An incredible story about the moral confusion and emotional anxiety over the vast population of frozen human embryos -- about half a million -- piling up in fertility clinics across America. Excerpt:
But the impact of the embryo is also taking place on a more subtle and personal level. The glut’s very existence illuminates how the newest reproductive technologies are complicating questions about life; issues that many people thought they had resolved are being revived and reconsidered, in a different emotional context. As with ultrasound technology—which permits parents to visualize a fetus in utero—ivf allows many patients to form an emotional attachment to a form of human life that is very early, it’s true, but still life, and still human. People bond with photos of three-day-old, eight-cell embryos. They ardently wish for them to grow into children. The experience can be transforming: “I was like, ‘I created these things, I feel a sense of responsibility for them,’” is how one ivf patient put it. Describing herself as staunchly pro-choice, this patient found that she could not rest until she located a person—actually, two people—willing to bring her excess embryos to term. The presence of embryos for whom (for which?) they feel a certain undefined moral responsibility presents tens of thousands of Americans with a dilemma for which nothing — nothing — has prepared them.
God knows the churches have done little or nothing to prepare people to think through these issues. You read this story, with its quotes from parents involved here, and you can see their consciences struggling toward truth and moral clarity. But our society has taught them to think in terms of consumerism and utilitarianism, so they find themselves paralyzed over what they've done, and where to go from here. These are just clumps of tissue, right? Except their heart tells them otherwise. And nobody seems willing and able to help them.
Someone once said that the American way is to decide first what you want to do, then marshal the arguments to support it. Witness this in the life of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a pro-life Republican ... except when it doesn't suit his personal needs. Notice the clear, firm reasoning here:
It should be pointed out, however, that even anti-abortion conservatives are not united in their ideas about the embryo and whether it has rights, or best interests, or even the potential for life. Once a person contemplates an embryo—really looks at it, under a microscope or in a photograph—his or her opinion is often changed, and not in any consistent or predictable direction. This is true for pro-choice and pro-life alike. While researching a book on assisted reproduction and its impact, I interviewed California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a reliably anti-abortion Republican member of the House. Rohrabacher was one of some 50 Republicans who defied the president by voting in favor of federal funding for stem cell research using surplus ivf embryos. For Rohrabacher it was not abstract: He and his wife, Rhonda, went through IVF treatment and have triplets as a result.
Going through that process, Rohrabacher told me, fundamentally changed his thinking about life and its origins. “For a long time I’ve been pro-life, and I still consider myself to be pro-life,” he reflected, sitting on the front porch of his Huntington Beach bungalow, which, inside, had been taken over by the demands of triplet care. “I have done a lot of soul-searching but also a lot of rethinking about reality, and what’s going on here, and I have come to the conclusion that I’m…first, I’m still pro-life. But I always said that life begins at conception. But…I was always predicating that on the idea that life begins at conception when conception begins in a woman’s body.”
Now, Rohrabacher realizes, conception can
take place outside the human body. That, for him, is a meaningful difference. The crux of the matter: Is the embryo in the womb, or is it in a lab? “I don’t think that the potential for human life exists in a human embryo until it’s implanted in a human body. So you are not destroying a human life by basically not using a fertilized egg. These are not potential human lives until they are implanted in a body. Left alone, they will not become a human being. When they are implanted in a female body, they have a chance to become a human being, so I still would be opposed to abortion.”
At least Rome is thinking, and talking, with its customary clarity about this stuff. Where are the parish priests? Where are the pro-life clergy of other churches? Ordinary people really do need help understanding this. The Mother Jones story I linked to made it dramatically clear that ordinary people are desperate for real direction on this matter.
Here's a sobering story about how Catholicism is contracting in Latin America, even as Pentecostalism is expanding. This is not a new story. Nor is it a new story about how mainline Protestantism is collapsing in the US, while Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism are booming. Catholic blogger Mark Shea captures what's most challenging about the Latin American Catholic story. Excerpt:
[I]f the Church is to respond adequately to the people she serves, we have to know what people are seeking and why. Those who snort at the hordes who are leaving the Church in Latin America and say, "Good riddance! Who needs a bunch of Pentecostals!" are, not to put to fine a point on it, betraying the Church's mission of evangelization and seeking to make the Church a sort of Liturgical Club. This Congregationalist mentality is just another form of Protestantism in the long run.
The people described in this article are seeking something and their desire is not simply contemptible and dismissable. Is it partly disordered. Of course. So are your desires. So are everybody's. So the Church must either prudently begin to assess what the need is (warts and all) and respond to it. But for the Church to, as some members of Fortress Combox Utopia Catholica suggest, just sneer and continue to hemhorrage is not an option that her missionary mandate allows her to take.
Mark's observation is something for all Christians to take to heart. A couple of years ago, I think, I was making mild fun of Joel Osteen for his shallow, folksy, feelgood presentations, when a Catholic friend pointed out that Joel Osteen didn't become so popular by failing to meet the needs of people. Rather than satisfy myself with pointing out what was wrong with Joel Osteen, my friend said, it would be more profitable to find out why people are drawn to what he has to offer, and why they aren't drawn in similar numbers to what more traditional forms of the Christian faith have to offer.
He had a point. It is tempting for many of us to turn up our nose at popular religion, because so much of it is awful (you wouldn't believe the televised religious junk on our cable system in Dallas). And we must constantly keep in mind that truth is not decided by popularity. Still, my own spiritual struggles, and my own spiritual brokenness, have made me less rigid than I used to be, and more aware of what it means to be poor in spirit, and even at times a beggar. I think back to the proud man I was one winter's day in 1998, on a pilgrimage to Fatima, tromping through the gaudy Portuguese tourist town from the bus station, appalled by all the Marian kitsch in the shop windows. It was enough to make you want to have a moneychangers-in-the-temple fit. And yet, to go out onto the plaza in front of the basilica, and to see the poor walking on their knees on the cold, wet asphalt in prayer -- the same poor that would go home with their trunks filled with the glow-in-the-dark statues of Mary, and suchlike -- is to be faced with a spiritual and human reality that one might not be prepared for. I know I wasn't.
People need God, and as messed up as we all are, we will go get Him where He can be found. Or more to the point, where we, in our frailty, can find Him and His mercy.
UPDATE:For a picture of the kind of conditions that most Christians (and Muslims, and everyone else) on the planet will be living in this century, check out this piece. How does the Church universal do effective ministry in these vast slum cities? The challenges seem unimaginable -- and if nothing else, make the concerns of us First World Christians over matters like homosexuality, the role of women in the clergy, the Latin mass
and so forth seem really ... small. Not unimportant, mind you, because they are important. Just small by way of comparison.
In First Things, I have been critically appreciative of the urgings of Samuel Huntington ("Who Are We?") and others who contend that at stake is whether the United States will remain a sovereign nation in legal and cultural continuity with its history. Such arguments may be overblown, but they cannot be dismissed as nativist or lacking in moral seriousness. Anyone who thinks a devotion to nation and peoplehood is incompatible with Catholic social doctrine should spend some time with John Paul II’s last published book, "Memory and Identity."
Again, I don’t know what specific policies should be adopted. The choice should certainly not be between enforcement-only, on the one hand, and virtual amnesty that encourages yet more illegal immigration, on the other. But the hotting up of the immigration debate is turning my long-standing hunch into a deepening conviction that no immigration reform will be possible until Americans believe that the lawlessness of the past decade and more has been brought under a reasonable approximation of legal control.
As I've said before, I have a belief that the anxiety many Americans feel over the immigration question has far less to do with the supposed racism and xenophobia that many on the left would like to think fully explains opposition to the proposed immigration reforms, and much more to do with a general anxiety that the economic and cultural fates of everyone is slipping out of our control. There really is something very wrong with a country that cannot control who comes in and out of it -- and in the case of the Mexican immigration issue, a country that will not control who comes in and out of it. As Father Neuhaus indicates, people are not wrong to insist that we first get control of basic law and order, then we'll talk about comprehensive reform.
In the Orthodox Church, yesterday was the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul. To celebrate, I was invited to a parish dinner at the rectory of Archbishop Dmitri here in Dallas. Though the cathedral is quite lovely, the archbishop -- "Vladika" they call him (from a Russian word meaning "Master," used here as a term of affection) -- lives humbly in a small cottage out back. His house was full of parishioners last evening, everyone bringing food and drink for the feast. Unsurprisingly, there was lots of Russian fare, and several bottles of frozen vodka. Vladika himself is a gourmet cook, and had prepared a flan, a flan de queso, a dried apricot torte, and some sort of complicated raspberry meringue cake. One sidebar filled up with deviled eggs, cheeses, anchovies, sausages and other antipasti, and the more hearty dishes lined a side table in the dining room. There were old people there, and kids, and you could hear at least three languages being spoken as people laughed and chattered on the feast day in the crowded little cottage behind the cathedral.
Finally, Vladika called everyone to attention for the blessing. Everyone turned toward the icon at the head of the dining room, crossed themselves, and prayed the Our Father. Then it was prayed a second time, in Russian. Then a third time, in Spanish. Vladika blessed the food, and the feast began in earnest.
Vladimir, the iconographer, leaned over and whispered in my ear, "This is the Church." Yes, I thought, it sure is.
Wow, wow, wow. The large and vibrant Truro Church in Fairfax, Virginia is now an Anglican cathedral. Its rector, Father Mynns, is as of today a bishop serving under the Primate of ... Nigeria. Virginia, you will recall, led the Confederacy, and the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia was an Episcopalian fellow named Robert E. Lee. You might have heard of him.
Annie Lamott confesses to helping kill a friend of hers. This will strike some of you as warm and humane. It strikes me as absolutely monstrous -- especially monstrous because it is presented as so soothing, so decent, so loving.
The most revealing section of Lamott's essay is this: "Mel was sort of surprised that as a Christian I so staunchly agreed with him about assisted suicide. I believed that life was a kind of Earth school, so even though assisted suicide meant you were getting out early, before the term ended, you were going to be leaving anyway, so who said it wasn't OK to take an incomplete in the course?"
In the economy of just a few words, Lamott effectively turns the Christian understanding of life and death on its head.
No wonder Mel was "sort of surprised" that Lamott, identifying herself as a Christian, would agree to participate in an assisted suicide with such enthusiasm. Christianity teaches a distinctive understanding of human life. At the onset, the Bible reveals that we are not the lords of our own lives in the first place. Life is a gift, and human life is a special gift given to the only creatures who are made in God's own image. We are, in effect, the only sentient beings able to ponder the meaning of our own lives and the reality of our own death. The Christian understanding of humanity insists that we are not autonomous creatures that have the right to determine when we shall live and when we shall die. To the contrary, our lives are in the disposition of the Creator, and human life is understood to posses inherent dignity from its natural beginning until its natural end. Any affirmation of assisted suicide or any form of euthanasia as a way of "releasing" persons by voluntary or involuntary intervention is a rejection of God's sovereign prerogative and a denial of His providence as gracious, merciful, and righteous.
Furthermore, Christianity does not teach that life is just "a kind of Earth school." To the contrary, Christianity affirms the inherent dignity and meaning of our earthly lives. Life is not a course we are taking, so much as it is a stewardship of a priceless gift. It is profoundly true that Christianity points to eternal life beyond this earthly life as the realm of our ultimate existence as believers, but we are not invited to "take an incomplete" in the course of life as we may choose.
I've been putting off blogging on SCOTUS's Gitmo ruling because I want to have time to think about what it means. So I suppose I'll have a longer, more thoughtful blog tomorrow (and Bubba says: "It'll be longer, but I doubt it'll be more thoughtful." Ba-dum-bum!). My initial impression is to offer a qualified endorsement of the ruling, because I have been troubled by the notion that the President has the right to do whatever he wants to with prisoners taken in the terror war, and they have no rights at all. It would seem to be, then, that this ruling is a victory for the rule of law. But I am also given to worry by Andy McCarthy's pre-ruling musing in The Corner, in which he speculates that if SCOTUS finds that terrorists are covered by the Geneva Conventions (as SCOTUS did), that the Gitmo savages will be found to have the right to Zacarias Moussaoui-type jury trials.
What I want to know is: does the Hamdan ruling leave Congress room to set the rules of engagement, so to speak, between the US Govt and the terrorist combatants? If it does, and therefore it removes sole discretion from POTUS, then I think that's a good thing. And if the Geneva Convention aspect of the decision forbids torture and inhumane treatment of the prisoners, I think that too is a good thing. But if it can be read to grant them rights to criminal trials in US courts, that is catastrophically bad. Please chime in below with your own views. I'm still not sure what to think.
Well, no, actually I am sure on one point. Wesley Clark said today on John Gibson's Fox News Channel show: "We don't need military tribunals. We need to turn these people over to an international court. They are threats to the whole world." Wesley Clark is nuts.
If you were feeling uncharitable towards a certain faction at Baylor University over the David Jeffrey story I blogged about yesterday -- whose accuracy in several respects has been vigorously challenged, I should say -- I invite you to pay a visit to the thread on the subject at Baylorfans.com. Once you see the face of true Baylorfan charity, you might well be shamed into repentance. Or something. Ahem.
Yes, yes, we'll get to the Gitmo ruling in a second, but first I want to try to apply the calculus of moral theology to my deliberation over the news that a mondo pregmo Britney Spears has posed nude for a magazine cover. If somebody would please send me the Latin translation of "hoochie mama," it would aid my endeavor.
Being energy self-sufficient "is neither attainable nor desirable" said one oil industry exec at the US-Arab Economic Forum in Houston. So did a lot of them, in fact. Big Oil says that we need to stay dependent on foreign oil for -- wait for it -- the good of our country.
"When they speak, you should listen to them," observed the Saudi Ambassador, who went on to say that we shouldn't speak of oil as an "addiction," because oil is "a necessity of life."
Presumably, they all said these things with a straight face.
Dan Froomkin of the WaPo has some pretty solid thoughts on the political game the White House is playing on the banking story. My initial impulse was to side with Bush in slamming the New York Times for writing the story exposing the banking surveillance. But when I noticed that the White House was only going after the NYT, and not the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal, both of which also published the story, I started to think that this is probably not about principle, but partisan politics.
Maybe I'm wrong. Still, I simply find it almost impossible to believe this Administration in matters like this.
Go Timbertoes, it's your birfday! Actually, I can't stand those stuck-up Timbertoes. And since Ritalin came out, Goofus hasn't been as much fun as he used to be, has he?
...a documentary starring Oliver O'Grady, a pedophile priest from Los Angeles. He raped a five-year-old girl. And that's only one of his victims. The spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles calls the film an "obvious anti-Church hit piece." I haven't seen the film, so I don't know, but I am unpersuaded by the assertion of the spokesman for Roger Cardinal Mahony, the monstrous prelate who enabled Father O'Grady's ministry for oh so many years.
Roger Mahony ought to be in jail. No, under the jail. See for yourself.
The impressive Illinois Democrat had some good things to say today about why the Democratic Party has to get over its fear of religious folks. Said Obama, "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square."
Amen to that. It gets better:
"It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase `under God.' Having voluntary student prayer groups using school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats."
Oh man, is common sense breaking out in the Democratic Party, or what? And even more truthfully:
"Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith: the politician who shows up at a black church around election time and claps off rhythm to the gospel choir."
Take that, Howard Dean! Readers who read my liveblogging from the Pew conference a few weeks back know that there's real evidence emerging showing that the coming generation of Evangelicals is more open to a Democratic message. Obama's onto something. But will the Democratic base listen?
Daniel Pipes points out some telling information in the recent Pew Forum survey of attitudes in the Muslim world. Did you know that solid majorities of Muslims in Western nations, and overwhelming majorities of Muslims in Muslim countries, do not believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks? How can we seek lasting understanding with people whose sense of reality is so out of whack? I'm not asking rhetorically, I'm serious.
Abdullah Zainal Alireza, the Saudi minister of state, came calling today here at the paper. He was in Texas this week speaking at the US-Arab Economic Forum in Houston. Abdullah came across as a highly sophisticated diplomat, and he had some interesting things to say. He said, for example, that the US cannot think of withdrawing from Iraq. For one thing, it would destroy our credibility internationally, because the US went in and destroyed the controlling institutions of Iraqi life, and can't walk away from them. For another, said Abdullah, Iraq would collapse into a massive civil war that would likely draw in Turkey, Iran and neighboring Sunni Arab states.
On Iran, he said that the US cannot allow Iran to get the Bomb. Well, I asked, what if it happens anyway? He repeated, firmly, that it must not be allowed to happen. Period. The end.
We talked for a while about Saudi reform of its education system, and to hear His Excellency talk, you'd think that everything was well in hand, no problems, nothing to worry about. Extremism is well under control (ahem). It's really not right to blame the Saudi government for what every Saudi does, he said, but since 9/11, the Saudis have cooperated greatly with the US, and are cracking down. I pointed out that Americans are suspicious of the Saudis because so often, when we see Islamic extremism at home or abroad, there is often a Saudi connection. He said that's not entirely fair, etc. -- and two of the minister's associates asserted that the Saudis get a bum rap in the US media. They particularly complained about the connection between Islam and terrorism. One of the associates, whose name I didn't get, said that there is no connection between Islam and terrorism, because by definition a terrorist is not a Muslim, so why do we in the media keep acting like there is a connection? Etc.
One of my colleagues asked the minister about internal unrest, particularly related to the contradictions between Saudi Arabia's wealth and push to modernize, versus its very conservative religious culture. Abdullah dismissed this as a myth. I thought, "I bet the Shah of Iran's minister of state would have said the same thing in 1977."
Touchstone's Anthony Esolen comments on the necessity for spiritual fatherhood. Very interesting observation here:
Given Roman Catholic teaching regarding the valid operation of the sacraments, everyone will acknowledge the need for a priest: without him (or without a “him” on call from someplace or other) you can’t have Holy Communion and a few other incidental things that the old folks especially want. So they need a priest around, and if he just sticks to his minimal Sunday duties he’ll be all right. But it's strange; this ignoring of the priest's role in quantum homo, as a father and leader of his flock, tends not to exalt his supernatural calling in quantum imago Christi, but to debase it to the level of a brute superstition. In other words, when we sever the idea of ordained ministry in quantum imago Christi from its foundation in human nature, we revert to the barbaric idea of the minister as magician or ritual functionary. He is a father no more, but the sacerdotal equivalent of a sperm donor.
Not long ago, I thought about how rarely I have ever looked upon the pastor at any parish where I've been worshiping as any sort of spiritual father, or an authority figure in all but the minimal sense. That is, I've only been able to take him seriously as "magician or ritual functionary," because there is very little if anything fatherly about him. Clerics these days -- and I'm not just talking about Catholic priests, so cool your jets, you usual suspects -- too often comport themselves as Best Buddies, or mere Therapists. Maybe it's just me, but I've always thought that there was something really wrong, and ultimately undermining, about being part of a spiritual community that had no spiritual father. Esolen puts his finger on what's so destructive, over the long haul, of the attitude that so many Catholics (like me) have of just gritting their teeth and saying "ex opere operato," and trying to console themselves with the fact that the Eucharist is valid, no matter what the priest is like. That kind of thing gets you through this Sunday, and next Sunday, and the Sunday after that. But what about the next 20 years?
Do any of the rest of you, of whatever church or confession, have the same sense about church leadership?
In 1949, the Orthodox Fr. Alexander Schmemann had some wise words for all of us Christians -- Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and so forth -- caught up in serious church controversies:
When controversies are ignited and flare up in the Church, which happens and has happened often, alas, we inevitably hear appeals from Church circles to cease these controversies in the name of peace and love.
Now, this would be cause for great joy, if only in these appeals there were no unmistakably different overtones: "Your controversy is not important. It is of interest to no one: only ‘specialists’ and ‘scholars’ can understand it, so all this argument leads only to seduction and harm."
And here we must point out to these accusers something very important which they have apparently forgotten. They have forgotten that peace and concord in the Church are inseparable from the Truth.
Jeff Jacoby draws attention to a new novel that imagines what the US would be like under Islamic law. Pretty grim, it would seem. People who were unfazed by that Times story in which the "moderate" Imam Ziad Shakir talked about how he wanted the US to be ruled by shariah, but only by consent of the governed (that is, tyrannized) ought to reflect on what that really could mean.
Here's an especially interesting passage from Jacoby's column:
But ``Prayers for the Assassin" is no screed. If its villains are Muslims, so are its heroes; Ferrigno is quite aware that moderate and liberal Muslims have the most to fear from an Islamofascist victory.
He is also quite aware of Islam's appeal. Many converts to Islam find comfort and reassurance in its moral certainty and firm standards, and Ferrigno underscores the point. ``Don't tell me about the old days, girl, I lived through them," says one character, a top government official. ``Drugs sold on street corners. Guns everywhere. God driven out of the schools and courthouses. Births without marriage, rich and poor, so many bastards you wouldn't believe me. A country without shame. Alcohol sold in supermarkets. Babies killed in the womb, tens of millions of them. . . . We are not perfect, not by any measure, but I would not go back to those days for anything."
I've written elsewhere about a conversation I had with a Muslim woman in Dubai last December, an immigrant to Europe from Egypt who told me she was really upset by the descent of her native country into Islamic extremism. But she said that she and her husband just wanted to raise their kids as normal Muslims in the West, and that that was very hard given the militant secularism and aggressive sleaze in the public square. I share her views. In fact, though the radical Sayyid Qutb's diagnosis of the West is far too harsh, and his remedy -- totalitarian Islam -- absolutely unacceptable, there is a lot more truth in his assessment of where the West went wrong than many people would be willing to admit.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has drawn up a plan to split the Anglican Communion, and to expel the Episcopal Church. Full Canterbury statement here. Ruth Gledhill explains it all on her blog. And TMatt at Get Religion has, as usual, lots of links.
My view? This is good. Painful, but necessary. ECUSA's liberals were going to push and push and push, and we're never going to do anything other than exactly what they wanted to do, but instead were going to cover it with soothing, conciliatory language. And now they have pushed too far.
Here's the story from today's Dallas Morning News on Christ Church Episcopal parish's decision to leave ECUSA. It explores a bit the implications of the move, given that the Bishop of Dallas, unlike in similar previous cases elsewhere in the country, fully supports the parish's decision. (If he didn't, he could order them to vacate their property). Bp. Stanton acknowledges in the story that this is an unprecedented situation for ECUSA.
I'm not quite sure what to make of the news that Rush Limbaugh uses Viagra (and despite his pillhead past, doesn't have enough sense to avoid getting in trouble with the law over it), but I'm sure planning to watch Leno and Letterman tonight to find out what it all means!
Can I just say, though, that a distinguished public servant like Bob Dole taking money for confessing on national television that he has trouble, um, flying his freak flag, was one of the low points in American public life of the decade. I'm serious. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't like thinking about an elderly Republican politician's penile tsuris. I don't want to have to think about anybody's penile tsuris. Just buy your Viagra and shut the @#$% up about it, because I don't want to know.
(And the Hollywood Jesus people are thinking, "Hmm, is there a religious angle on this Rush/Viagra story? is it a tale of sin, redemption and the need to forgive seventy times seven? Is it a pop parable illustrating the miracle of raising the dead? Get Pfizer on the phone and let's see if we can work out a synergy deal.")
Hey gang, here's your one-stop online shop for "Biblically-based 'Superman Returns' materials."
Look, I'm all for examining popular culture from a religious angle, and I look forward to reading the discussions we'll all be having about Christian metaphors in the new Superman film. But I have a pretty good idea that this particular thing is about nothing more than selling a movie by crassly piggybacking it into Sunday worship. What do they want pastors to do, show clips during Sunday services? It's creepy as hell that this Hollywood Jesus site is so blatantly trying to co-opt worship for the sake of selling a movie to Christian audiences. What, do they figure that marketing Christ is not that much different from marketing a Christ figure in a Hollywood movie? Come on, Christians -- resist this crap!
Christ Church Episcopal in Plano, Texas, one of the largest and most dynamic Episcopal parishes in the country, announces that it is leaving the Episcopal Church USA. But here's the thing: the parish says it is grateful for the conservative Episcopal Bishop of Dallas, James Stanton, for fighting the good fight within ECUSA -- and still regards him as its "apostolic leader." A statement on the Christ Church website reads:
Over the next few weeks we will explore the ways that this separation will be best realized. Both the vestry and I will keep you informed and updated as needed, and you can be assured of our prayer and definite actions. We likewise would request your patience and prayers. But rest assured that our church is Anglican now… and will always be within the great historic family of the Anglican Communion.
You should know that our bishop is aware of our decision and is very supportive. As we move forward together I ask for your prayers, support and blessing on the work ahead of us.
Meanwhile, Bishop Stanton alerts his presbyterate:
Brothers and sisters in Christ,
I share three short messages.
1) I am calling a meeting of the clergy of the diocese for July 5. We will meet at Church of the Incarnation at 10 a.m., and we will provide lunch. Please let the office know if you will be there so that we can be prepared. We will continue the meeting for as long as we need to do so. I know this is vacation time. I think this meeting is of sufficient import that all of you will be present.
2) No doubt, you will have seen the statement of the vestry of Christ Church, Plano. I very much respect the clergy and laity at Christ Church. I appreciate the sense of mission that they have, and the impact of the last two General Conventions on the way they carry out that mission. I support them in the careful way they have come to this statement. We will work together for the future, faithful to our Anglican heritage.
3) This diocese has been strongly committed to the Anglican Communion. We will continue to be so. Pray for the Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and all the Primates in this time.
God bless you–
The Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton is Bishop of Dallas
Note "Anglican Communion" -- not ECUSA. It starts now, in Dallas...
Is this counterintuitive in the present moment, or what? Jeremy Lott draws attention to a new book called "In Defense of the Religious Right." Good. Somebody has to do it these days.
This is a breathtaking story of an extraordinarily gifted Christian scholar, David Jeffrey, and what was done to him here in Texas when he tried to make Baylor University into a more intellectually serious college, but one that was still deeply committed to the faith. The story begins with a speech Jeffrey recently delivered in Canada:
Mr. Jeffrey, who had taught or mentored many in the audience during his days at the University of Ottawa, did not disappoint. He expounded on how many students in North American universities are blithely ignorant about the Bible, a complacency he says threatens Christianity and, as a result, Western civilization itself. In one of Mr. Jeffrey's classes before moving to Baylor, only three of 30 students knew about Noah and the flood, and none was really sure what the story meant. They weren't even embarrassed to admit it.
Without some knowledge of the Bible, we can't know the basis of our laws, literature, science, or our fundamental outlook on the world, Mr. Jeffrey told the audience. As knowledge fades, we cease to remember why it was important, and civilization loses its train of thought. After the applause, Mr. Jeffrey was besieged with so many well-wishers that it took him more than an hour to get from the podium to the parking lot.
Few of his fans knew that essentially the same speech, delivered two years earlier, had almost ended his career at Baylor, where he teaches English literature. Colleagues wanted him fired. His family was threatened, their tires slashed, sleep interrupted by anonymous phone calls. At college football games, Mr. Jeffrey and his family had to sit behind a plexiglass shield with armed security staff.
Even now, his troubles are by no means behind him.
To me, the most radical and amazing thing about the Buffett gift is that he's deliberately shutting out his kids from the great majority of his wealth -- not out of spite, but out of concern for their character. Reading Buffett's comments on the way inherited wealth debilitates the character of subsequent generations, you can't help thinking about the Kennedys. But I suspect many of us are acquainted with well-off families whose decline can easily be traced through the generations, almost always having to do with how privilege, one way or another, corrupted the younger generations.
When I was out visiting friends in Silicon Valley a few weeks back, one of my pals told me that this is a constant source of concern for the higher-level executives out there. Given the nature of the industry, many of those execs did not come from wealthy backgrounds, and made their money quickly. I'm told they're worried about what being raised in exceptional privilege will do to their children's character. But I didn't hear that any of them had any substantive strategy for dealing with this. I don't know that I would either, if I had that problem (and believe me, with the way the newspaper industry is going today -- a voluntary buyout program was announced at my paper today -- that's not a problem Your Working Boy is ever likely to have).
I doubt I would have the strength of character to do what Buffett is doing, and cut my kids out of so much of my fortune. Mind you, if he leaves each of them with a piddling billion each, that's still an insane amount of cash, so I don't feel all that sorry for them. Still, I would quite naturally want to give my kids every way possible to protect themselves against catastrophe ... even though as somebody famous once said of the spiritually corrupting power of wealth, "It's easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven."
It's fun, though, to think about how you'd give your money away if you had a fortune to distribute to charity. I'd give a pile to my high school, and a lot to various religious charities not affiliated with any bishop or church bureaucracy. I'd want to give a bunch of it to causes to help abused and abandoned children, and also to organizations fighting for religious freedom. I'd be interested in setting up a foundation to provide financial help for urban and rural projects designed to renew communal life along t
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