Faith, Fact & Fantasy

It is my first semester at the University of Maryland, College Park, and as a budding English major, I am attending a class entitled Structural Grammar. It is a challenging concept for one steeped in more traditional notions of English grammar taught with prep school precision, not to mention six years of Latin grammar under my belt. A noun is no longer "the name of a person, place or thing." In fact a noun is no longer a noun -- it is a "nominal". Nominals are words which function in the grammatical place of a traditional noun, i.e., words which occupy the place of a subject. "Objectives" are words which occupy the place of a traditional noun when used as predicates or objects of prepositions, etc. Most importantly, verbs are no longer action words, nor are they verbs. In lieu of verbs we are introduced to "verbals", words which occupy the place of traditional verbs and which express actions. With verbals, for example, one can "engin...

The Anglican Communion is a voluntary coalition of autonomous provinces linked primarily by a similar expression of worship, the desire to be "in Communion with" one another, and a large dose of good will. In the eyes of some, the Articles of the Lambeth Conference of 1888 helped to shape minimal criteria for participation in this voluntary coalition. Historically each province has been free to proclaim adherence to the Articles without proof of compliance. Of late some of the provinces have passed judgment on the actions of other provinces, calling into question compliance with the minimal criteria, and in some cases severing the ties Communion. It is not the first time that the Church of England, spiritual home of the Anglican Communion, has faced distress. The wisdom of Elizabeth in the mid-sixteenth century required Catholic and Reformed to worship together at the same altar using the same liturgy, in essence enforcing good will. The Book of Common Prayer was the s...

I've owned many an umbrella over the years -- big ones, little ones, folding and fixed, automatic and manual. No matter the type of umbrella, invariably one of the struts breaks rendering the device less suited for its task. Two or more broken struts and the device is just about useless. One common metaphor for Anglicanism is that of a large umbrella under which is gathered and protected a large number of differing points of view -- the result of Catholic and Protestant being "urged" to worship together during Elizabethan times. Seems to me in recent days (read certainly the last fifty years) that the struts of the Anglican umbrella are breaking, one by one, sadly reducing the number who can fit under the umbrella. Anglicanism has always depended upon the good will of all under the umbrella to accept and tolerate diversity. Just as the umbrella needs good struts, Anglicanism needs good will to exist and function properly. It's time to repair the struts!

It is important to be clear. "Ignorance" is a word with connotations which are not always helpful. In this reflection, I use the word simply to describe the state of not-knowing, of being unaware. It is my observation that there are at least two kinds of ignorance -- profound ignorance and elected ignorance. Profound ignorance is the state of simply not knowing due to lack of knowledge or the availability of knowledge. Elected ignorance is the state either of not knowing in the face of available knowledge, or choosing not to believe available knowledge. There are two sub-sets of elected ignorance, benign and insidious (or pernicious). Benign elected ignorance represents a true lack of knowledge -- in the face of available knowledge, choosing not to read and/or study materials one knows exist. Insidious (or pernicious) elected knowledge represents the intentional manipulation of others (or self and others) despite an awareness of and/or study of available knowledge. It is ve...

The headline of the online version of the New York Times caught my eye. "Women in the military ... fitting in." The content of the article discussed the ways in which the military is accommodating the presence of women, and the ways in which women are attempting to "fit in". I wept as I read it. I am an average guy. I like football, I think I understand natural aggressiveness, and yes, when no one is around, I sometimes even watch a boxing match on tv (rarely, but occasionally). When I was a little boy my friends and I played "cops and robbers." I used a pair of Roy Rogers branded, chrome-plated toy six shooters. "Bang, bang, you're dead," was the constant refrain as we attempted to sneak up on the other and "make a kill". I had to say it verbally because at that age I was not permitted to play with real cap guns. Such is the stuff of being a boy in America in the late 1940s, early 1950s. When I reached eighth grade, to my ...

Static or Dynamic? How shall we approach and understand Holy Scripture? I wish this were an easy question but alas it is a question which divides Christianity into quite unfortunate camps each with varying answers to the question, each with its own set of interpretive guidelines (hermeneutic). The historic position of the Episcopal Church, springing as it does from Anglican heritage, is that faith and belief must be based upon a dynamic tension between Holy Scripture, tradition (the magisterium or historic teaching of the Church) and reason. Exalting one aspect of this trinity of tests for faith and belief over the others has proved throughout the five hundred years or so of Anglican teaching to be folly, and has resulted more than once in schism. Those who wish to rely solely upon Holy Scripture have found themselves to be at odds with those who prefer to emphasize the traditions of the church Catholic. There were reasons for the Acts of Uniformity and of Supremacy in 1559 -- peo...