHOULD be core for us."
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The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
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