Always Another Windmill

So, in spite of all the recent outrage over comments and sermons made by the Pastor of the United Church of Christ church where Barack Obama has been a long time member, a recent survey by the Pew Center finds that there has been little reduction in the number of people who incorrectly believe that Obama is a Muslim.

There is little evidence that the recent news about Obama’s affiliation with the United Church of Christ has dispelled the impression that he is Muslim. . . . Nearly one-in-ten (9%) of those who heard a lot about Wright still believe that Obama is Muslim.

I suppose they must just think the UCC is some kind of Muslim church or something.

(Via Crooked Timber.)

Via a complicated chain of posts, I came upon this: Rules for listening to your spouse’s sermon. I think this is supposed to be tongue in cheek,  but the earnestness of the comments scares me. This is what my nightmares about my future as the priest’s spouse look like.  With any luck I’ll be spared this role for a few years by being too occupied with toddler and baby wrangling to be expected to sit listening in rapt attention to Weirdbird’s sermons.  It’s not that I mind listening, but performing while listening?

Well, the house of bishops of the Episcopal Church has responded to the communique issued by the Anglican Primates following their meeting in Tanzania. I am proud of their response–looks like we may be deciding that if we will not be listened to, then it is time to shake some dust.

Along with their response, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church has passed a unanimous resolution requesting that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, make haste and come on over for a long overdue chat. Amazingly, he has not yet since his elevation found the time to come and pay us a visit, in spite of all the trouble we have caused.

Apparently, his calendar is “too full.”

Which leads me to wonder, what exactly is so urgent and pressing for the next 6 months that he is unable to come and talk to one of the major parties in dispute that threatens to divide the communion over which presides into two or more pieces?

And wonder leads to idle speculation, and idle speculation to a list:

1. He has to wash his cat.
2. He’s way, way behind in watching season 3 of Battlestar Galactica.
3. If you want the brass candlesticks polished the right way, sometimes you have to do it yourself.
4. He’s been putting it off for years, but this spring, he’s really going to clean out the attic at Canterbury cathedral and have that yard sale they keep talking about.
5. Set aside a full week in July to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as soon as it comes out.
6. If he doesn’t get his eyebrows combed this month, they might never be tamed again.
7. He has to go up to the north pole to see why the elves are so behind on their toy quotas this year.
8. He has to think over this business proposal he received by email from this guy in Nigeria.
9. He’s set aside the entire month of September to lock himself in a small, dark room, and hum quietly to himself while rocking back and forth.
10. He loves to watch the American church at work, but he’s got a Lambeth conference to plan, a communion that’s breaking up, and Guilder to frame for it. He’s swamped!

Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

Update:

11. He’s taking a two month study leave in June and July to write a book.
12. He’s on vacation for the month of August.

Both true.

I can certainly understand why he might want a vacation, given his situation. O hear that certain persons in positions of authority find an August vacation cutting brush on a ranch in Crawford, Texas is just the thing when the job turns out to be hard work. Perhaps ++Cantuar could go and commiserate, and then pay a visit with our House of Bishops on his way home.

Update 2:

He’s coming. (via Dylan)

Prayer the churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;Engine against th’ Almightie, sinner’s towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-daies world transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the soul’s bloud,
The land of spices; something understood.

–George Herbert, Prayer. (I)

(more…)

While at church this past Sunday, I suddenly had a quiet epiphany that gave me a new appreciation for one of the ways that liturgical worship works.

Some context: Sunday morning is me and my 21 month old son. My wife is a divinity student and has a field placement a half hour away where she has to spend Sunday mornings.

There are few churches anywhere that are well set up in their liturgy for the needs of a active, social, vocal, exploring toddler. Segregation in a nursery doesn’t count. Most liturgies do not encourage free movement, giving free voice to the congregation, or extensive social interaction. Toddlers are not, on the whole, constitutionally inclined towards being still, listening quietly, or paying attention to the syntax of things. At least mine isn’t. Nor really should he be–he’s got other projects.

(more…)

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence–but don’t rule out malice. –Hanlon’s Razor (with optional corollary)

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. –Clark’s Law

‘See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.’ –Matthew 10:16

What is a Christian response to bad faith?

Apparently, a recent poll of right-wing bloggers by right-wing news shows that 84% of them believe that “a majority of Democrats in Congress would like to see us lose in Iraq for political reasons”. Slacktivist has an excellent post discussing the ways that such a presumption of bad faith erodes the very possibility of civil discourse.

This kind of attitude is by no means limited to the right–it lives all over the political spectrum, to be sure (although the 84% is sort of disturbingly high). I had assumed that it was very often an act of bad faith itself, a willful misreading of opposition positions to portray them in the worst possible light. Here amongst the windmills, we have been thinking about the issue of bad faith in the context of the ongoing tensions in the Anglican Communion, particularly the tensions between the American Episcopal Church and some of the other provinces in the Communion, largely focused around The Episcopal Church’s position on homosexuality.

(more…)