{"id":4286,"date":"2006-12-01T09:36:16","date_gmt":"2006-12-01T09:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/advent-on-the-way.html"},"modified":"2006-12-01T09:36:16","modified_gmt":"2006-12-01T09:36:16","slug":"advent-on-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/advent-on-the-way.html","title":{"rendered":"Advent on the way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Gushee is a columnist for the Palm Beach Post<\/em>. He’s also an Episcopal priest and wrote a couple of columns last year, one sneering at the Terry Schiavo case and the other sneering at DVC concern, that prompted me to put him in a box. <\/p>\n

But two recent columns have presented an intriguing contrast. The first, about a month ago, in which he wrote that sure, it would be great for more extensive use of Latin to return to the Catholic Mass. And then this one, passed on by reader Judy, in which he takes the Episcopal Church of his area to task for disappearing Advent:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The four weeks before Christmas are set aside in the church for a preparation of the end of all things. Sin, death and judgment are the topics of Advent that begins Sunday and ends Christmas Eve. Christ’s birth is meant to be a surprise reprieve from a long-dreaded judgment.<\/p>\n

Advent is a penitential season filled with prayer, study and the terrible reality of having, at last, to pay the heavenly piper. Celebration is muted. Few if any flowers are used in services. Music is decidedly sober, and church color is that of penance.<\/p>\n

The idea is to prepare for the coming retribution and then be overwhelmed and astonished when God’s act is the gift of a child rather than hell fire. Christmas properly begins with the birth of Jesus and continues for 12 days in which the church urges the faithful to celebrate the astounding news.<\/p>\n

This year, however, the clergy of the Episcopal Church in South Florida will throw a Christmas party with all the trimmings the day after Advent begins. Good food, fun and fellowship are promised to kick off the season of somber preparation.<\/p>\n

There will be parties by clergy and laity throughout the country as so much of the church has caved in to the secular demands of the culture. They make it difficult for the faithful to keep Advent traditions even though that would enhance their Christmas experience. Celebrations are always more powerful when proceeded by periods of solemn preparation.<\/p>\n

snip<\/em><\/p>\n

Religions do not generally die from cataclysmic events. They slowly wither to irrelevance from creeping indifference.<\/p>\n

In faith traditions, little things matter. Neglect of them can be fatal.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Remember he’s Episcopalian. Is Advent in the Episcopalian Church solemn and penitential? Just wondering because obviously, in the RC Church of late, great pains have been taken to say Advent is not like Lent….<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Gushee is a columnist for the Palm Beach Post. He’s also an Episcopal priest and wrote a couple of columns last year, one sneering at the Terry Schiavo case and the other sneering at DVC concern, that prompted me to put him in a box. But two recent columns have presented an intriguing contrast.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAdvent on the way - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/advent-on-the-way.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Advent on the way - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Steve Gushee is a columnist for the Palm Beach Post. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}