Searching for God # 113

 Recently I read a quote from the coach of the Vegas Golden Knights NHL hockey team that one of his players, Mitch Marner, is “cerebral”! I am sure that such a quote, perhaps in private, has been used to described other professional hockey players. It is the context and the startling depth of the perception that caught my attention.

In the first place, this same hockey player had spent nine seasons toiling for his home-town team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, without demonstrating scoring success in several playoff series. He became so despised by some of his Toronto fans that his life was threatened at his home, and he needed private security. It was not surprising that he signed with the Golden Knights, in the off-season, moving about as far away from Toronto, while still playing in the same league as feasible.

As an integral part of his bravado, about his star, the coach, John Tortorella, extended his comment, indicating that, for Toronto fans who might have missed it, Marner ‘does so many other things so well whether he scores or not’ that it seemed tragic to Tortorella that Toronto had missed his play-making, penalty-killing and intuitive brilliance.

Missing brilliance in hockey is one thing, that perhaps is interesting and relevant to hockey enthusiasts and their professional colleagues. Decades ago, however, the renowned social historian, John Ralston Saul described another hockey player, Wayne Gretzky, in words to the effect that he was always intent on being where the puck ‘was going to be’. Gretzky’s vision and his perception of the state of play on a 200-foot ice pad was such, as Saul perceived it, that he ‘knew’ where the puck was going and positioned himself ready for it when it arrived. Is that ‘vision’ or ‘intuition’ the same or even similar to what Tortorella referred to when he spoke of Marner as ‘cerebral’?

Recently, I listened to an insightful podcast, hosted by Malcolm Gladwell with his guest, Jim Balsillie, one of the original corporate executives of Blackberry, the Canadian digital Roman Candle that blast into the new tech space, and flamed out almost as quickly, after amassing some $20 billions in business revenue. The thrust of the interview was the Gladwell question, ‘Why did it all go off the rails?

These two men, both from small Ontario towns, Exeter for Gladwell and Peterborough for Balsillie, became across-the-hall freshmen at Trinity College, University of Toronto, back in the 1980’s. And both worked, as the interview detailed, hard to fit into the social culture of their college, comprised as it was of graduates from elite private schools such as Upper Canada College. Both Gladwell and Balsillie graduated from public high schools in small towns, and felt considerably overwhelmed by the ‘status’ of their fellow freshmen. As Gladwell describes his guest, Jim was always ‘right’ in his answer to any question. As Jim answered, when asked if he were ever in ‘trouble’ in school, “The grade seven math teacher filled four blackboards with a mathematical equation and turned to his class to ask, “Where did I go wrong?” Jim’s blurted answer from the back of the classroom, ‘When you were born!’

At four years, Jim’s parents had him seen by a psychiatrist ‘because they did not know what to do with me’…as he puts it in the interview. And then, what happened at Blackberry?
In summary, Balsillie had been travelling the world securing commitment from large tech companies to partner with the Blackberry technology, with a view to its becoming the social media platform of the future. This was in the early 20-teens. His assessment of the ‘problem’ when the final vote of the board was taken opposing his projected path for the Blackberry future, (after he had proposed a   future based exclusively on evolving software, as he ‘knew’ that the future of hardware was already ‘dead’), was that he had not spent enough time with the board to bring them up to speed with his software futuristic vision…..a vision which as Gladwell trumpets, was ‘right all along’!

While his assessment is valid, one has to wonder if it is as ‘visionary’ as his ‘cerebral’ assessment of the technological landscape. Was it merely more time and more information that might have influenced the board’s collective mind about the future of their company in the landscape that was quickly becoming global? Was the board, as one might suspect, holding a collective perspective that, innately valued ‘hardware’ more highly than ‘software’ which, perhaps to them seemed ‘too ephemeral’ or even abstract, or poetic, or imaginary? Boards of directors, traditionally, and even predictably, are comprised of men and women whose legacy illustrates an alliance with and even a preference for the ‘traditional’ and the conservative (small ‘c’) and the dependable and the reliable, in whatever field they might have been engaged in developing.

Is there an analogy between the Blackberry board members and the Toronto Maple Leafs’ fans, for the expected, traditional ways of evaluating success. In Scotiabank Arena, that is through scoring or assisting on goals. In the board room, that would be in securing a ‘traditional, conservative, if innovative,’ project’s long-term future based on traditional, predictable measures.

Gladwell’s personal pursuit of ‘intelligence’ or ‘brilliance’ has profoundly cognitive as well as sociological, as well as political, ethical and even religious implications. It is not that one might get closer to God through being intellectually, intuitively and imaginatively ‘outside the norm’ of the culture. Nor, however, is it to abandon one’s intellect, intuition or imagination irrespective of whichever field captures one’s interest.

However, being ‘outside the norm’ in whatever context one ‘operates’ brings with it the spectre of whether one’s ‘difference’ is respected, valued, and honoured, even if questioned, or whether, as it seems to be in more than one arena, devalued, dismissed, and disrespected. In theology, some might call this voice of ‘insight, intuition, imagination and ‘brilliance’ or even ‘cerebral’ the prophetic voice. It is a voice that has been subjected to hours if not years of debate, conflict and even the loss of life, because of one’s views that do not comport with those that prevail in the situation.

 North American culture has made a significant shift in how it perceives and values those with what are called intellectual handicaps, as well as those who have physical ‘disadvantages’ as well as those who live under conditions with which none of us wish to see anyone have to exist. There is a public face to growing public tolerance, acceptance, and even appreciation for those who have obvious disadvantages. For that we can all be grateful. Even legislation enabling new supportive technologies, methodologies and foundational philosophies to work with, support and innovate for such ‘social’ disadvantages has received public support and the funds to implement the changes. Well and good!

Back in the 1980’s I had the opportunity to visit the Toronto site of IBM, as a community college information officer, seeking methods of encouraging and motivating staff to contribute new ideas to their organization. Naturally, the ‘proverbial’ suggestion box’ with appropriate follow-up research, as to the relevance, the cost and the applicability of the new ‘idea’ required the ‘promised reward’ for the best and most relevant and applicable idea. There were moments of some ‘success’ in attracting new ideas although, as the culture seemed to prefer, there was also the predictable derision of many who believed, or at least acted, as if those who ‘proferred new ideas’ were merely sucking up for a promotion. The idea had serious limitations.

Both Marner and Balsillie are, according to reliable sources, replete with new and imaginative, cerebral, and creative visions that are directly related to and applicable to their specialty. Balsillie has also attempted to purchase an NHL franchise and locate it in the Hamilton area, and has been opposed consistently by the governors of the NHL, who fear interference and a watering down of their profit likely in both Buffalo and Toronto where teams are already established. As Gladwell notes, there are some 14 million people in southern Ontario, and there could be 14 financially successful NHL teams in that area alone. He actually calls the governors ‘dumb’ for their lack of what he would term, pragmatic vision.

We all, in North America at least, know of religious sanctuaries that are being converted into community theatres, community centres, or sold for multiple housing units. Pews and plates are emptying at a rate that, for some, is dizzying. Others are less surprised.

It is not only in hockey and in business that vision, prophecy, imagination, intuition and change have a legitimate place. It is true in science, medicine, and even law, as well as in communication, education and, (and here one can only hope) also in Christian theology.

The Christian church has revered, sacralized and made an idol of ‘biblical stories’ interpreted in a manner and with a perspective that may (and even that is only a may, not a certainty) have had relevance at the time the words were inscribed. Such relevance, and such sacralizing and such worship merely upholds those whose teachings and beliefs have been deployed to retain and to support and to apply the teachings of, for example, the parables.

Much of the approach has been a literal, empirical and especially a moral and ethical one. Indeed, the church has found itself burrowing a circle with its own ‘uroborus snake-like body’ in the trench created as it circles with its head in its tail. In decades in the church, I have never heard a single clergy, professor, musician or even administrator referred to as ‘creative, cerebral, imaginative, intuitive or even innovative. However, as might be expected, I have heard many described as ‘relatable, successful for bringing in both bodies and dollars, and occasionally, some homilies have been referred to as thoughtful, or perhaps even challenging and provocative.

Considerable opposition, from predictable institutional authorities, has been raised in objection to such theologies as ‘liberation theology in South America,’ as well as to Vatican II, as well as to the work of the Jesus Seminar. And, naturally, in the spirit of holding and revering what one ‘knows’ to be good, and right and biblical, (as we were all taught in Sunday School), we collectively cling to the reading of those stories, those myths, all of which are open to, ready for and welcoming of new ‘imaginative and intuitive and scholarly and cerebral’ thinking, exegesis and application to the lives of those who are searching for a God, whose full identity and meaning and relationship to each of us is beyond whatever we are capable of imagining.

Even these words from Robert Funk’s, Honest to Jesus, will startle many traditional Christians:

We need to cast Jesus in a new drama, assign him a role in a story with a different plot. The creedal plot in which Jesus has been cast is the myth of the external redeemer. In that story, the protagonist leaves a heavenly abode, enters the human space, performs a redemptive function and returns to the heavens. The movement is from and to an alien space. The plot is the essence of the Christ hymn in the second chapter of Philippians, the prologue to the Gospel of John, and the Hymn of the Pearl preserved in the Acts of Thomas, a third-century pseudepigraphical work……

The redeemer hero in this plot comes from beyond and belongs to a reality not our own. The hero is not one of us; he or she ….is qualitatively different from us. Thjis feature of the redeemer suggests that the created world is basically flawed and must be redeemed from without. In this flawed world, evil is stronger than human powers and cannot be overcome without superhuman aid. Mortal men and women are powerless within the framework of the myth because evil itself has cosmic dimensions. Spectator religion, morality and politics are the inevitable result. Human beings are pawns in the cosmic drama being played out on a stage wider than their own. We are encouraged to rely on the powers above us, alien to us. Myths in this category tend to tranquilize, the function as escapist fare. (Funk, Op, cit. p.307-308)

How would these words and ideas and perceptions be received in a theological graduate school or in a diocesan convention, or in a Sunday Christian education class? Would they be dismissed as were both Marner and Balsillie?

Saying thanks for profound, multiracial, multiethnic, medical care!

 I have no idea what the news headlines on May 2 were; and 11 days later, on the 13^th, I have to acknowledge that I have turned eyes, ears, conversation and all specific thoughts about the state of the world, excepting for Canada, off.

As a news junkie for eight decades, it must be analogous to the ‘withdrawal’ period expressed by those whose previous lives depended on some addictive substance. There is a sense that whatever the political winds, droughts, fires, lies, bombs, braggadocio, and even really hopeful publicly uttered words by prominent and familiar voices, I have remained distant, detached, removed and even willfully self-preservative.

Does that sound self-indulgent? Of course. Do I need to apologize? Even if I did, I refuse. Does that sound insouciant, arrogant, presumptuous and almost disembodied? Most likely. Who cares? Likely no one. So, why does it matter?

The ‘normalcy’ of busy lives, productive lives, concentrated and focused and ambitious lives, while evident in every organization, corporation, and street corner, eclipses the ‘other normalcy’ of lives that seem to be sauntering, stumbling, cowering under bridges, slouched against convenience store walls, and plodding along city streets with the last belongings, rags mostly, of the evidence of their existence, lies burrowed under some canoply in the hold of a supermarket shopping buggy. Do these two ‘normals’ collide? Perhaps, from the perspective of the ‘busy’ and ‘productive’ lives, as they pass by a storm-sewer grate when and where they witness the ‘other normalcy’ just waking from a cold and wet sleep under a rug of some sort.

Sometimes, the two lives intersect at a traffic light when one, carrying a busted cardboard with scrawled letters ‘need food..please help’….or some such prayer. The other might even roll down a driver’s side window, and profer a little change. Sometimes the two ‘normalcies’ meet on a town or city bus, where eyes rarely meet, voices rarely interact, and ‘attention’ that could be paid isn’t.

It is not as if these two ‘normalcies’ exist in exclusion in today’s urban environment. Indeed, there are likely several layers of different stages of ‘normalcy’ some stretching toward the productive and busily organized, others verging on the slide into what metaphorically we might call darkness.

It is the depth and characterization of ‘public consciousness’ about the relationships between the various ‘normalcies’ that interests me here.

All participants in all normalcies are unique individuals; and, there are even times when their respective uniqueness actually matters. When a doctor sticks an ultrasound wand onto the chest of a patient, looking for a dysfunctional heart or lungs, that moment matters, albeit differently, but significantly to both doctor and patient. And the economic, social, political, academic and even religious ‘aspects’ of that individual, are, to the extent possible, irrelevant. If that patient and that doctor were to encounter each other in a mall, for example, even after such a ‘probe’ it is highly unlikely that there were be even a glancing recognition. And, yet at that moment of the ‘probe’ two people, strangers from whatever different backgrounds, are intimately engaged in administering or receiving a specific ‘intervention.’

And for that moment, only the ‘resuts on the screen,’ are the immediate focus of the one, the doctor. The patient might be imagining him or herself miles away, on a sunny beach, while the procedure is conducted.

Social distance, a word I have never heard prior to my forty-fifth year, nevertheless, is more than a matter of etiquette. Of course, we all know that six feet of separation, between individuals engaged in conversation, whether professional or social, is reasonable and expected. And for specific procedural protocols, the distance depends on the purpose of the encounter.

What interests me here is the ‘mental ‘social’ distance’ that we all observe, outside of professional and personal contacts and contexts.

What kinds of things are going on in our heads, about ‘distance’ (physical, emotional, intellectual, professional, personal and the ‘gut-sense’ of comfort)  the moment another comes into our ‘space,’ and we into theirs? Of course, their physical appearance, the angle of their lips, the smile of their eyes, the steadfastness of their glance are all significant, And it is not that their glance penetrates and pushes back, but the degree to which it welcomes, opens, or closes to the other. It has been said that 90% of all communication is physical, not verbal.

If that is the case, how conscious, as ordinary citizens, are we about the ‘body language’ we are emitting, especially when we are totally unconscious of what it even might be? It the body of the ‘oncoming other’ slouched, erect, relaxed, floppy, and does it move in a relaxed, rhythmical gait, or does it take many, small, careful mini-steps of considerable speed and the appearance of certainty. Are these others asking themselves similar questions as they pass us, and do we even think about such questions, especially while in the midst of a somewhat unfamiliar situation?

Do we dare make specific ‘eye contact’? Or, what do the experts on public etiquette advise on whether or not to make eye contact in a public space?

From americanexpress.com, under eye contact with a business associate, international etiquette expert, Jacqueline Whitmore, counsels, ‘When you’re in a business situation, the area that you look at is the triangle that connects the forehead and the eyes….that’s what they call the business gaze. In a social setting according to Whitmore, you are able to look at the entire face. ‘That’s the social gaze’ she says. From the same entry, ‘The reason why we give good eye contact is because it lets the other person know that we’re interested,’ Whitmore says. Try to communicate that interest right away-even before you start speaking….According Sharon Sayler, in her book, What Your Body Says/And How to Master the Message, the appropriate amount of eye contact should be a series of long glances instead of intense stares. To hold appropriate eye contact without staring, the 50/70 rule states that you should maintain eye contact 50% of the time while you are speaking and 70% of the time while you are listening.

The above piece was published in 2013, and no doubt there have been many refinements in this sphere of social interaction in the last decade-plus. What might astound some readers, is that such an even minimal tutorial was neither contemplated, designed nor delivered in my youth. Nor was it a part of the formal education of our generation’s children. However, it is a definite and highly relevant component for contemporary business and professional development.

Talking invariably accompanies ‘eye contact’ and voice tonality, timbre, velocity, and even accent are all significant aspects of one’s ‘voice presentation’ in professional contexts. Imaging millions of teachers trained and deployed in the 60’s, 70’s and possibly even into the 80’s none of whom had the ‘benefits’ of either body language or voice presentation prior to, or even after years, their first day in their classroom. None of these niceties, however, are likely to register or even to be a matter of any concern among those other ‘normalcies’ where people are barely struggling to make it from one day to the next.

In several previous lives, I used to think that the band of vocabulary, geographic visits, musical, film and entertainment exposure, team associations and, of course, libraries one was exposed to and familiar with were all essential for ‘growing up’ even growing up ‘absurd’ as Paul Goodman once wrote.

There is a lot more to a social divide that those resulting from family income differentials. And, although this is going to sound downright ‘elitist,’ we have paid far too little attention to the various elements of experience, exposure, familiarity and comfort levels with different cultures, heritages, peoples, community traditions and ceremonies to which we are each embedded, and from those we are separated from, as well as how we might begin, authentically and respectfully, to bridge such divides.

As the world population, like an ever-moving flock of Canada Geese, on their way north in Spring or south in Fall, continues to roam, some of it based on personal and family aspirations, and yet much of it resulting from forced conditions over which millions of migrants and refugees have no control, the complex issue not only of integration, assimilation and welcoming new people into our personal, organizational, urban, rural and national lives is one for which many of us have been either ill-prepared, or not prepared at all.

Courtesy, kindness, respect, dignity, of course!

But how are such ‘expressions’ conveyed? How are such expectations to be met both by the ‘newcomer’ and by the original population? Are we having a national dialogue about these matters? And if so are such conversations taking place primarily at the level of policy and program, and may or may not integrate themselves into the fabric of our towns and cities?

Most situations boil down, or are reduced to, a bottom line or minimal set of expectations, articulated primarily by those ‘in charge’ and for those people, whether or not they are conscious of this tendency or not, they will place an emphasis and preference on ‘keeping what we already have’ and YOU, the newcomer, are expected to fit in. Some would call this normal, pragmatic, and smooth integration, especially if it is designed to promote and sustain efficiency for the organization. Does the newcomer have an opportunity to participate in its design? Does the newcomer even consider that some of the traditions which are embedded in his consciousness are even more effective integrative and applicable than those being politely, respectfully and even kindly ‘imposed’ in the new homeland? Does the welcoming nation or organization consider the potential for new ideas, not only on such basics as communication, but also on organizational structure, communication strategies and tactics that are imported daily right before our eyes, without our giving a thought to its potential, for our own enhancement?

It is no longer adequate  to say, as we once did in Canada, that we are a multicultural nation, of a kind of mosaic. That presupposes that native Canadians are the ‘grout’ that stabilizes the mosaic, and holds the different tiles in place. As the numbers of immigrants, refugees, and highly skilled and trained professionals climbs exponentially, Canada, like the United States and many other ‘northern nations’ will envelop populations that can and in many cases likely will exceed the numbers and the traditional ratios and proportions that were all based on some form of unconscious ‘superiority’ simply by legacy.

Those of us, in my case, Caucasian, middle class, albeit educated to a significant degree, especially when compared with the opportunities of our parents and grandparents, all have a social, cultural, political, and especially professional opportunity to invigorate, digest, learn and find new ways of being introduced to men and women and children whose background, education, language, social and cultural traditions and personal family expectations are very different from our own.

While some of my generation and background may harbour resentments, fears and anxieties about ‘loss of control’ and the racial and ethnic ratios shift, such a perspective is another easily adopted and yet uneasily recognized form of personal, family, community and even national sabotage. Racism, in the form of social superiority (mostly implicit and silent), is a risk to which we are all subject, like a virus whose identity and whereabouts are silent until they are not. There are not medical interventions for this kind of racial animus (call it a hidden virus to which we are all potentially carriers). There are only private personal reflections, conversations, experiences and adaptations to which we can all become open to entering.

Failing to do so is a peril to which none of us can afford to fail. The riches, bounty and desire to be productive, self-fulfilling and highly integrated men, women and children, like their broad and authentic smiles, enter the nation every day at every airport and sea and rail terminal.

We are blessed and grateful and somewhat chagrined at our collective resistance, in a world  in which we each of us deeply, authentically and uniquely are desperate to contribute to the welfare and well-being of us all.

Searching for God # 112

 The Anglican Communion Office works to promote Christian unity, fostering visible communion both within the Anglican family and with other world communions.

This work deals with questions of Christian belief (faith) and church structure (order) that have historically divided denominations. The ACO facilitates theological dialogues among Anglican churches, and ecumenically, with Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, and other Christian traditions.
It provides the theological foundation that makes deeper unity possible—helping churches move from mere cooperation to actual reconciliation and potentially full communion. (from anglicancommunion.org. website)

Volumes have been written, councils held, creeds written, memorized and memorialized, seminaries have been generated and both inter-church and ecumenical dialogue continues. Even last month, the newly installed Archbishop of Canterbury met with Pope Leo XVI in Rome where both agreed to continue to work together to foster the path toward unity of the Christian church.

On an important level of both cognition and theology, not to mention the politics of operating in a universe where conflict seems to dominate, ‘unity’ connotes harmony, credibility, trustworthiness, consensus. From multiple gods, as comprised the galaxy of sacred entities in Greek and Roman culture, there was a thrust of energized opinion that fought for and, to a degree won various commitments to a single God, with Three various ‘metaphorically-contained entities. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The tension between the concepts of immanence and transcendence, human/God (Jesus as man, Father as God with Holy Spirit as ‘neither-and-both’)  is a tension from which many theologians, evoking a physics concept, would like to have generated energy, new ideas, new life and a both-and rather than an ‘either-or’ kind of theology. For them, (an example might be William Blake who equated God and imagination as one) such a theology will, they believed and proposed, would continue to generate new interpretations of what is essentially beyond ‘cognition, reason, imagination, time, space and human ‘grasp’.

The declaration of Peter as the ‘rock’ upon which Jesus would build His church, the date of Easter, the deployment of icons, Bishops, archbishops, the ordination of women, the generation of clergy at all, especially the question of how to read and interpret scripture, (The Bible, in this case, yet the Torah and the Koran as well), the nature of sin and forgiveness, the process of application of those theological notions and concepts, the relationship between church and state (Henry VIII’s vengeful generation of the Church of England, separated from Rome over an un-granted yet demanded divorce, and the subsequent British monarch’s dual role as Head of State and Heat of the Church of England, are just part of this divide), the welcome or exclusion of the LGBTQ+ community first as parishioners, then as approved clients for church marriage and/or union, and later, ordination as clergy…the Biblical (Old Testament) injunctions that women remain silent and subsidiary to their male partners…..even the Eucharist, its design, its delivery, the question  of whether and  how sinning clergy could continue to administer it….these are only a brief list of some of the theological, traditional, exegetical and cultural divides that render ‘the church’ (even considering only the Christian umbrella) deeply, seemingly permanently and increasingly divided.

There is currently a growing branch of Anglicanism, The Global Anglican Future Conference, (Gafcon) who have restructured their organization, signalling a break from the traditions of the historic Anglican communion, and replaced their Gafcon Primate Council with the Global Anglican Council. They oppose liberal trends like same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly LGBTQ+ clergy.

At the core of many of the ‘divides’ lies a perception, conception and belief in what might be termed ‘fixed’ interpretations of specific phrases in scripture, and an evolving, ‘intent’ of the scribes given the time and place of their entries and the various contexts in which translations, revisions and evolutions in both words and meaning have become part of the lectionary. Conservatism, the preservation of the past, as it has been ‘handed down’ by church fathers (not the gender of that last word), continues to erupt as the social, political, moral and ethical landscape continues to evolve (they would likely prefer ‘unwind’)

Homosexuality remains taboo in many African countries, in some cases criminalized under colonial-era laws or newer legislation. Uganda enacted legislation in 2023 prescribing the death penalty for some homosexual offense.

The Anglican Communion is moving toward a decentralization plan of its own, making it ‘less Canterbury centric,’ according to a summary of the proposals, recognizing that a majority of Anglicans now live in the Global South, far from England. (apnews.com, in a piece by Peer Smith, March 2, 2026, entitled, ‘Conservative Anglican leaders meet in Nigeria, facing debate on a possible breakaway’)

Church organization, political structure and decision-making centralizing will, however, do nothing to change the LGBTQ+ community to becoming ‘straight’ as the conservative group would have it, whether they acknowledge their adamantine stance or not. This is not about ‘political structure’ (although many in Gafcon do not accept the primacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in part because she is a woman).

There is a global divide, albeit epitomized by and within the Anglican Communion itself, that, to this observer, seems eminently intractable. Old Testament words are unlikely to be revised. Deeply entrenched gender attitudes, beliefs and laws are unlikely to be remanded, revised or non-prosecuted.

In his profoundly provocative book, Honest to Jesus, founder of the Jesus Seminar, Robert Funk writes sensitively, cogently and prophetically of an opportunity to revisit and to set Jesus free:

The quester should think of how it must have been in those first, tentative decades, in the thirties and forties of the common era, when the Jesus movement was young, amorphous, a fledging struggling to find its wings. That is the correct perspective from which to view the present challenge. At such moments in history, then and now, (book published in 1996), anything less than complete openness to the claims being laid on the future by the past will not serve the cause of truth. There is nothing in the creed, in the gospels, in Christian tradition, and in the historical and scientific methodologies with which we study them that is immune to critical assessment and reformulation. We cannot put a protective shield around any part of the Christian heritage if we aspire to set Jesus free. Everything is on the table….

In the ‘new age,’ all theology is post-Auschwitz, as a German theologian recently remarked. Theology conducted in the aftermath of Auschwitz means, among other things, that we can no longer trust the authority structure of an ecclesiastical tradition that learned, at several crucial junctures in its history, it was unable to resist the ultimate compromise. We should already have learned that from the lessons of the Spanish Inquisition. Or we might have the Nazi horror to look back on as well. In view of the compromises ‘Christian’ leaders made in those and similar contexts, it is a wonder that anyone would want to claim the authority of this or that church council for the ultimate truth. From now on we musts always ask whether the Christian tradition has something to teach us and, if it does, what that something is. We can no longer give Christianity prior consent without determining what we are embracing as a part of the bargain. (Funk op. cit. p. 298-299)

Funk continues in a “Quest Designed for a New Age’’ using these words in part:

Jesus is also a secular sage. His parables and aphorisms all but obliterate the boundaries separating the sacred from the secular. He can teach us something that has nothing directly to do with what we know as Christianity, or indeed, with organized religion as such…..When the name of Jesus is mentioned, ‘religion’ is assumed to be the subject. But in fact, the Jesus of whom we catch glimpses in the gospels may be said to have been irreligious, irreverent. and impious. The first word he said, as Paul Tillich once remarked, was a word against religion in its habituated form: because he was indifferent to the formal practice of religion, he is said to have profaned the temple, the sabbath, and breached the purity regulations of his own legacy; most important of all, he spoke of the kingdom of God in profane terms—that is, nonreligiously. For these reasons alone, his significance deserves to be detached from any exclusive religious context and considered in a broader, cultural frame of reference. (Funk ibid, p. 302)

Positing the notion that Jesus is not the proper object of the Christian faith, but God the Father is, Funk writes:

Jesus called on his followers to trust the Father, to believe in God’s domain or reign. The proper object of faith inspired by Jesus is to trust what Jesus trusted….Jesus pointed to something he called God’s domain, something he did not create, something he did not control….Jesus himself should not be, must not be, the object of faith. That would be to repeat the idolatry of the first believers…

Jesus quite deliberately articulated an open-ended, nonexplicit vision in his parables and aphorisms. He did not prescribe behavior or endorse specific religious practices. He was never programmatic in his pronouncements. His followers had and have the obligation to transmit his tradition in the same key. It is perfectly acceptable to specify what his pronouncements may mean for our time and place, but it is not commensurate with his vision to chisel them in stone. Our interpretation of parables should be more parables—polyvalent, enigmatic, humorous and nonprescriptive…..Just as Jesus challenged the immense solidity of his everyday world, we, too, must discover for ourselves in what respects our  habituated sense of reality is illusory. (Funk, ibid, p.304-305)

To be continued…….

Searching for God # 111

 “You are far and away too intense for me!”

That quote comes from a female supervisor to this then assigned intern to a rural Ontario parish, a few months after arriving, immediately following the departure of a previous clergy. The diocesan leadership told me nothing of the circumstances, the profile of the parish, nor the background for the clergy’s leaving. A recent graduate from Trinity College, University of Toronto, I had served an internship in a small metro parish that had, prior to my arrival, undergone considerable trauma.

I reference the quote for multiple reasons about the kind of perceptions, attitudes and judgements that fly around in parishes with both impunity and immunity. It is the ‘ethos’ within a parish that has received very little attention, both in seminary formation as well as in professional development programs for clergy. And, from only a dozen years of engagement inside the Canadian and American churches, I have noted a series of similar, if not identical, patterns of lay leadership, as well as clergy-parish relations.

Previous evaluations had included words like ‘impatient’ and ‘verbose’ and ‘energetic’…..intensity had not emerged until the above quote.

In the homily delivered by my former Faculty Advisor, Rev. Dr. Romney Moseley, a line uttered in 1992 continues to echo in my memory these 34 years later: “They will turn on you and utterly destroy you!” was his depiction of the potential of a parish congregation’s power and influence over a clergy with whom they come into conflict. Having been ‘through’ such encounters, and having intermittently yet frequently pondered, mused and reflected on the circumstances of many of such broken relationships, not only of my own but also of others, I am tentatively dancing with the option of letting some of those reflections free from my finger tips.

It is not that either my experience or my reflections have anything new to tell about parish ministry. Nor that anyone either in seminary curriculum planning or ecclesial hierarchy might read or reflect on anything they might read in this space. And, perhaps there is an element of ‘letting go’ of some of the frustrations and fulminations that have charged various moments in those dozen years.

The way that sanctity, sacredness and church piety seems to have found their way into the latter part of the twentieth century in North America, at least, seems to have been carried in on the tongues, throats and larynxes of whisperers. Small, slow steps, in liturgy, heavy and ornate robes, and what one assumes others consider to be ‘reverence’ is evidence in the degree of scrupulosity and careful monitoring of any person, usually a woman, who consents to serve on the Altar Guild where one of the roles is the folding of linen for use in the Eucharist. Newcomers frequently run afoul of ‘tradition’ if they omit a step, fold in a different order from the ‘established’ and learn quickly that this activity warrants special discipline.

Pursuit of perfection, is evident also in the often-rehearsed scriptural readings by lay men and women, as another of the symbols of a conventionally supported ‘sanctuarial ethos’ that is, one guesses, intended to ‘please God’. I was once openly and publicly criticized by a warden for placing a water bottle, not on the altar, but on the table behind the altar. I was apparently deviating from what was considered ‘proper protocol’ in liturgical manuals I had never read or even heard about. Indeed, I believe the criticism was less about proper protocol than about that warden’s total need for absolute control of the situation. And whether that warden had already felt the heat of the anger of criticism from others about other matters or not, I am not aware.

Early on, in those dozen years, while on the phone with a diocesan officer, I casually, yet pointedly commented, “Rod, I am becoming convinced that the church is operating on a mandated ‘politically correct’ modus operandi! And that that also sums up both politics and its theology! His response, “I completely agree with that!”

Public performances, whether by clergy, laity, choir, organist or care-taker, however, that put ‘show’ before substance seem to contradict the essence of the Christian faith. In street talk, what kind of God is or ever would be, impressed, or need to be impressed by ‘His’ people demonstrating  inauthenticity, ‘showing-off’ if you like, as an integral part of their relationship with God. Of course, one thinks of ‘hosting’ and ‘putting on a best face’ of the family when entertaining guests or family. Perhaps my ‘take’ is about the degree to which many go ,,,,while at the same time, the other side of this ‘extreme’ behaviour is silent, surreptitious whispering, and often malicious, gossip.

Churches, by their very nature, attempt to be welcoming, for a variety of reasons. Of course, they welcome others who might be genuinely interested in learning more about what goes on there, learning more about God and perhaps even seeking to connect with a community of people they might trust in a new city or town. All very relevant, significant and realistic possibilities. Lay training for those interested in ‘welcoming’ people upon their entry into narthex or porch of the building is often offered as a way to enhance the experience of someone’s first visit. Occasionally, too, others will extend a hand of welcome to a new face. All well and good.

How can or does one even hope to ‘curtail, limit, discourage, or even dissuade’ the gossip that slithers from pew to pew, before, during and after formal worship services. If one calls it out, even privately, doubtless there will be a strong push-back.

Image this scenario: ‘Do you know what he said to me? as I shook his hand after the service this morning. He gently reminded me of my ‘tendency to gossip’ and I told him I was genuinely interested in some of the things others are going through; I thought that was part of being a member here.”

Or this scenario: “I left that church because I heard in that sermon words from a conversation that others in the parish had had earlier in the week, ….no name mentioned. I am not going to support even anonymous use of real conversations as part of a clergy’s sermon in any church I attend.”

The smaller the parish, the larger the degree of control and influence that a small group of people, families that have been attending and supporting during the most difficult times in the parish history, inject into the running of the church. New people to the community are deeply resented, if they usurp an ‘original’ family member’s conviction to serve in leadership. The ‘old’ (as an legacy membership) consider it their right to continue to decide who serves, and they almost act as if they have the first right of refusal when recommendations of appointments are made.

It is not that any of this ‘human behaviour’ is so exceptional; it is just that, if one (as clergy) attempts to confront it, as part of a ministry, one runs a serious risk of alienating, offending, and ultimately putting one’s job in jeopardy.

After conducting a service for a visiting ‘search committee for a new clergy’ and after being formally and informally interviewed by the committee for three or four hours on the Saturday evening prior to the service, and after the committee had reported favourably back to the rest of the church council on their recommendation of appointment, one prominent member of the wider council sought a private interview with the candidate at which he declared,

“I am a friend of the bishop and I am proud that I was highly instrumental in sending the last priest on his way out of our church because he was not spiritual enough, and you are not spiritual enough as well!” I felt the hairs on my neck bristle.

Instantly, I felt both competitive and aggressive….probably too intense for my own good. The words I recall uttering, almost as if I had neither heard nor taken seriously his ‘bishop-connection,’ were, as close as I can recall:

“And where would you like to be in your own spiritual life over the next three years?”….It was as if I had slapped his forehead with a fish. Instantly he changed the subject, as if he too had neither heard nor paid attention to my rejoinder.

Intensity of presentation has the obvious potential of putting people off, especially in an institution that prides itself on ‘calm, deliberate, mature, reasonable and moderate’ methodology and theology. Intensity also has the potential to cut through the hypocrisy, both of the individual variety and of the institutional variety. Indeed, as hypocrisy is a ubiquitous trait, brought into every single room where people meet, as one clergy colleague put it, “Church is the best place for hypocrits to be!” The inference is that in the church they might become conscious of their hypocrisy and begin to reflect on its toxicity.

The quasi-military, hierarchical, organizational structure lies at the foundation of at least some mainline protestant churches. One can only guess that such a hierarchy brings with it a degree of control and management ease that offers readily accessible opportunities to ‘depose’ those it considers ‘not spiritual enough’ for example, or nor compliant with the local, familial traditions and connections to a parish, or even those whose theology is considered ‘heretical’.

Hearing the phone message intone words like, “You are the anti-Christ and you must be driven out of the church immediately!” after barely a few months serving as recently ordained deacon, I wondered how to proceed. I knew that the warden and his legacy friends had scheduled the showing of a video produced by some fundamentalist group in Waco, Texas, and insisted on showing it ‘Tuesday of this week’ was the way I was accosted about it. I firmly rejected that proposition, at least until I had had an opportunity to view the video and make my own conclusions. The warden then informed me that my ‘sermons were heretical’ ( I had referred to writers like Scott Peck, Herb O’Driscoll and Romney Moseley)….and that I must leave the parish immediately. This conversation took place shortly after a Sunday service in which I had subverted the formal announcement of the video showing. I again firmly responded, “I am not going anywhere!”

In the week following that encounter, I wrote and delivered a letter to that warden’s place of business, that his services as warden were no longer needed.

Sadly, after another few months, I heard, from a fifteen-year-old while having lunch at McDonalds with him and his mother, who had slipped out to the washroom, this question, “Do you know why the last priest left?” To which I answered in the negative.

“Well, he shot a dog and turned the gun on the owner!” were the words that came from the young man. How true, even without context, those words were, has never been determined by me or communicated to me by anyone who would have known the full context.

Nevertheless, the level of sensitive attention paid to liturgical and fiscal matters, in my experience in the church far exceeds the attention paid to the ‘story’ of a parish, the details of conflicts that remain unresolved, and even unaddressed. As a parallel, two weeks of ‘holy hand-waving’ as to how to perform a eucharist were mandated as part of the formation for ministry, without a single word, lecture, workshop or seminar or certainly not a course in parish conflict resolution being uttered.

The deployment of authority, power, and hierarchical decision-making, without appeal, seems to have embedded itself into at least the Anglican/Episopalian churches, if not in others. And, any notion of the degree of difficulty that one might be having in the service of especially an already troubled parish or mission is, or at least has seemed to be, totally irrelevant to the persons whose title included responsibility for the operation of those troubled churches.

I have no idea how many clergy have faced similar gordion knots in parishes, without adequate support….doubtless there are others.

Like any human organization, churches have their dark side; a public presentation that ignores or denies the institutional Shadow seems also to avoid a critical and essential part of their own collective unconscious truth.