Jack Kemp’s Funeral

May 8, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Congress, Episcopal Church, In Memoriam, Nixon Administration figures, Republican Party, U.S. History | 2 Comments 

This afternoon, at a packed Washington National Cathedral, the funeral of all-star AFL quarterback, longtime New York congressman, 1996 Republican vice-presidential candidate, and dedicated economic and social trailblazer Jack Kemp was held. Originally it was planned for his own Presbyterian church, but when it became clear that many more wished to attend the service than that building could hold, it was moved to the structure sometimes called “America’s church.”

And, as was to be expected, this was a quintessentially American service in its inclusiveness; Mary Kate Cary at US News And World Report’s website reports that it attracted “the most diverse crowd I’ve ever seen at a Washington funeral.” An Episcopal priest conducted a Presbyterian service; the Howard University choir sang; and many yarmulkes were seen among those assembled. All races and walks of life were represented: blue-collar workers joined Senators, liberals joined libertarians.

Ms. Cary reports that the most memorable eulogy was delivered by former Nixon White House chief counsel Chuck Colson, who eloquently observed that “Jack Kemp was indomitable as few of us are.”

Indeed, we would be blessed as a nation if our current crop of leaders had more of Kemp’s blend of indomitability, compassion and vision.

There’s A Star In The…Well, Southwest

December 24, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Episcopal Church, Faith | Leave a Comment 

Evening star last night over St. John Chrysostom Episcopal Church in Rancho Santa Margarita, California

Katharine The Calming

December 7, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Episconixonian, Episcopal Church | Leave a Comment 

RN will always be the boss, but I have another boss, too — the new presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

And You Thought National Politics Was Complicated!

December 4, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Episcopal Church, Faith | Leave a Comment 

Reflections on the issue of women in the Church, which seems to lurk behind the far-more-widely-discussed issue of gays and lesbians in the church.

Which Denomination Will Obama Rescue?

December 4, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Episcopal Church, Faith, Obama family, Presidents | Leave a Comment 

Washington, D.C.’s pastors are wondering who will get the bailout.

I Am Not An Anglican

December 3, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Episcopal Church, Faith | 6 Comments 

A brief note on the latest split in Christ’s weeping church.

Which Puppy? Which Pew? Decisions, Decisions

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Barack Obama, Episconixonian, Episcopal Church | Leave a Comment 

The Washington Post’s Sally Quinn says the church-shopping Obamas should go Episcopal. Yeah!

Two Flashes Of Light

November 26, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Episconixonian, Episcopal Church, Faith | Leave a Comment 

Reflections on church schisms and the Resurrection.

Santa Barbara Loses A House Of Hospitality

November 16, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Episcopal Church | Leave a Comment 

Associated Press

Thousands of people have lost their homes in this year’s round of California wildfires. Tens of thousands more weep for a small community of monks with special hearts for hospitality: The brothers of the Mount Calvary Retreat House and Monastery near Santa Barbara, part of the Episcopal Order of the Holy Cross. The brothers and their staff are safe; they’re staying at a nearby convent. Rebuilding is inevitable. Watch those web sites if you’re interested in helping.

Read USA Today’s coverage here.

Church Shopping For The Obamas

November 14, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Barack Obama, Episcopal Church | Leave a Comment 

Sanctuary of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Foggy Bottom, Washington

TIME has advice for the President-elect about what church he and his family might attend in Washington. One idea:

If you’re interested in branching out to an Episcopal church, Diana Butler Bass, author of five books on American Protestantism and an adjunct professor at Virginia Theological Seminary, invites you to try hers. “Epiphany is a downtown Episcopal church with a congregation that is fifty-fifty white and black,” she says, “and it has a full spectrum of social class diversity as well as a long history in Washington.” Indeed, several members of Lincoln’s Cabinet belonged to Epiphany, and it was also very active in supporting the civil rights movement in the 1960s. “It would be an interesting choice that appears to resonate with the new First Family’s politics and theology,” says Bass. “Plus, my 11-year-old daughter wants Malia in her Sunday school class.”

Another Episcopal choice, classic if obvious, is St. John’s right across the street from the White House, the so-called church of the Presidents. My vote would be St. Mary’s in Foggy Bottom, a venerable church founded right after the Civil War that courageously resists being swallowed up by George Washington University. Its newly restored nave is breathtaking.

The View From Tupelo

November 10, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Civil rights, Domestic issues, Episcopal Church, Faith | 1 Comment 

Marcia Segelstein, writing at OneNewsNow in Tupelo, Mississippi:

No wonder the Episcopal Church is in trouble.  Dioceses continue to make the difficult but principled decision to leave the US Episcopal Church, setting themselves up for protracted and expensive legal battles.  Meanwhile, Episcopal leaders just don’t get it.

The Bishop of Los Angeles, Jon Bruno, called Proposition 8 “a lamentable expression of fear-based discrimination that attempts to deny the constitutional rights of some Californians on the basis of sexual orientation.”

Other California bishops said the vote to uphold traditional marriage demonstrated a “fear of human sexuality,” and that Californians were driven by “fear, prejudice and injustice.”

As David Virtue writes on his website… “These bishops don’t give enough credit to the distinctions Americans can and are able to make.  Americans can reject racism and vote for a black president and at the same time uphold Christian standards for marriage…What Californians said was ‘no’ to gay marriage which they said is not marriage at all, either in God’s eyes or the state’s.”

Self-styled Christian traditionalists are prone to criticize the mainline denominations for toadying to people’s cultural and political whims. They proclaim that the gospel should stand as a rock against fickle fashion. Yet here Virtue invests the electorate with powers of keen discernment, rejecting racism while hewing thoughtfully to traditional marriage.

But how stood those wise voters with racism in 1860? And in Mississippi, for instance, in 1954? In each era, some in the church were opposing slavery and Jim Crow — some, but not all. A question for today’s witnesses is how our views, statements, and actions vis a vis our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters will be viewed in 50 years.

Prop. 8, Gay Marriage, And God’s Blessing

November 9, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Domestic issues, Episcopal Church, Faith, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

On Saturday, over 20,000 demonstrated against California’s Prop. 8. Melissa Etheridge says she’s keeping her $500,000 a year in state taxes now that her second-class citizenship has been affirmed.

Protesters may be hoping to influence the courts that will rule on lawsuits claiming that Prop. 8, which amends the constitution to ban gay marriage, is invalid. President Nixon used to say that judges read the papers and feel the political heat just like ordinary people, so we shall see. (He also predicted we’d have gay marriage by 2000.)

Opponents of gay marriage, including the President-elect, often say that they support civil union and domestic partnership laws instead. This primer shows how these expedients aim for but don’t match the sturdiness of the marriage contract. One can understand the frustration of those who object to society making that contract not impossible for them to get — just considerably more complicated and expensive. What is the point of giving a couple 60%, or 75%, or whatever percentage of a thing but then withholding the last bit on the basis of some immutable principle, especially when we’ve already ceded the principle by establishing civil unions in some states, including California?

The explanation for a paradox is usually in the heart, wrapped in people’s ideals and fears as well their foundational experiences. The mom-dad paradigm, dominant since the beginning of time, is at the root of most people’s definition of family. Pin me to the wall, and I’ll say it’s best for a child to have a mom and dad. The irony is that my father was almost never around, and my mother had to go back to work when I was three weeks old. I might have done better with two attentive moms or two dads. As it was, I went searching for replacement dads, not extra moms (though some men do that when they choose their wives). I needed a father in my life — because of my conception of the godhead, because I was male, or for some other reason.

Everyone else has their own set of experiences, beliefs, and sometimes pathologies. On Nov. 4, it added up to 52% of Californians being against same-gender marriage. You can blame it on funding from the Mormons if you like, but my guess is that relatively few voters needed help making up their minds. These were votes that came from the gut.

As for mine, I tried to think about being deprived of the right to marry the person I loved because I’d been born gay. Besides, as ex-Nixon speechwriter William Safire wrote several years ago, the gays are bound to do better with marriage than the straights. We may yet get back to the ideal of the traditional family, but in the meantime — and it will be a long time — men and women who beget children, both mindfully and not, will need significant help from nontraditional families to raise them.

In the end, I voted against Prop. 8, especially for the sake of the gay and lesbian people I care about, including mentors and partners in Christian ministry. I did so without being eager for the ban to fail. “Marriage” is a culturally defined term, and the best way a free people has to define their terms is at the ballot box. If the Holy Spirit was moving across the surface of the deep on this issue, I didn’t want my vote to be the one standing in her way. But as I voted, my heart and head were still tugging at one another.

Now that the measure has passed, gay and lesbian people are heartbroken and angry. Comparing their cause to civil rights for African-Americans and Hispanics, they criticize blacks for voting in favor of Prop. 8. It’s a harsh political reality that people’s visceral feelings about homosexuality run deeper than culturally and economically conditioned biases against ethnic groups. Instead of blaming those who voted yes, marriage equity advocates might look for new political and social partners. Those who oppose abortion also feel marginalized and unheard, not only by the majority of voters but the MSM, which at least is giving the anti-Prop. 8 demonstrators a fair hearing. Gay people and the unborn and their advocates — the last second-class citizens — may have the makings of an effective coalition.

As for how marriage is ultimately defined by secular society, my guess is that gay and lesbian people will soon be granted that last 40% or 25% of a durable legal contract. At that point, the debate will shift back to where the really difficult work is being done — the church and other faith communities.

Reformation scholars will tell you that the early Protestants didn’t think the church had any business solemnizing legal contracts between men and women or anyone else. The deed was done on the church steps, after which the couple came inside for the main event — the church’s mediation of God’s blessing, which God had envisioned for the couple at the beginning of all things. The church understands that the two people were meant for each other in the mind of God. In the marriage rites contained in the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer, the emphasis is not on the marriage itself, which the priest or bishop does as an agent of the state, but on God’s preexisting blessing.

That’s why the divisive debate in the Episcopal Church is over whether same-sex unions should be blessed. That debate won’t be any easier for churches, dioceses, or provinces just because polities decide to give all people access to the same durable legal contract.

For unchurched Californians, overturning Prop. 8, should that happen, will be the end of the drama. For the faithful, more scenes have yet to be played out, and on their stage, legislation, demonstrations, and court cases aren’t as helpful. The church won’t be of one mind on the subject until the preponderance of those in the pews have the epiphany experience of looking across the aisle at Fred and Ed or Alice and Grace (or perhaps across the table at the family Thanksgiving feast) and saying to themselves, “You know, I’m not wild about this whole gay marriage thing, but those two were meant to be together.” For the faithful, meant-to-be is in the mind of God, the source of all blessing.

The Episcopal Church Continues To Serve

November 6, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Episcopal Church, Obama administration | 1 Comment 

The London Times:

Barack Obama sought out controversial gay bishop Gene Robinson not just once but three times during his campaign to become President of the United States, The Times can reveal.

Bishop Robinson, the 80-million strong Anglican Communion’s only openly gay bishop whose consecration in 2003 has left the Anglican Communion on the brink of schism, was sought out by Mr Obama to discuss what it feels like to be “first”.

Bishop Robinson, who received death threats after his election as Bishop of New Hampshire and was advised by police to wear a bullet-proof vest at his consecration, also discussed with Mr Obama the risks incumbent upon being a high-profile leader in a country such as the US.

Bishop Robinson said: “At the end of the day you have to decide whether or not you are going to be paralysed by threats and by violent possibilities or whether you just move on and do what you feel called to do despite the risks.

“Beatitudes For Voters”

November 3, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, Episcopal Church, Faith | Leave a Comment 

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at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Rancho Santa Margarita, California. Executive summary:

– Blessed are voters who are just and righteous, because they recognize that the world isn’t and that their votes can make a difference.

– Blessed are the big-picture thinkers, because when they think about those who really have troubles, they’ll worry less and care more.

– Blessed are the hopeful, because they know that God has it well in hand.

– Blessed are the skeptical, because they know that politicians (left, right, and center) don’t always say what they mean.

– Blessed are the indecisive, because being too sure we’re right and others are wrong isn’t a godly virtue.

Revolutionary Church at Midday

November 1, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Episcopal Church, Faith, History | 1 Comment 

Bruton Parish Episcopal Church, Williamsburg, Va, November 1, 2008

Built in 1715, the Bruton Parish served as a sanctuary to legendary revolutionaries including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson , Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Patrick Henry, and George Mason.
 

Separatists For Palin

October 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Episcopal Church, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

Links between schismatic Episcopalians and Gov. Palin, namely two of her boosters, Fred Barnes and Mark Gerson.

Counting Noses In The Pews And The Senate

October 25, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Congress, Episcopal Church, Faith | 7 Comments 

From Julia Duin of the Washington Times, reacting to George Will’s recent superior-sounding column in celebration of former Episcopal bishop Robert Duncan, who left our church to get away from the homosexuals, more news about dwindling TEC attendance in the wake of the ordination of an openly gay bishop in 2003. Instead, Duin notes, people are flooding to Pentecostal churches (where they can enjoy being ridiculed not by Will but the New York Times).

As a priest and a vicar of a congregation, I find it a manifold blessing when people come to church. If TEC is making the wrong choices about giving gay and lesbian people a full life in the church, then it would be a shame to lose membership for that reason. But if the choices are correct, and people leave because of them, what does that say about us and them?

Either way, the numbers aren’t the issue. The issue is the most high God’s love and will for his people. Often enough in human affairs, justice isn’t necessarily on the side of the majority. After all, political conservatives, counting the smaller number of pews they are expected to retain in the chamber of the U.S. Senate after Nov. 4, are unlikely to give in to discouragement. Nor should TEC, if it’s sure it’s right.

Says a thoughtful letter to the editor writer in Pennsylvania,

Is it necessarily “evidence of spiritual vigor” when a diocese leaves the Episcopal Church, sincere as a departing bishop may be? Doesn’t it also take “spiritual vigor” to rise above dissension?

Those 650 bishops at the Lambeth Conference differed, often widely, in their views. Yet from reports of their meetings it seems they were able to discuss, and then set aside, their differences, and focus on prayer, meditation, and all that unites them as Anglicans.

Mr. Will says “The Episcopal Church… today… is ‘progressive’ politics cloaked — very thinly — in piety.” No church is perfect, of course, and our leaders can be as flawed as any others, religious or secular. But in the pews I see believers of various backgrounds, drawn together by a desire to seek God and live as much as possible in the spirit of Jesus. While fostering tradition and keeping core Christian doctrines (we say the Nicene Creed weekly), the Episcopal Church has room for various understandings of what the Christian life means for us today.

Some, though not all, of these understandings are new; and who is to say the Holy Spirit isn’t prompting them, on occasion? Didn’t a new understanding lead, for example, to the abolition of slavery?

The Case For Same-Species Marriage

October 24, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Culture, Episcopal Church | Leave a Comment 

Faith And Crisis

October 22, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Economic issues, Episcopal Church, Faith | Leave a Comment 

On Sept. 11 and the days after, the good people of Trinity Episcopal Church at the foot of Wall St. and at nearby St. Paul’s Chapel faithfully served those who were suffering and sacrificing. Today Trinity’s rector is counseling those who are anxious about the economic crisis.

A Pious Will

October 20, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Episcopal Church, Faith, News media | 3 Comments 

If there’s one thing that can turn a moderate Episcopalian into a raging radical, it’s a column about the church by the hyper-righteous George F. Will:

Episcopalians’ discontents tell a cautionary tale for political as well as religious associations. As the church’s doctrines have become more elastic, the church has contracted. It celebrates an “inclusiveness” that includes fewer and fewer members.

The elastic doctrine in question is the admittedly modern idea that homosexual behavior is not inherently sinful and that gay and lesbian people are entitled to full access to the church’s sacramental work, including ordination as deacons, priests, and bishops. Many good, loving people with differing perspectives have worked the problem in our church for a generation or more, bringing to bear the witness of Holy Scripture, the church’s traditions, and the God-given reason of the people of God. As for Will, sniffing his way through a column that’s already been written 50 times by other church critics, he gets no further than the theologically bankrupt argument that righteousness resides with the majority view. Only schismatic ex-Episcopal bishop Robert Duncan, who has tried to take his diocese out of the Episcopal Church because of the homosexuals, gets a voice in Will’s column.

In TEC’s life, critics once accused it of doctrinal elasticity for letting African-Americans come down from the church balcony. A generation ago, skeptics could risk putting “inclusiveness” in quotes when the elastic church was stretching to include the then more easily ridiculed idea of the ontological equality of women. Today, some of the women who, thanks to the second big stretch, were welcomed to celebrate Holy Eucharist at the altar of Christ have turned and tried to bar the way to gay and lesbian people. Will is now proud to be an advocate of these self-styled traditionalists. I wonder how his column will sound 50 years from now.

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