Holy Innocents

A decade ago when I lived in England, periodic confrontations between competing groups of contemporary Druids at Stonehenge surprised and then amused me. These modern adherents of the ancient Druid cult would converge on Stonehenge, especially at the summer and winter solstices. There they performed rituals that they believed their spiritual forebears had first performed around the ancient stone plinths.

The confusion that birthed intra-Druidic conflict arose because the early Druids left no written records of their liturgies and rituals. Present day Druid groups each claim that secret oral traditions purportedly passed down through the interceding millennia allow their sect to follow the ancient customs and traditions correctly. At times, verbal confrontations between competing groups of Druids actually became physical altercations, ending only when police imposed a truce on the warring groups. Christians are obviously not the only ones who find agreeing on liturgy and theology impossible.

The emergence of Christian (including Episcopalian) “Longest Night” or “Blue Christmas” has at least two possible meanings (cf. “Longest Night Services,” on the Lead at the Episcopal Café). First, these additional Christmas services constitute a helpful pastoral response to people for whom Christmas connotes anything but joy and good will.

Second, the “Longest Night” services perhaps return Christmas to its original date, the winter solstice (Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 85-112). Although the evidence yields no definitive answers, the date of Christmas may have coincided with the solstice based on dating Jesus’ birth by working backwards from the calculated date of his resurrection. Or, Christmas may have turned a pagan feast into a Christian celebration. In either case, Christians over time comfortably identified the birth of the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2) with their commemoration of Jesus’ birth on the solstice. Discrepancies between the Julian calendar and solar year coupled with the subsequent shift from the Julian to Gregorian calendars explain why we now celebrate Christmas four days after the solstice.

Some fundamentalist Christians cite Christmas’ alleged pagan origins as justification for not celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25. That’s not an issue that interests me. Jesus was born. I like to party. Parties are more fun when people party together. December 25 seems like a fine day to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Of course, if everyone agreed to move the party to December 21, or another day, I’d have no problems with that. If God can change people, God working through the Church can certainly transform pagan festivities and customs into Christian festivities and customs. Unlike the Druids, we Christians should be known by our love for one another, rather than allowing the trivial to divide us.

Concomitantly, the Feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28 receives too little attention. Biblical scholars question the historicity of the visit of the wise men and of the slaughter of all Bethlehem boy toddlers and infants under the age of two (Matthew 2:1-12). No historical evidence exists for either. Instead, Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth seems constructed to parallel that of Moses’ birth. Both Moses and Jesus are born when all male Jewish children must die; both live in Egypt; both will deliver their people.

Even as God can transform pagan events, so can God transform probable fiction into myth through which the light of God's love infuses the world. Any historical basis for the wise men visiting or the slaughtering of male children in Bethlehem seems relatively unimportant for twenty-first century Christianity. Children are precious and vulnerable. Too many children are hungry, sick, homeless, abused, and unloved. Children die every day whose lives we could save for just pennies. The powers of this world have become Pharaoh/Herod, tacitly permitting if not indirectly ordering death by myopically focusing on their own interests rather than the well-being of the least among us.

Christmas is not about shopping, presents, or gala festivities. Christmas commemorates the birth of a precious, vulnerable child, a gift of love wrapped in swaddling clothes. To my amazement and profound appreciation, my parishioners have given animals through Episcopal Development and Relief in my honor, gifts of life itself to some of the most vulnerable. In their gifts, my parishioners re-enact Christmas’ real meaning. Their gifts mean more than any other gift could mean.

Thinking back over twenty centuries of Christian history, the majority of ecclesiastical and theological disputes that loomed so large in their own day now appear to be little more than chaff. Structure and organization are important; effectiveness and efficiency are vital attributes of good stewards and faithful servants. Language is important. Words create reality and can give life or bring death. Nevertheless, the heart of Christianity is our love for God and others expressed through the Jesus experience.

Modern Druids fight over who has the truth. I, and many in Great Britain, find ourselves amused. When we Christians fight, I wonder how many non-Christians laugh. Although we, unlike the Druids, have a written record (Scripture), few Christians and even fewer Anglicans contend that the written record is inerrant history. We openly acknowledge supplementing the written record with unfounded tradition, such as most western Christians celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25. For the outsider observing Christianity, our fights quite likely seem as petty and childish as do the Druid disputes.

In the meantime, children are hungry, sick, homeless, abused, and unloved. The Feast of the Holy Innocents invites us to enter more fully into Christmas’ meaning, setting aside disagreements in praxis and theology to fully engage in helping all children to know truly that they are precious, secure in God's love manifest in us.

Healthcare reform passes!

The Senate today - Christmas Eve – passed the healthcare reform legislation under debate since Obama took office. Now the Senate and House must reconcile their separate bills, pass that piece of joint legislation, and send it to the President for signature before this historic move becomes law.

However, reconciliation and passage seem likely. The law will almost certainly extend healthcare coverage to millions of Americans not covered now. This is truly a Christmas gift for the nation.

However, the final law, whatever its form, will contain many imperfections. Not all Americans will have guaranteed access to healthcare coverage. Bureaucracy is likely to expand. Private health insurance companies seem posed to reap record profits. Healthcare in the United States will remain the world’s most expensive with less than stellar results. In other words, much still must be done to ensure that all Americans receive the best possible healthcare at an affordable cost. Nevertheless, refusing to support healthcare reform because of its imperfections, known and unknown, as has every Republican in the Senate, is wrong. Progress is always incremental and the current effort is no exception.

Decisions about healthcare are fraught with uncertainties and unknowns. UCLA‘s teaching hospital perennially ranks at the top of the lists for both quality of care and most expensive end of life care but achieves no better than average results. UCLA doctors struggle to determine which patients will respond to leading edge but expensive care. (Reed Abelson, “Months to Live - U.C.L.A. Medical Center at Heart of End-of-Life Debate,” New York Times, December 22, 2009)

A hidden reality of the US healthcare system is that the system de facto rations such care today. Patients at UCLA have access to treatments not available at all medical centers. Patients who do not reside in the UCLA service area but who have substantial personal financial resources can purchase care there, or at other leading medical centers (the Mayo clinic, Sloan-Kettering, etc.). People with no money, though perhaps better candidates for some of these treatments, must accept the care provided in their local area.

This makes no sense to me, especially as I reflect on the birth of a baby to Mary and Joseph. That child, like the rest of us, had no say in the locale or time of his birth. Yet our parents, more than any other factor, determine our economic fate in life. Examples of poor who become exceptionally wealthy notwithstanding, the greatest determinants of one’s economic future are the identity and economic status of one’s parents, factors over which no child has control. So why should a nation ration healthcare based on ability to pay?

The Senate’s historic action today represents an important step away from that immoral policy with its ignored and ignoble premise that some are created more equal than others (i.e., the rich are more equal than the poor).

Christmas giving

I don’t know if the story below is true or apocryphal. I have no idea of the story’s origin. However, the story powerfully conveys the transformative potential inherent in both gift giving and loving one’s neighbor. In short, the story invites us to live into the meaning of Christmas.

Pa never had much compassion for the lazy or those who squandered their means and then never had enough for the necessities. But for those who were genuinely in need, his heart was as big as all outdoors. It was from him that I learned the greatest joy in life comes from giving, not from receiving.

It was Christmas Eve 1881. I was fifteen years old and feeling like the world had caved in on me because there just hadn't been enough money to buy me the rifle that I'd wanted so bad that year for Christmas. We did the chores early that night for some reason. So after supper was over I took my boots off and stretched out in front of the fireplace. I was still feeling sorry for myself and, to be honest.

Pa bundled up and went outside. I couldn't figure it out because we had already done all the chores. I didn't worry about it long though, I was too busy wallowing in self-pity. Soon Pa came back in. It was a cold clear night out and there was ice in his beard. "Come on, Matt," he said. "Bundle up good, it's cold out tonight."

I was really upset then. Not only wasn't I getting the rifle for Christmas, now Pa was dragging me out in the cold, and for no earthly reason that I could see. We'd already done all the chores, and I couldn't think of anything else that needed doing, especially not on a night like this. But I knew Pa was not very patient at one dragging one's feet when he'd told them to do something, so I got up and put my boots back on and got my cap, coat, and mittens. Ma gave me a mysterious smile as I opened the door to leave the house. Something was up, but I didn't know what.

Outside, I became even more dismayed. There in front of the house was the work team, already hitched to the big sled. Whatever it was we were going to do wasn't going to be a short, quick little job. I could tell. We never hitched up the big sled unless we were going to haul a big load. Pa was already up on the seat, reins in hand. I reluctantly climbed up beside him. The cold was already biting at me. I wasn't happy.

When I was on, Pa pulled the sled around the house and stopped in front of the woodshed. He got off and I followed. "I think we'll put on the high sideboards," he said. "Here, help me. " The high sideboards! It had been a bigger job than I wanted to do with just the low sideboards on, but whatever it was we were going to do would be a lot bigger with the high sideboards on.

When we had exchanged the sideboards Pa went into the woodshed and came out with an armload of wood---the wood I'd spent all summer hauling down from the mountain, and then all fall sawing into blocks and splitting. What was he doing? Finally, I said something. "Pa," asked, "what are you doing?"

"You been by the Widow Jensen's lately?" he asked. The Widow Jensen lived about two miles down the road. Her husband had died a year or so before, leaving her with three children, the oldest being eight.

Sure, I'd been by, but so what? "Yeah," I said, "why?"

"I rode by just today," Pa said. "Little Jakey was out digging around in the woodpile trying to find a few chips. They're out of wood, Matt.”

That was all he said and then he turned and went back into the woodshed for another armload of wood. I followed him. We loaded the sled so high that I began to wonder if the horses would be able to pull it. At last, Pa called a halt to our loading, then we went to the smoke house and Pa took down a big ham and a side of bacon. He handed them to me and told me to put them in the sled and wait. When he returned he was carrying a sack of flour over his right shoulder and a smaller sack of something in his left hand.

”What's in the little sack?" I asked.

"Shoes. They're out of shoes. Little Jakey just had gunnysacks wrapped around his feet when he was out in the woodpile this morning. I got the children a little candy too. It just wouldn't be Christmas without a little candy."

We rode the two miles to Widow Jensen's pretty much in silence. I tried to think through what Pa was doing. We didn't have much by worldly standards. Of course, we did have a big woodpile, though most of what remained now was still in the form of logs that I would have to saw into blocks and split before we could use it. We also had meat and flour, so we could spare that, but I knew we didn't have any money, so why was Pa buying them shoes and candy? Really, why was he doing any of this? Widow Jensen had closer neighbors than us. It shouldn't have been our concern.

We came in from the blind side of the Jensen house and unloaded the wood as quietly as possible, then we took the meat and flour and shoes to the door. We knocked.

The door opened a crack and a timid voice said, "Who is it?"

"Lucas Miles, Ma'am, and my son, Matt. Could we come in for a bit?"

Widow Jensen opened the door and let us in. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The children were wrapped in another and were sitting in front of the fireplace by a very small fire that hardly gave off any heat at all. Widow Jensen fumbled with a match and finally lit the lamp.

"We brought you a few things, Ma'am," Pa said and set down the sack of flour. I put the meat on the table. Then Pa handed her the sack that had the shoes in it. She opened it hesitantly and took the shoes out one pair at a time. There was a pair for her and one for each of the children---sturdy shoes, the best, shoes that would last. I watched her carefully. She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling and then tears filled her eyes and started running down her cheeks. She looked up at Pa like she wanted to say something, but it wouldn't come out.

"We brought a load of wood too, Ma'am," Pa said, then he turned to me and said, "Matt, go bring enough in to last for awhile. Let's get that fire up to size and heat this place up.”

I wasn't the same person when I went back out to bring in the wood. I had a big lump in my throat and, much as I hate to admit it, there were tears in my eyes too. In my mind I kept seeing those three kids huddled around the fireplace and their mother standing there with tears running down her cheeks and so much gratitude in her heart that she couldn't speak. My heart swelled within me and a joy filled my soul that I'd never known before. I had given gifts at Christmas many times before, but never when it had made so much difference. I could see we were literally saving the lives of these people. I soon had the fire blazing and everyone's spirits soared. The kids started giggling when Pa handed them each a piece of candy and Widow Jensen looked on with a smile that probably hadn't crossed her face for a long time.

She finally turned to us. "God bless you," she said. "I know the Lord himself has sent you. The children and I have been praying that he would send one of his angels to spare us."

In spite of myself, the lump returned to my throat and the tears welled up in my eyes again. I'd never thought of Pa in those exact terms before, but after Widow Jensen mentioned it I could see that it was probably true. I started remembering all the times he had gone out of his way for Ma and me, and many others. The list seemed endless as I thought on it.

Tears were running down Widow Jensen's face again when we stood up to leave. Pa took each of the kids in his big arms and gave them a hug. They clung to him and didn't want us to go. I could see that they missed their pa, and I was glad that I still had mine. At the door, Pa turned to Widow Jensen and said, "The Mrs. wanted me to invite you and the children over for Christmas dinner tomorrow. The turkey will be more than the three of us can eat, and a man can get cantankerous if he has to eat turkey for too many meals. We'll be by to get you about eleven. It'll be nice to have some little ones around again. Matt, here, hasn't been little for quite a spell."

I was the youngest. My two older brothers and two older sisters were all married and had moved away. Widow Jensen nodded and said, "Thank you, Brother Miles. I don't have to say, "'May the Lord bless you,' I know for certain that He will."

Out on the sled, I felt a warmth that came from deep within and I didn't even notice the cold.

When we had gone a ways, Pa turned to me and said, "Matt, I want you to know something. Your ma and me have been tucking a little money away here and there all year so we could buy that rifle for you, but we didn't have quite enough. Then yesterday a man who owed me a little money from years back came by to make things square. Your ma and me were real excited, thinking that now we could get you that rifle, and I started into town this morning to do just that. But on the way I saw little Jakey out scratching in the woodpile with his feet wrapped in those gunnysacks and I knew what I had to do. So, Son, I spent the money for shoes and a little candy for those children. I hope you understand."

I understood, and my eyes became wet with tears again. I understood very well, and I was so glad Pa had done it. Just then the rifle seemed very low on my list of priorities. Pa had given me a lot more. He had given me the look on Widow Jensen's face and the radiant smiles of her three children. For the rest of my life, whenever I saw any of the Jensens, or split a block of wood, I remembered, and remembering brought back that same joy I felt riding home beside Pa that night. Pa had given me much more than a rifle that night; he had given me the best Christmas of my life.

Thanking military personnel and veterans

Columnist David Brooks has written of Obama’s Christian realism, connecting Obama to the Reinhold Niebuhr. (“Obama’s Christian Realism,” New York Times, December 14, 2009)

Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian journey began as a pacifist. The reality of horrendous evil in Nazi Germany changed Niebuhr’s thinking. Evil, he concluded, is real and sufficiently strong that sometimes one use every available means, including lethal force, to stop evil from gaining control.

Brooks heard a similar shift in President Obama’s speech on sending additional troops to Afghanistan last week.

Since retiring from the military, thanking military personnel and veterans for their service has become common, thanks rarely heard during my decades of active duty. Brooks’ essay and the recent, off-hand thanks from a retail clerk for my military service prompted three thoughts.

First, military service is just that, service to one’s neighbors abroad and especially at home. Being in the military costs wear and tear on one’s physical body (whether combat injuries or simply the rigors of military training) as well as wear and tear on one’s relationships (in terms of both one’s own mental health and the difficulties of trying to sustain long distance relationships). Being in the military costs many lost income, earning less for being willing to go into harm’s way than one could earn as a civilian. Of course, going into harm’s way costs some the ultimate price, their life, and others return permanently injured.

Second, genuine gratitude for the military finds far more meaningful expression than in spontaneous words, no matter how heartfelt or trite those words are. Genuine gratitude provides healthcare to veterans for all injuries caused by military service. Post-traumatic stress disorder represents perhaps the largest single part of that responsibility our nation has yet to meet adequately. Adequate care for women vets is probably a close second. Some VA medical centers and facilities are superb; others need substantial improvement. Availability and access also need to increase. Educating veterans to help them re-integrate into meaningful civilian employment is vital. Religious organizations must more pro-actively assisti veterans in dealing with the problem of dirty hands – having had the moral responsibility to do in combat things otherwise morally forbidden. For veterans who hold a particular religious tradition sacred, rituals that enable confession and receipt of forgiveness can powerfully affirm God's continuing acceptance of and love for the vet.

Third, civilian gratitude for those serving in the military must extend to an area where law forbids military personnel from speaking, i.e., objecting to national policy when the use of military force is morally unjustifiable. Here, religious organizations in general and the Church in particular have failed with respect to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. After eight long years in Afghanistan and six long years in Iraq, the U.S. has achieved almost nothing at the cost of tens of thousands of people killed and injured.

The Iraq surge failed, a conclusion that becomes more glaringly apparent every week. Centuries old hostilities and allegiances do not change over the course of a year because a few thousand additional troops deploy. Violence diminished while the U.S. had the perpetrators on the payroll. When the payments stopped, violence resumed.

The situation in Afghanistan is even more complex: deeper, more pervasive tribal loyalties; longer-standing animosities; a less forgiving terrain. Thirty thousand additional troops cannot, no matter how proficient or competent, bring peace to people who do not see themselves as a nation and who do not want to be a nation.

The Church must speak out more clearly and forcefully on this issue as a debt of gratitude for those who serve in the military, ready if necessary to sacrifice their own well-being in defense of the freedoms of others. Those who serve deserve our true gratitude. Our responsibility, not theirs, is to ensure their service represents morally valuable sacrifices in the cause of a more just, more peaceful world.

Supporting healthcare reform

The healthcare debate now plods along in the Senate. So far, the Senate has deleted the initiative to create a public alternative to private insurance and then defeated an effort to expand Medicare by allowing people 55 and older to buy coverage through Medicare.

Nevertheless, the healthcare bill before the Senate even in its present form constitutes a significant step forward toward ensuring that every American has guaranteed access to healthcare coverage. In particular, the bill will extend coverage to another thirty million people and prohibit onerous practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and charging women a higher rate than men for the same coverage.

Of course, consideration of a bill and passing a bill are not equivalent. The Senate must still vote and at least one senator objects to how the draft legislation addresses abortion.

If the Senate eventually passes a healthcare bill, the Senate and House must reconcile what are certain to be too very different bills and then both houses must pass the reconciled bill. In other words, healthcare legislation remains very far from being a fait accompli. Seven previous presidential administrations have attempted healthcare reform; seven previous administrations failed.

The more I learn about the Senate’s version of healthcare reform, the less I like it. However, I also know that most social progress occurs incrementally. I’m certain that some of the proposals I most like, if tried, would prove ineffectual or worse. Unfortunately, there’s no way to identify those proposals in advance. Legislation, especially complex legislation like healthcare reform, results in unintended consequences, some beneficial and some not. For better or worse, our political system generally favors incremental rather than sweeping change. Although incremental change generally disadvantages the disenfranchised (e.g., those without guaranteed healthcare access), incremental change does help to avoid the costly and disastrous unintended consequences sometimes associated with the sweeping changes possible within a parliamentary system like the British have.

In other words, my support for healthcare reform is not contingent upon the bill including everything that I think best or preferable. Instead, my support depends upon answering only one question in the affirmative: Is the proposed legislation an improvement over the status-quo? If so, then the legislation will have my support and, I hope, yours as well. As I’ve repeatedly argued, healthcare reform to ensure that everyone has guaranteed access to care is a basic human right.

Choosing leaders

The Serbian Orthodox Church recently chose its new patriarch in time-honored, scriptural fashion: by lottery. For those unfamiliar with the scriptural basis for this practice, the narrative in the book of Acts reports that following the resurrection and ascension, the disciples drew straws to determine who would replace Judas as one of the twelve disciples. Limiting the possibilities to two men, both of whom had followed Jesus from the beginning, they prayed, and then cast lots. Matthias was chosen. (Acts 1:12-26)

What if the Episcopal Church followed a similar practice to select its leaders? Use prudential wisdom and objective criteria (e.g., who was Jesus from the beginning) to define a small pool of candidates. Pray that God might act through the casting of lots (throwing dice, drawing straws, etc.). And then cast lots, trusting that the choice will be God's choice.

Several questions come to mind:

Would the quality of our new leaders improve, remain the same, or become worse?

Would this process expedite, de-politicize, and helpfully depersonalize searches for new leaders? Or, would the process create an unhelpful sense of chaotic randomness and result in the best-qualified refusing to participate in selection processes?

Most importantly, how do I and how does the Episcopal Church, believe that God works in the world? Does God leave humans to their own devices? Does God somehow make God's will known within psychic, neural, or limbic processes (i.e., cognitively or affectively)? Does God act by altering sub-atomic processes in non-humans such as those that determine the results of unloaded dice rolls or only within humans or both ways?

Ultimately, discerning God's will is very “dicey,” as proven by the long litany of people across the ages who, claiming to respond to God's will, have acted in exceedingly harmful, hateful ways.

Understanding how God moves in the world is beyond human abilities – at least currently. Thus, humans should do everything (thorough research, careful analysis, thoughtful consultation with knowledgeable experts, much praying) they can do ascertain the best possible choice, trusting that God will somehow move in and through that process. Casting lots seems an abdication of human responsibility premised upon a rather superficial determination of how God works in the world.

Given that conclusion, how should the Church respond to the election of the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool as an Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles?

When I was stationed at the Naval Academy, Mary Glasspool was rector of a nearby parish, St. Margaret’s. St. Margaret’s thrived during her tenure; a surprising number of people told me what a wonderful priest and rector Mary was. I also know that bad news tend to travel more quickly and broadly than does good news. I never heard anything about Mary’s tenure.

The Diocese of Los Angeles, after what one can safely presume is thorough research, careful analysis, thoughtful consultation, much prayer (I’ve yet to hear of an episcopal election that did not meet those criteria) has elected a priest whom I have every reason to believe will not only make a fine bishop but is also God's choice for the position. To believe that the good people of Los Angeles have acted for any other motives insults them and reflects unfounded hubris on the part of anyone who asserts that ulterior motives lay behind the election. Her sexuality – lived out within a healthy monogamous relationship – is and should not be relevant.

The election, given the Archbishop of Canterbury’s reaction, will probably be the catalyst for further dissension within the Anglican Communion. The election is highly unlikely to cause anyone to change her or his mind about same sex relationships or openly gay bishops living in a same sex relationship. The election may cause some of those who have already decided to become schismatic to act with more dispatch than might otherwise have happened.

That’s no bad thing. The Church will be healthier and able to focus more on mission once this non-productive controversy is well behind us.

President Obama's Afghanistan surge

A fellow priest, Robert Cromey, wrote in an email this week:

The president’s speech was superb, his reasoning clear, his grammar excellent and his conclusion mistaken. Thirty thousand more American soldiers going into Afghanistan means more killing of civilians, soldiers, and so-called terrorists.

Afghanistan is not a country; it is a band of terribly independent tribes, living in desert and mountainous regions with little sense on unity as a nation as we know it. Taliban and al Qaeda are small deadly groups bent on destruction. They hide in caves and villages using civilians for shields. There are roughly 20,000 Taliban and 100 al Qaeda. Rooting them out with 98,000 troops can only result in the massive destruction of thousands upon thousands of civilians.

Persistent infiltration by trained experts like the CIA is doing in Pakistan is worth more money and effort than the massive use of force planned by the president.

Our security is not at stake. Attacks like 9/11 are impossible to happen again. The massive security in this country and around the world can keep us secure without the massive killings that will occur with a surge in the military presence in Afghanistan.

Cromey’s email echoes ideas previously expressed in this blog, e.g., More pressure for an Afghan surge and Perceptions. Thomas Friedman, somewhat more elegantly staked out a similar position in his column, “This I Believe” (New York Times, December 1, 2009).

The political positions staked out by Obama and McCain make no sense. Sending thirty (or even fifty or seventy) thousand additional troops will not significantly alter the outcome of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. The country is too large, too mountainous, too tribal, and too independent for that number of troops to change the Afghan culture in favor of a secular democracy with an effective central government.

McCain’s comment that identifying an end date by which troop withdrawals will begin signals the Taliban that the U.S. has only a limited commitment to Afghanistan is correct. However, the Taliban would have to be exceedingly ignorant of U.S. politics and history not to have already reached that conclusion on their own. The plain truth is that the U.S. did not defeat the Taliban. The U.S. pushed the Taliban aside; the Taliban retreated into mountain enclaves resolved to wage war against the foreign infidels into those infidels withdrew from Afghanistan. In a land in which people point to victories against the Mongols as evidence of their ability to outlast invaders, whether the U.S. commitment is for two years or ten years is unimportant, an assessment that a failed eight year occupation (2001-2009) reinforces.

The time to stop the killing is now. Afghans must make their own way. Pouring additional billions of U.S. dollars into that tragic region will enrich American contractors and the corrupt Afghan elite but achieve precious little to improve the quality of life for most Afghans.

Winning battles but losing the war?

Is the Episcopal Church (TEC) winning battles and losing the struggle against evil in its efforts to become a Church that truly welcomes everybody?

Recent court decisions in several states have affirmed that assets owned by parishes or dioceses that try to withdraw from TEC remain with TEC or one of its constituent parts. Progress towards reconstituting diocesan structures in Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere continues apace. Conversely, the weight of opinion, even in parishes staunchly loyal to and supportive of TEC, holds that blessing same-sex relationships, ordaining persons who openly live in committed same-sex relationships, and otherwise fully including everyone regardless of sexuality in the Church’s life will cost TEC members, mission momentum, and resources. Is TEC winning battles and losing the struggle against evil in its efforts to become a Church that truly welcomes everybody?

Phrasing that question posed substantial difficulties. No matter how strongly I believe that God desires to welcome every human, regardless of sexuality, fully, I know that this issue is not a litmus test of anyone’s Christian identity.

That said, opposition to the full inclusion of all people is not simply a matter of people of good will having honest differences of opinion. TEC certainly has members who hold a wide variety of opinions with respect to sexuality and sexual ethics. Diversity of opinion is real within most congregations and does not cause hard feelings, let alone collective angst. Diverse opinions, per se, are neither the source of the current conflict nor inherently evil. TEC welcomes and must continue to welcome people of every opinion.

The evil in this conflict has other roots. First, anyone treating views on sexuality or sexual ethics as a litmus test of who is or is not a Christian or of those with whom one can be in the same Church or parish wrongly assigns these issues a centrality unwarranted by either Scripture or tradition. Congregations that strive for uniformity of opinion with respect to sexuality and sexual ethics – whether within the congregation, the diocese, the national Church, or the Anglican Communion – do so because leadership pushes the issue. Such leaders reject the model of a good shepherd who left the 99 to search for the remaining one, a shepherd who strives to keep the flock together without insisting that all of the sheep look alike or behave alike. Good shepherd leadership affirms and honors diverse opinions and freedom of individual conscience, a defining hallmark among Anglicans whose unity results from common prayer rather than common belief. Leadership that intentionally seeks to divide the Church over an important but not ultimate issue is at best misguided and at worst evil.

Second, sexuality and sexual ethics galvanize opinion and motivate people to act with an energy that other issues lack. Opponents of full inclusion of all in the Church, if they engaged in open and honest mutual introspection, would find their allies subscribe to diverse opinions about the ordination of women, the authority of Scripture, lay presidency at the Eucharist, and other issues. The one and only issue uniting dissidents is their opposition to the full inclusion of all, regardless of sexuality, in the Church’s life. In other words, sexuality affords an unparalleled opportunity for emotional impact that translates into publicity, prominence, and fundraising. U.S. money raised from non-Episcopalians supports the disruptive pronouncements and divisive proselytizing missions of other Anglicans in the States (at the Episcopal Café cf. http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/anglican_communion/peter_akinola_statesman.html and http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/sexuality/scaife_family_values.html). At best, such Anglican clerics are unintentional pawns manipulated by forces of evil; at worst, these Anglicans clerics co-conspire with forces of evil.

Lest that assessment seem too harsh, TEC represents less than 1% of the U.S. population. If TEC did not retain sufficient public interest (notoriety?) to attract considerable media attention, these non-Episcopalians would choose to wage their war over sexuality and sexuality on different “terrain.” For example, the United Church of Christ years ago decided to ordain clergy openly living in same-sex, committed relationships and to bless same-sex relationships without the large and continuing furor that TEC’s slow steps have attracted. Similarly, the recent decision by the larger Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with which TEC shares ministry, to allow the ordination of clergy openly living in same-sex, committed relationships sparked a much smaller media barrage.

Concurrently, other Anglican provinces, such as the Anglican Church of Canada, have actually led the vanguard of the movement toward full inclusion of all in the life of the Church. TEC follows in the vanguard’s rear. Yet the preponderance of public attention nationally and internationally has focused on TEC. As with TEC, the U.S. represents the global target of choice. The United States’ status as the world’s lone superpower and the influence that its media, economy, and culture have on the rest of the world guarantee a higher profile controversy than if the fight occurred in another country or province. (For more information on this, cf. Globalizing the Culture Wars: US Conservatives, African Churches, & Homophobia by Anglican priest and scholar, the Revd Kapya Kaoma, featured in Pat Ashworth’s report, “Africans suffer from ‘collateral damage’ in U.S. culture clash, The Church Times, 20 November 2009, http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=84974.)

Consider the shibboleths that TEC blessing same-sex relationships will result in African animists choosing Islam over Christianity or the persecution of African Christians by radical Muslims. How many African animists really care, or even follow, U.S. ecclesiastical news? (Similarly, how many American Christians really care, or even follow, religious news from African tribal areas?) How many radical Muslims will cease to persecute Christians simply because TEC decides not to bless same-sex relationships? Those questions point to a third evil: opponents of fully including everyone in the Church’s life lie. Lying requires intent to deceive. Not every Episcopalian who repeats one of those shibboleths lies. However, the opposition’s leaders want victory in their campaign against homosexuality at any cost. They lie. Yet truth, not lying, is indicative of those aligned with God. The truth, not lies, makes us free.

Fourth, debates over sexuality and sexual ethics within parishes, dioceses, the national Church, and the Anglican Communion progress with multiple subtexts designed by and for various audiences. One of those subtexts speaks to the often-cherished, little thought through, possibility of the Anglican Communion reuniting with the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI contributed to that subtext with his recent establishment of personal ordinariates for Anglicans who wish to affiliate with Rome. A careful reading of the Roman Catholic document emphasizes that Rome offers no compromise or olive branch to its separated siblings. Anglicans are welcome, but only on Rome’s terms, conforming to Rome in all doctrinal matters. These include opposition to the ordination of women, recognition of the Pope as the supreme, earthly source of ecclesial authority, etc. The substantive differences between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism are so great that welcoming all people, regardless of gender orientation, into the full life of the Church will not measurably broaden the chasm that already separates the two Churches. Pretending otherwise is at least naïve and in some cases a deceptive ploy to prevent TEC from welcoming all, i.e., another lie. For individuals who can no longer remain part of the Anglican Communion in good conscience, I wish them God speed as they move with integrity to the Roman Catholic Church.

Another subtext to the debates about sexuality and sexual ethics is that Episcopalians are not Anglicans. Effective communication requires that words have commonly agreed meanings. Anglicans are by longstanding definition members of those Churches in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, i.e., TEC members in the United States. Splinter groups intentionally incorporating the word “Anglican” into their group’s name, such as the Anglican Church in North America, therefore constitute a pernicious effort to subvert the popular understanding of who is and who is not an Anglican in the hope of creating a new reality. Comments I hear from lay Episcopalians loyal to TEC suggest this tactic is working. Likewise, the Chair of the Presiding Bishops Council of Advice, the Rt. Rev. Clifton Daniels, Bishop of the Diocese of East Carolina, apparently has drawn a similar conclusion. He began a recent letter published in the New York Times by emphasizing that TEC is the sole Anglican presence in the U.S. (“Is This Bishop Catholic?” New York Times, November 17, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/magazine/22letters-t-ISTHISBISHOP_LETTERS.html).

The reading from Baruch for the Second Sunday of Advent (5:1-9) recalls a people led into exile by their enemies who clung to the hope that God will bring them back to Jerusalem in glory with mercy and righteousness.

An older parishioner, now retired and with no family at home in my parish, spends her days and self in caring for others. She has fostered literally hundreds of children, some for a few days and others for months. Race, gender, handicaps, sexual and orientation are all irrelevant to her. Recently, she has daily driven an hour to and from a hospital to hold a shaken baby that is fighting for its life in the hospital’s ICU, selflessly investing love and emotion in this infant. One week she asked me for money from my discretionary fund to help a broken family pay its utility bills. The next week, she solicited Christmas gifts from the parish for four young children who live with their financially strapped grandmother to avoid the state sending them to foster homes. It seems that every time this woman and I chat, she is helping yet another person.

She incarnates the mercy and righteousness of which Baruch speaks. TEC must do the same. TEC could prevail in every court case no pending, and dozens not yet filed, and still be unfaithful. TEC could reconstitute and reorganize every diocese and parish that attempts to withdraw and still be unfaithful. Assets and organizational structures are at best means to an end, not an end in themselves. TEC must focus on ends and not means.

Righteousness necessitates TEC stand firmly for truth. TEC boldly moving ahead in developing rites for blessing same-sex relationships, teaching that permanent monogamy and not a couple’s gender composition exemplifies a wholesome lifestyle, and advocating equal civil rights for all regardless of gender orientation will position TEC squarely in the advent of God's activity in the world.

Mercy demands that TEC embrace and welcome all of God's children. TEC needs to regain its momentum as a Church fully engaged in God's mission: loving the unloved, feeding the hungry, offering the water of life to the thirsty, etc.

Mercy and righteousness are hard tasks, in part because we cannot delegate them to a hireling but must perform them ourselves. Often there are few if any tangible rewards. But in the end God's mercy and righteousness will prevail, God's people shall dwell in life abundant, and I, for one (along with my parishioner) want to be part of that scene.