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Christian Witness, Current Events, Perspective, Poland - Polish - Polonia

Dear Bishop

A New York State R.C. Bishop has decided to release all Polish priests from service in his diocese.

Many of those priests will have to return to Poland where there is a veritable glut of priests. A few have found postings in other R.C. Diocese in the United States.

I could go on and on with all the arguments normally posited about such matters: If there are priests available why close churches? You are always complaining about a lack of priests, why send some away? What’s wrong with Polish priests? Are Polish priests too beholden to tradition, such that they cannot fit in with the ethos in an American diocese? What’s up?

Rather than do so, I will play a little game. Let’s just say that the Holy Spirit were to send a letter to said Bishop. What might it sound like?

Dear Bishop,

Some years ago your brother bishops imposed hands on you and imbued you with My power. As you may recall, I provided you with the fullness of the Apostolic priesthood, my sevenfold gifts, and the authority to teach, shepherd, and govern in the local Church.

In addition to My gifts, I have touched the hearts of many men, and have attempted to fill them with zeal for souls. I have called many, but as you know, few have responded. Nevertheless, the Son has promised that I will remain with the Church, and that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against Her (cf. Matt. 16.18-19). That being the case, I have sent you sons who, while few in number, are filled with zeal for souls, and who have hearts filled with love for Our people.

I am edified by the fullness of trust you have exhibited in Our commitment to remain with the Church. You certainly have shown that you believe that We can do everything. That is faith!

Unfortunately, Our gifts can only be made present through your hands and your administration. We need you to proactively build up the Church with the gifts and the men you have been given.

It may seem wise, property values being what they are, to send off the sons I have given you, close churches, sell buildings, and do what is expedient for the present. You may even deem this a difficult but courageous choice. I urge you to reconsider, taking the long-term, eternal view into consideration.

Often times what is foolish in the eyes of men is wise in Our eyes (cf. Cor. 1:18-25). Please take your tremendous faith, and the gifts We have given you, and stand firm knowing that whatever may come, the Church will stand. That means that you, My son, are a rock. Grow the faith, build up Our Church, and have courage.

With all graces,

The Holy Spirit

P.S.: Please remain loyal to My son and your brother Bishop Benedict who is your lawful Patriarch.

In my personal opinion the R.C. Church needs as many hands as are available, especially if they are good and loyal to the Church. While some church closings are inevitable, retrenchment should not be an option. Find new and different ways to use the buildings. Most importantly put all hands on deck to minister and build up the Church.

Christian Witness, Poland - Polish - Polonia

What My Father Believed

Garrison Keillor’s reading of John Guzlowski’s poem “What My Father Believed,” from his book Lightning and Ashes, is now available at the Writers Almanac website:

The poem talks about John’s father’s faith, how he learned about God in Poland as a child, and how his faith sustained him while a prisoner in a Nazi German concentration camp.

The poem can also be heard on most NPR stations and stations that carry American Public Media programming on December 28, 2007.

Christian Witness, Perspective, ,

The Christ has come, we were unprepared

Yet He came to us anyway
To Provide for us

Icon of the Nativity

What it means for us

The iconographic portrayal of Christ’s birth is not without radical social implications. Christ’s birth occurred where it did, we are told, by Matthew, “because there was no room in the inn.” He who welcomes all is himself unwelcome. From the first moment, he is something like a refugee, as indeed he soon will be in the very strict sense of the word, in Egypt with Mary and Joseph, at a safe distance from the murderous Herod. Later in life he will say to his followers, revealing the criteria of salvation, “I was homeless and you took me in.” We are saved not by our achievements but by our participation in the mercy of God -God’s hospitality. If we turn our backs on others we will end up with nothing more than ideas and slogans and be lost in the icon’s starless cave.From Rescued for Christmas by Jim Forest as found at In Communion, the website of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship

My Wish for you

I pray that Christ’s coming will renew you, break down every obstacle, bring light to every aspect of your life, and reconnect all that is separate. He is our hope, therefore we rejoice with one voice.

Christ has come! Alleluia!

Christian Witness, Media, Perspective

The ABC on Philip Pullman

From The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams which I picked up from Why Pullman Killing God is no Bad Thing:

I read the books and the plays as a sort of thought experiment: this is, after all, an alternative world, or set of worlds. What would the Church look like, what would it inevitably be, if it believed only in a God who could be rendered powerless and killed, and needed unceasing protection? It would be a desperate, repressive tyranny. For Pullman, the Church evidently looks like this most of the time; it isn’t surprising that the only God in view is the Authority.

…

But this should not be read as a way of wriggling out of Pullman’s challenges to institutional religion. I end where I started. If the Authority is not God, why has the historic Church so often behaved as if it did indeed exist to protect a mortal and finite God? What would a church life look like that actually expressed the reality of a divine freedom enabling human freedom?

A modern French Christian writer spoke about “purification by atheism” – meaning faith needed to be reminded regularly of the gods in which it should not believe. I think Pullman and Wright do this very effectively for the believer. I hope too that for the non-believing spectator, the question may somehow be raised of what exactly the God is in whom they don’t believe.

Amen.

Christian Witness, Media, Perspective

The case of God Be Gone etal.

I ran across a blog called GodBeGone.

Looking at the writing there I drew an immediate comparison to the recent controversy over the Golden Compass movie.

Fr. Martin Fox pegged the objections to the movie in his article: Golden Compass author: ‘My books are about killing God.’

In it he saysHe attributes the citations in the second paragraph to research done by Jimmy Aikin as noted in Philip Pullman Is A Liar:

Parents can’t always keep up with popular culture—”and when a movie is promoted as a fun adventure, featuring children riding enchanted polar bears, all in time for the Christmas season, what’s not to like?

Unfortunately, the film’s makers have an agenda. The film is based on the works of author Phil Pullman, who has written a series of entertaining stories called “His Dark Materials.” In his own words: “‘I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief,’ says Pullman. ‘Mr. Lewis [C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia] would think I was doing the devil’s work'” (from the Washington Post, Feb. 19, 2001). And, “I’ve been surprised by how little criticism I’ve got. Harry Potter’s been taking all the flak…. Meanwhile, I’ve been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God” (from the Sydney Morning Herald, Dec. 13, 2003)…

I read a review of the Golden Compass in The Atlantic, aptly titled How Hollywood Saved God.

That’s true in that Hollywood watered it down so as to make it meaningless.

Substitute any characters in the movie – plug Saint Francis in here or Bing Crosby in there, and we’d all be singing White Christmas as we process to church with little animals at our side.

Mr. Pullman got ripped off big time. Hollywood took his book and turned it into a movie that was 99% fluff and little substance. So much for the strength of his convictions standing before the all powerful Hollywood money machine.

What I was most struck by as I read through the Atlantic review and the GodBeGone blog was the lack of reasoned argument and scholastic integrity from the “there is no God” folks.

…and isn’t that it.

I fully agree with people’s right to believe or disbelieve as they see fit. I am confident enough that Jesus Christ and the Holy Church can stand up in any reasoned argument, but these folks rarely bother with reasoned argument.

Mr. Pullman is just repeating a mantra made up by someone else. He’s offering his literary skills as a mouth piece for that mantra without any real study of the points-of-view involvedOk, I could be wrong, so send me his CV – the one indicating his study of history, theology, and philosophy, etc. which just makes him intellectually dishonest.

Any debate or discussion that relies on unstudied diatribes (Mr. Pullman going off on the crusades, witch hunts, blah blah) and the repetition of accusations as a substitute for reasoned argument or scholastic integrity is meaningless. In the GodBeGone blog you find repeated shots at God through the improper use of the English language (let’s not capitalize Jesus or Christianity or anything else we find silly because, well that’ll get ’em).

Consider the historical parallels.

If we repeatedly accuse a group of folks of all sorts of bad things, supporting such with horrible literature, twisted history, and bad scholarship, and we use language in such a way as to make them inhuman (don’t capitalize their names – they’re not human anyway), don’t we set them up for inhumane treatment, concentration camps?

Scholarship takes more than sound bites. It takes more than blog entries. It takes time, study, an understanding of the core beliefs of your opponent, unadulterated by fluff and histrionics.

As the Young Fogey might point out, tolerant conservatism does not demand that you believe what I believe, nor does it force my beliefs upon you. It does demand that we be gentlemen about the process and that you respect my rights equally, including my right to be treated humanely and to profess my beliefs.

So have at it. Tell me how wrong I am.

Christian Witness, Perspective, Political

Prosecuting small Christian communities in Turkey

This just off the RSS feed from the BBC: Turkish Christian priest abducted

A priest from Turkey’s Syriac Christian community has been kidnapped in the country’s south-east, officials say.

Edip Daniel Savci’s car was reportedly found abandoned near Midyat town in Mardin province on Wednesday.

A local clergyman had received a phone call demanding a ransom for his release, the Anatolia news agency said.

Attacks on Turkey’s Christian minority have increased recently. A Catholic priest was shot dead last year and three Protestants were killed in April.

Five men accused of the attack on the Protestant missionaries went on trial in the town of Malatya last week.

Turkish police are working to secure the release of the missing priest, security officials said.

Turkey’s Syriac Christian community numbers an estimated 25,000 people and is based mainly in Mardin, in the largely Kurdish south-east, and in Istanbul.

Syriac Christians are one of the faith’s oldest denominations and are found in modern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Touchstone had a great article about the Suriani in March 2006. It is a small community that has mostly fled the Middle East due to persecution.

This follows on the vandalism that occured at the Halki Chapel of the Transfiguration which is part of the Theological School of Halki (closed by the Turks so that no Orthodox clergy might be trained). See: Halki’s Chapel of the Transfiguration left in ruins from Asia News.

Forest guards began demolition work on the chapel without warning, Only the immediate protest of the prior of Haliki and Metropolitan Meliton avoided its total destruction. A Church in Kadikoy, ancient Calcedonia is also targeted by vandals…

Those Turks – such great democrats, such an open and free society, protectors of the rights of all minorities, and wonderful American allies who fight against participate in terrorism.

Christian Witness

An ad orientem Thanksgiving

I had the pleasure of attending our local ecumenical group’s Thanksgiving prayer service.

The service was held at St. Peter’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Watervliet, NY.

The pastor, Fr. Bedros, developed the service based on the Armenian Church’s Evening Service.

The gathered clergy faced the altar throughout the service, excepting the readings and the homily.

It was amazing.

PNCC, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist pastors all prayed ad orientem, facing liturgical east. For every prayer the Armenian deacon, facing the congregation, chanted the response. The psalms were prayed in stanzas, each stanza alternating between those seated to the left and right. The choir was simply beautiful.

Two other items of note. The Rev. Garen Gdanian, the retired pastor of St. Peter’s, had the most amazingly beautiful cope. Fr. Garen chanted the Gospel, a true blessing to hear. The other is, as always, the wonderful Armenian food and our fellowship which topped off the event.

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