Category: Uncategorized

Every now and then, someone floats the notion that Western Christianity might better serve God and humanity by declaring a “free play” moment, where ecclesial boundaries were suspended and the contents of extant denominations were shaken up and reshuffled — such that the “liberal” and “conservative” poles of contemporary churches could regroup together into internally-coherent theological bodies. That notion, of course, fails to reckon with the complexities of terms such as “liberal” and “conservative,” nor with the particularities that constitute churches as distinct from one another; the fantasy of spontaneous realignment might resolve certain kinds of conflict, but it would result in new sets of unstable conflicts, so no one would be much better off (we just be at each other over different topics — refreshing in the short term, but not particularly edifying in the long term).

I mention this because one conclusion I draw from the likely futility of the realignment dream reminds me that whatever definitions and distinctions we invoke to identify our church as church (as something different from a synagogue or a mosque, a benevolent society or club), we probably have to factor in a certain proportion of people with whom we disagree. The difficult part about dealing with tensions about and within the church comes from dealing with the difference between “disagreements we absolutely can’t live with” and “disagreements we have to put up with, like it or not.” When sometimes we imagine a church without the neuralgic discords that give us such headaches (and that attenuate the vigor of our mission), do we successfully manage to imagine that purified church including some of the disciples who represent annoyingly different ways of living out the Gospel? For myself — and I admit to having a very limited imagination — the only way I can do it is by thinking of particular people with whom I actually disagree, who (as it turns out) are the kinds of people who might be excluded from and “purified” congregation I might dream of. Which is essentially the church as I now inhabit it, which is one reason I would hate to see that church fracture and splinter into temporarily-homogeneous ideological adversaries.

To be fair, I acknowledge that that other Calvin got some things right:

“Calvin’s preaching represented an intensive examination of the detail’s of God’s Word that few other expositors would equal, sucking the last drops of meaning from every last syllable and turn of phrase. . . . This could be liberating to an audience precisely because it was so demanding: Calvin and the preachers who followed him asked a lot of their audience and were thus taking them seriously, as adults in the faith. Reformed congregations were expected to absorb and understand complex and abstract material and therefore were encouraged to see the value of education.”
— Diarmaid MacCullough, The Reformation: A History, p. 247.

I mean you no disrespect, but my wife is in town for a few days — blogging takes a back seat to refreshing our acquaintance with one another.

Happy birthday, wood s lot!

My well-deserved reputation as a handyman puts me in a league with the very most hapless schlemiels who have ever picked up a hand tool (the Geneva Convention prohibits allowing me near power tools ever since my woodshop teacher Mr. Proviano contacted Interpol way back in the sixties). Sometimes, though, a project presents itself that’s so very easy that even I can handle it.

The other day I was cleaning out a desk drawer in my office — itself an odd enough occurrence — when I happened on one of those cheap plastic cases that frequently gets thrown in with an order of business cards.

Having been keeping myn ears open relative to the brouhaha over how easily iPod Nanos (“Nanoes”?) get scratched up, I instantly considered the possibility that I held in my hand the easy solution to that problem. Sure enough,

it looks like it would work. I worked the Nano into the case and eyeballed the location of the output port, so I could cut as small a hole as necessary (and I tried to keep my cut smooth, so that there wouldn’t be any corners susceptible to tearing). I had to add a little width to my first cut, but the second cut aligned nicely with the headphone port, and the extra width allowed room for the casing for the headphone connector).

It works like a charm, the headphone plug fits perfectly, and the plastic is thin enough that you can operate the controls through it (though it somewhat attenuates the hypersensitivity of the control wheel, so you can handle the Nano with the volume jumping).

And here’s the end with the headphone port — plenty of room.

For my next project, I’m thinking of making a snowflake from folded paper, or preparing a peanut butter sandwich.

Margaret “Hot Zone” Adam called my attention to this story from CNN about reasearchers who try to learn about the present impending bird flu pandemic by re-engineering the flu strain that killed millions in 1918, and asked, “Do you think the novel has a movie contract yet?”

With a headline such as “Researchers reconstruct 1918 virus” or a photo caption such as “Workers take a blood sample from a chicken at an Indonesian farm where 156 chickens died” — that alone is a movie-worth of plot premise. Margaret wonders whether it’s hard to find actor-chickens, but I suggested that Jeanne and Gail could supply the cast.

Pippa, then, would get to portray the little girl who becomes a tragic first victim — who has a chicken as a pet (she loves her aunts’ chickens)!

I feel sad just thinking about it; at least, I will till the first royalty check from Hollywood rolls in. Spielberg, you know where to find us.

In honor of Margaret and Chris (on whom I rely for advance warning of any conceivable catastrophe), I’m pointing to Rebecca Blood’s Flu Pandmeic Awareness Week post and an article in Foreign Affairs on “Preparing For the Next Pandemic” (via Frank and Liz).

Reading them makes my throat feel scratchy. Maybe it’s not my bad back — maybe those are muscle aches. And my head. . . .

No, I haven’t vanished into the ether; I’ve just been alternating between trying hard to work productively (not that successfully) and trying to rest up so that I could work more productively. My back is flaring up, too.

On the good news front, Rosh Hashanah has come; l’shanah tovah, may you all be inscribed for a good year. My beloved Margaret passed her grad-school German exam mit Fliegenfarben, and my Early Church History class has responded well to their readings. Pip is doing well with Hope and Beth, and Katie has been doing marvelous work whipping our house into shape. Now, I just have to step up and match all this good work with some effective labor of my own.

Finish preface for Winslow Lectures book, keep up with my class in Early Church History, write out my presentation for the SBL meeting (“ ’He Set Himself in the Order of Signs’: Exegesis Signifying Theology”), keep up with the Introduction to the Bible class I’m leading at St Luke’s, prepare for the Sunday Lectionary Introduction I’ll be leading in a couple of weeks, work out two book reviews, referee an essay, and prepare the sermon for Jane’s ordination. Oh, and pay bills and send in a bunch of miscellaneous forms. Highest priority: being present to and responsible for Pippa. Next highest: the preface, followed closely by the SBL paper and the refereeing. I have a few bloggable ideas, but they fall by the wayside for now.

I’m more impressed with one Calvin than with his antecedent.

After spending the morning in the ATR board meeting, and then feeding Pippa and trundling her downtown to get her hair cut, then back homeward to get to Game Day with Heather, I tried to get some work done this afternoon — to no avail. I think I’ll just go to bed early tonight and try for tomorrow.

Of course, we have church tomorrow morning and an ordination tomorrow evening, but if I rest well there may be a chunk of afternoon time to work in.

I spent most of the day in meetings of the Anglican Theological Review Board of Directors (and the meeting continues tomorrow). For every hour that my other editorial boards devote to meetings, ATR devotes five or six.

Toward late morning, though, I snuck out of the Editorial Committee meeting to preside at St. Jerome’s Day mass. It all went fine, and I’ll tuck the sermon into the Extended section. Then I tried to get away for a few hours with Pippa, but the afternoon meeting ran longer than I’d hoped. I fixed dinner and set her up with Ghostbusters.

Now I’ll try to get some sleep before tomorrow’s meeting (preceded by eight-o’clock-on-Saturday-morning mass. . .).
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