Watch Checks That Told More Than the Time

Few acts are more mundane that checking one’s watch.  I used to do that a lot.  Now I check my phone.  My, how technology advances.  But before I get distracted by my phone again, my point is that people checking their watches is hardly the stuff of history.  

Or is it?

No, I cannot think of a time when someone checking their watch changed the course of history . . . yet.  But I can think of watch checks that revealed a lot about history before it was history.

 

October 15^th, 1992

During the Second Presidential Debate with Bill Clinton and Ross Perot, President George H. W. Bush checked his watch at the beginning of a question of how the recession affected him.  That told more about him and about his re-election campaign than about what time it was, namely:

1. His disinterest in debating and campaigning, that in contrast with Bill Clinton, who clearly enjoyed it.  The mercurial Ross Perot also enjoyed barnstorming on a good day.  Bush wanted it to be over with. He admitted as much:

Bush later suggested that his gesture may, in fact, have revealed something about his discomfort with the debate. "Was I glad when the damn thing was over?" he said to PBS Newshour anchor Jim Lehrer. "Yeah."

It would be very much over soon.  Bush’s disinterest while Clinton oozed empathy assisted in that.

2. His sense of superiority and overconfidence.  He was a Bush after all.  He was better than that blowhard Perot and that young playboy Governor of Arkansas, of all states.  

It was not just the President who felt that way.  His campaign was hampered by overconfidence that surely he would not lose to Bill Clinton of all people.  Heck, the only reason Clinton got the Democrat nomination was because bigger names did not want to run against Bush.  Adding to the misplaced confidence was that Republicans had won the last three presidential elections and four of the last five.

So it wasn’t just Bush who was ready to get the campaign done with and won.  And it wasn’t just this then Republican Precinct Chairman who did not see the result coming.

 

March 30/31^st, 2013

Elected earlier that month, Pope Francis was in the Vatican presiding over his first Easter Vigil as Pope.  For those unfamiliar with Easter Vigils, they are not services to be done with in less than an hour so one can rush home or to the pub.  The Easter Vigil on Easter Eve is the most solemn occasion of the church year for many traditional Christians.  At their best, they are evocative, glorious, and definitely not rushed.  One of the most memorable services I’ve ever attended was an Easter Vigil at St. Matthias Anglican Dallas in 2005; it lasted well over two hours, and I would not have it a minute shorter.

But Pope Francis apparently did not feel that way about his first Easter Vigil as Pope.  Bishop of Rome only for days, he had already acted to shorten the service.  But it wasn’t short enough apparently.  During the service, he checked his watch, just as he checked his watch during his installation service on March 19^th.

Twenty years older and somewhat wiser, I knew immediately there was something profoundly wrong with Francis long before many whom I respect caught on.

Why? Unless one is hinting to an overly loquacious preacher to wind his sermon up, a priest just does not look at his watch during a service.  It’s not in the rubrics; it doesn’t have to be.  It sends the wrong message to the congregation and to God as well.  For a pope to check his watch during one of the more solemn services of the year . . . .  It was unthinkable . . . before Francis.

Thus in the first month of his pontificate, those with eyes to see could already see Francis was a man of impious priorities who had little respect for the liturgy, for the need of solemn and traditional celebrations of even the Resurrection of our Lord.

The slow motion disaster of the pontificate of Francis should not have afterward surprised anyone, particularly his attempted vandalism of the Lord’s Prayer and his attacks on the traditional Latin Mass.  Early on, his watch check foretold his attacks on catholic worship.

 

Sunday August 29^th, 2021

Joe Biden stands at Dover Air Force Base to receive the bodies of 13 service people killed in the Kabul bombing, an attack enabled by the shambles of his withdrawal from Afghanistan.  As he ends a salute, he quickly checks his watch.  It was so quick that perhaps he caught himself, realizing how wrong that was.  But he checked his watch nonetheless.  (And some reports have him checking his watch additional times during the ceremony.)

At this point, it is unclear just what this watch check tells.  Perhaps it tells that Biden’s cognitive decline is worse than most think.  One system of dementia is socially inappropriate behavior.  But I am not his doctor, and it would be wrong for me to presume that is what is happening.  

Perhaps he did not want to be there at Dover AFB and thought he had better things to do.  He surely wants to move on from his Afghanistan disaster.  Perhaps he was so detached from reality, he did not realize the solemnity of his role.  

It is hard to think that his watch check revealed shear callousness toward the fallen soldiers and their families.  But he has already greatly endangered Americans and allied Afghans.  How much of that disaster is from incompetence and how much from callousness, we do not know. 

In any case, what Biden’s watch check this past Sunday reveals is not good.

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So the trivial act of checking one’s watch revealed much about these three men and their times, although exactly what was revealed in Biden’s case is not yet clear.  Did the checks also have consequences?

In the elder Bush’s case, probably not.  Yes, it was part of his lackluster debate in his lackluster campaign.  But it was the campaign and the recession and perhaps Ross Perot that brought about his defeat, not a watch check.

In Pope Francis’ case, it had virtually no consequences whatsoever before men.  Just about everyone was too eager to think hopefully about the new Pope.  The consequences before God are another matter best left to Him.

I doubt it will have lasting consequences for Biden either.  But I see similarities with Bush’s watch check in that it reveals traits that will have political consequences.  Bush’s disdain for actual campaigning, partly revealed by his watch check, assisted his defeat.  Whatever the mix of incompetence and darkness revealed by Biden’s watch check, that mix may and should lead to the downfall of his presidency as well.

There is a significant difference with Biden’s watch check.  Bush’s check, though revealing undesirable traits, was not awful or disgusting.   Biden’s watch check is disgusting and adding to widespread disgust with him – as it should.

The “Beauty of Holiness” or “Popish Baits”?

When I picked up Graham Parry’s Glory, Laud and Honour: The Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation, I expected a heavy academic read, which would have been fine as it covers a subject matter of interest to me.  

Was I wrong!  The book begins with Puritan Peter Smart’s furious indictment of John Cosin and Durham Cathedral in 1630:

…your popish baits and allurements of glorious pictures, and Babalonish vesturs, and excessive numbers of wax-candles burning at one tyme…

Ah yes, the candles.  Always the candles.  Smart was unhappy with much else as well, particularly Cosin’s “upstarting, downesquattings, east-turning, crossings and kissings” and more.

I found myself laughing uproariously.  I was reminded of the Low Churchman’s Guide to the Solemn High Mass except that Smart was quite serious.  Thus I soon discovered that Glory, Laud and Honour is not only scholarly and helpful to further study, but is actually a fun read.

And, yes, much of the fun does come from the adversarial relationship between the Puritans and the Laudians along with others who thought the worship of the Lord called for “the beauty of holiness”.  This holy combat was reflected in church architecture and furnishings and often the destruction of the same.  Parry pays not a little attention to Dowsing’s visitations of Cambridge for one thing.  And he notes that much of what we know about church furnishings under the influence of John Cosin, William Laud and cohorts comes from the Puritans’ disapproving documentation of them.

The Puritans (with an exception or two I will note another time) were rather nasty.  Beheading statues was not enough for them.  They eventually beheaded Laud, Lord of Canterbury and Charles, King and Martyr.  But (And now I will show my talent for alienating just about everybody.) the Archbishop and King in part lost their heads by not following Hooker more closely on the subject of ceremonies and images in worship.  

As Parry points out at length, Hooker approved of traditional ceremonial worship “in the bewtie of holiness,” not unlike the later Laudians, but he considered such to be adiaphora, i. e. among matters on which the faithful can and should be able to agree to disagree.  He thought parishes should be allowed discretion on details of ceremonies and ornaments as long as they stick to the Book of Common Prayer.  Further he thought disputes over such matters risk “a kinde of taking of Gods name in vaine to debase religion with such frivolous disputes, a sinne to bestowe time and labor about them.”

But neither the Laudians nor the Puritans were very interested in allowing discretion in matters of worship.  Instead they bestowed a lot of time and labor and venom upon them indeed, greatly contributing to the ugliness between them.  Many on both sides eventually paid with their lives, both on the executioner’s block and in civil war.

Well, I got rather dark there, didn’t I.  But that does not keep me from having a good laugh or two or three at their liturgical combat.  Yes, I am rather warped that way.

There is much more that is both fun and helpful about Glory, Laud and Honour, to which I may return at a later time.

The Big Smear From The Woke Church and Christianity Today

It is almost a creed with the Woke Church crowd that the founding of America was profoundly racist and that America continues profoundly racist to this day.  The Woke Church smears the church in America as well.  

From the Woke Church, Jemar Tisby being perhaps the most prominent example today, you hear a litany of sins committed against Black people by America and the church, some concocted (particularly in that much they call “racism” is hardly that) or exaggerated, but much of which are indeed awful and to be regretted.   We certainly should not ignore the history of racism in this country nor pretend that we and our forebears are without sin. 

The problem is the following baggage is attached to said accusatory confession:

The blithe ignoring of the almost universal nature of racism in the past.  

Go back 200 years or more.  Will you find any society that was not racist or at least tribal?  Why then is America singled out as peculiarly racist?  And are we to then reject everything good from American and British past and be good totalitarian Taliban and Jacobins and topple it all?

Chronological Hubris. 

As C. S. Lewis well pointed out, we have a tendency to look down on the past and think ourselves so superior to it.  That certainly includes confessing their sins – a species of that favorite LibChurch activity of confessing other people’s sins – while overlooking or downplaying our own.  Those with unenlightened views of race in the past were in the wrong.  But they would be appalled by the prevalent sins of society today and would be right to be appalled.  Every age and society has its prevalent sins, and that includes us.  (No I do not consider white-on-black racism a prevalent sin today, but a dying one.  Anti-white racism on the other hand….)  Should we then smear and reject the good that our forebears have passed down to us because we are so arrogant as to consider their sins worse than ours?  Again, that’s what totalitarians do.

Downplaying progress. 

There has been astounding progress in the area of race in America even in my lifetime and marked by the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2008. . . .   Oh, I hope I didn’t make you faint there.  Yes, I did and do see good in the election of Obama; it made clear that skin color is no longer much of a barrier in America.  At the time, I actually hoped it ushered in a post-racial America.  Sadly, Obama and now the woke crowd decided to pick and tear at old wounds of racial division and make them bleed afresh.  Yes, I think wokeness is a much bigger factor behind today’s divisions than “whiteness.”  If the woke crowd is really that concerned about racism and division in America, they need to take a good long look in the mirror.  We were making very good progress until they came along.

Trust that I could say more.

Oft times, the Woke Church is more Satanic than Christian.  Like Satan, they twist and weaponize history to accuse the brethren while practically ignoring the brethren’s repentance, forgiveness and ongoing sanctification. 

(And, no, I do not think Americans are a whole are being sanctified as American Christians hopefully are.  I certainly do not conflate being an American and being a faithful Christian. But the accusatory pattern of smearing one of the greatest nations the world has ever seen goes hand in hand with smearing the church.)

As many of you perceptive readers have already noticed, Christianity Today has joined the Woke Chorus of accusation.  Like much of the rest of The Evangelical Church of What’s Happening Now, they practically jump up and down and squeak, “Me, too! Me, too!  I’m woke, too!”   An op-ed by CT’s president and CEO Thomas Dalrymple is the latest example.  It is certainly in the Woke Big Smear genre, using very selective and regrettable history (And, again, what country or church does not have regrettable history?) and a warped interpretation of it to smear country and church. I found this passage especially slanderous and vile:

The name of Phalaris is not much remembered in the 21st century, but in classical antiquity it was infamous. The tyrant of Agrigentum on the island of Sicily, Phalaris is known for a gruesome instrument of torture: a hulking bronze bull, hollowed on the inside, set over a fire. As victims were forced into the bull and roasted alive, the nostrils of the bull rendered the screams of the dying into a sonorous groaning that filled the palace with music. You might be a guest at the feast, unaware that your entertainment came through the agony of others.

Today’s generations may say we did not invent the bull of racial injustice. But we have benefited from it. The resiliency, creativity, industry, and indomitable faith of African Americans in spite of all they have suffered is nothing short of miraculous. We have all benefited not only from their labor but also from their innovations and entrepreneurialism, their art and music, their films and poetry and books, their hymns and preaching. The transformation of black suffering into economic abundance for America, as well as art and passion and brilliance, has enriched our feast in the palace. Perhaps we can honestly say we did not know what our brothers and sisters were suffering. Now we do. So there’s only one thing to do: put down our forks and get our brothers and sisters out of the belly of the bull.

It disgusts me to see a once excellent Christian publication be the accuser of the brethren like that. 

Yes, for those concerned about how wokeness has infiltrated the Anglican Church in North America, there are any number of clergy that approve of the Big Smear and at least one diocesan Canon who publicly approves of this article.  I am not mentioning her by name because I do not want to single her out when it is a much wider problem in ACNA and other church bodies.   

The Woke Big Smear must be rejected by both Christians and non-Christians before it further poisons and divides our churches and our country.

“An Autobiography Ghost-written by God”

I’ve now read most of The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume 1, Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662, edited by Anthony Milton, and I cannot recommend it enough.  It is immensely scholarly with its footnotes and bibliographies already guiding my future studies.  At the same time, it is enjoyable reading with any number of occurrences and statements I do not recall seeing elsewhere.  Yes, a number of these are amusing.  Others are edifying gems.

My only caveat is that someone just now beginning their study of the history of Anglicanism would do well to read a more basic book or two first.  Once one becomes familiar with the basics, The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume 1is then a must read.  (I have not read subsequent volumes yet, but intend to.)

One of the gems of this book comes from Jessica Martin in discussing the use of Psalms in early Anglican prayer and devotion:

The typologies of suffering and despair, and likewise of praise and delight, are channeled through the psalms into the salvific narratives of a life narrated via Scripture but unique in its detail: an autobiography ghost-written by God.(p. 406 of the 2019 paperback version)

I’ve long noticed that the Psalms cover just about every situation and emotion in life and can greatly assist prayer as we struggle through life.  I instinctively used the Psalms that way to pray as a teenager.  Later, I wrote a book that so uses the Psalms that way.  (No, I’m not saying what book as I cannot now stand by some of the things I wrote and would write it very differently today.)  And, yes, the Psalms especially cover much of the inward life and sufferings of Christ, so much so that he recited portions on the cross.

But I confess that in my past writings on the Psalms, I did not approach the brilliance of describing the Psalms as “an autobiography ghost-written by God.”  And in the Psalms we do see the joys, struggles, and sufferings of Christ and of his people.  Meditating on the Psalms is perhaps the best way to know that God understands intimately what his people go through – what yougo through.

I can hardly recommend a better Lenten practice than meditating on the Psalms.  And, when it comes to the study of Anglican history, The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume 1is hard to beat as well.

Boris Wins Big. Will History Echo?

I begin writing Thursday night under the influence of a bit of beer and a lot of schadenfreudein celebration of Labour and the LibDems getting their just desserts.  But I retain enough wisdom to review and rewrite this morning.  Still, I cannot resist wondering if history is, if not repeating, at least echoing.

No, it’s not just booze that has me pondering this.  I am barely old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher’s groundbreaking victory in 1979.  Labour had power for much of the 70’s thanks to the foolish and dishonest Edward Heath.  But Labour blew their chance with obnoxious Leftist policies that ground the UK economy into the ground.

Thatcher’s victory turned out to be a precursor for the election of Ronald Reagan the following year.  The Democrats had power since 1974 thanks to the foolish and dishonest Richard Nixon.  But the Democrats blew their chance with obnoxious Leftist policies that ground the US economy into the ground.  Reagan won in a landslide, and Republicans took the Senate.

Fast forward, in June 2016,British were fed up with the establishment of both major parties who did not listen to them but who were instead beholden to EU Brussels bureaucrats.  So in a shocking upset they voted for Brexit; they voted to leave the EU. 

In 2016, Americans were fed up with the establishment of both major parties who did not listen to them but who were instead beholden to the Washington establishment. So, after dispatching Jeb! and Co. mercilessly in the Republican primaries, they in a shocking upset elected Donald Trump as President of the United States.

In the years since, neither the Left nor the establishment of the UK and US have respected those 2016 votes and have worked tirelessly to undermine them.

So we get last night.  Yes, there are significant differences from Thatcher’s election and even Brexit, but Labour did have some power before the election thank to the weak and duplicitous Teresa May.  But they blew their chance with obnoxious Leftist policies with a strong dose of anti-semitism and, probably most importantly, by disrespecting the 2016 Brexit referendum result.  And the LibDems were even more all in on undoing Brexit.

And you know the result last night (with one seat undeclared): Labour loses 42 seats; the LibDems lose almost half their seats; Boris Johnson and the Tories gain 66 seats, a strong majority, and, barring any egregious foolishness, he will be PM for at least five years.  Contempt for Brexit and for democracy were thoroughly punished.

Here in the U. S. the Democrats have some power, holding the House, most cities, several states, the “news” media, and most cultural institutions.  But they are blowing their chance with obnoxious Leftist policies with a strong dose of anti-semitism and, probably most importantly, bystilldisrespecting the 2016 election of Trump, even to the point of the current absurd impeachment effort.

And . . . you can probably guess what I am hoping and praying for next year – the Democrats being thoroughly punished for their contempt for democracy.  Last night in the UK may yet again be a precursor for the US.  I am not quite yet to the point of expecting that.  But I did not entirely expect the 1980 Reagan landslide or Trump either.

So history may yet again echo.  We shall see.

The AND Campaign: “Seamless Garment” Redux?

When I first heard of the AND campaign, I was immediately reminded of the “Seamless Garment” pushed by the late Cardinal Bernardin.

An old Crisis article by Michael Pakaluk goes through the history of Bernardin’s Seamless Garment and the problems with it very well.  A key moment was when the Cardinal brought together liberal Democrats talking points under a “pro-life” umbrella in a 1983 address at Fordham:

If one contends as we do, that the right of every fetus to be born should be protected by civil law and supported by civil consensus, then our moral, political, and economic responsibilities do not stop at the moment of birth. Those who defend the right to life of the weakest among us must be equally visible in support of the quality of life of the powerless among us: the old and the young, the hungry and homeless, the undocumented immigrant and the unemployed worker. Such a quality of life posture translates into specific political and economic positions on tax policy, employment generation, welfare policy, nutrition and feeding programs, and health care. Consistency means we cannot have it both ways: We cannot urge rights of the unborn and then argue that compassion and significant public programs on behalf of the needy undermine the moral fiber of the society or are beyond the proper scope of governmental responsibility.

As Pakaluk notes, “this controversial passage, never withdrawn or repudiated by Bernardin, links regard for life with regard for the ‘quality of life’ in a highly dubious moral equation.”  And it is dubious. Say, letting illegals right on in and helping them stay, as the Roman Catholic hierarchy has long advocated and Catholic Charities has long enabled, is in the same category as protecting the unborn? No.  It is not.

For all I know, Bernardin may have had the best of motives. But the timing of the address and how the U. S. Roman Catholic bishops pushed the Seamless Garment is suspicious in light of the politics of abortion, Democrats, and Roman Catholics at the time.  

Democrats used to be a mixed lot on abortion.  Even Ted Kennedy once opposed abortion.  But by 1983, Democrat pols were becoming more and more pro-abortion under deceptive rhetoric such as “pro-choice” and “personally opposed but…”  And more than a few of these pro-abortion Democrats were Roman Catholics, such as Kennedy and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.  Most U. S. Roman bishops were Democrats, of course, and liberal on social welfare issues while still opposed to abortion.  But with the Democrat Party becoming increasingly pro-abortion, continuing support for them was getting harder to justify.

In addition, Ronald Reagan was recovering well from his 1982 mid-term election setback.  Thanks to a robust economic revival and his social conservatism, he was popular among Roman Catholics and was well on the way to a landslide 1984 victory.  And he was pro-life. On the other hand, all but the gullible were not buying the “personally opposed” bit of Democrats.

This presented U. S. Roman bishops with some quandaries. How to get Roman Catholics to return to the Democrat fold?  How to justify voting for Democrats when they had become more and more pro-abortion?  And how could the bishops justify their own usual support for Democrats or even justify giving pro-abortion Democrat pols communion?

The Seamless Garment came to the rescue, doing far more for Democrats and for the bishops than for the unborn.  Now one could be “pro-life” by being for food stamps for illegals or by being for a “Nuclear Freeze,” a trendy stance back then, or by supporting Democrats on liberal quality of life issues as whole.  Abortion was relegated to one issue among many if even that.

By thereby supporting Democrats, efforts to protect the unborn were undermined. For the days of Democrats embracing the unborn under their liberalism were ending if not already over.  The Seamless Garment gave an excuse to put Democrat political and policy priorities above the lives of the unborn.  Oh, the pro-life rhetoric continued from the U. S. RCC, at least for a time.  But their political actions usually undermined efforts to protect the unborn. The Seamless Garment was a compassionate appearing fig leaf over that.

Obviously, this is a very condensed overview.  But discerning readers may already notice parallels between the Seamless Garment and what AND is promoting.  I see the AND Campaign, particularly their 2020 Presidential Election Statement, and I see Democrat priorities dubbed pro-life. I see an effort to undermine a pro-life Republican President (Reagan then. Trump now.) while wanting still to appear pro-life and non-partisan.  I see an effort to justify voting Democrat to pro-life evangelicals being driven away by Democrat extremism on abortion (and today on many more issues than in the 80’s).  I see once again the “highly dubious moral equation” between quality of life issues with the right to life.  And if AND comes close to succeeding in attracting Evangelical voters to Democrats as well as the Seamless Garment blessed Roman Catholic support of Democrats, I see the unborn as the losers in the end, along with church and country as well.

I see Seamless Garment Redux in the Evangelical Church of What’s Happening Now.

Again, the AND Campaign may be well meaning, but it repeats the errors of the Seamless Garment.  May it not repeat its influence.

3 and Other Numbers in the York Minster East Window

With this being the first week in Trinity season, I thought this a good time to point out something medieval, fun, and slightly nerdy at York Minster.

The main theme of the Great East Window of York Minster is the beginning and the end as indicated by the very tip top where God the Father holds a book with “I am the alpha and the omega” in abbreviated Latin.  At the same time, there is also a strong Trinitarian undercurrent to the window particularly in how it is organized using – you guessed it – the number 3.

The tracery as a whole is, as is common, in a dome shape – one dome.  At the bottom of the tracery is three domes.  Hmmm.  Under that is the bulk of the window, and there are lots of threes and multiples of three.  First, it is organized in three vertical rows dividing each horizontal row of panels in three. Each of these divisions in turn contains three panels.  So 3 x 3 is 9, of course, which is the number of panels in each horizontal row.

At the bottom is one row of worthy bishops and kings – nine panels. Multiply that by 3 and you get 27, which happens to the number of panels dedicated to Creation and the Old Testament. These are the top three rows of the rectangular bulk of the window.  Now multiply by 3 again, and you get 81.  And there are 81 panels dedicated to the Apocalypse of St. John (i. e. the Book of Revelation).

Now here’s where it really gets weird. Multiply 9 x 27 x 81.  You get 19,683.  That points back to the main theme of the window, the beginning and the end, as it is the number of years that some medieval calculations had between Creation and The End.

That is a bit of Trinitarian end-of-the-world fun, is it not?

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By the way, if you find the East Window of York Minster the least bit interesting, then I highly recommend The Great East Window of York Minsterby Sarah Brown.  This book is scholarly yet pleasant reading and very well illustrated.  Most of the recently restored window may be viewed in the catalogue which takes up about two-thirds of the book.  Amazingly, it is very affordable as well.

If your church or group would enjoy a presentation of the East Window and its history, taking about an hour, my presentation has been well received, and I may be available.  Feel free to message me in the comments.  (You will need a Google identity.  I do moderate all comments, so I can keep your communication private if you express that wish.) Or you may message my twitter account.

About that Mary Queen of Scots Movie…

I’ve noticed – it is hard not to notice thanks to bombardment of silly social media ads – that there is a new Mary Queen of Scots movie that portrays Queen Elizabeth I as a very mean and naughty villain who scowls a lot at Mary the heroine.  Never mind that in actual history Mary was a fool caught plotting against Elizabeth and thereby gave her little choice but to lop off Mary’s regicidal head.  And even then Elizabeth was reluctant to do so.

But during this Christmas season I wish to be full of peace and good will.  So I recommend the following presentation which I find to be more enlightening and historically accurate.  You’re welcome.

R. W. Southern and Two Little Known Tidbits about Robert Grosseteste

I’ve been reading R. W. Southern’s Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe.  And I have to ask, is there anything Southern wrote that is not excellent?  The vast scholarship of this late great historian combined with his ability to write very readable books from his storehouse of scholarship amazes me.

Having said that, two tidbits about Robert Grosseteste in this book stand out to me, one for its amusement, the second for its encouragement.

The first is a Royal Mandate of June 23^rd, 1234 that directed Grosseteste and two other Oxford worthies “to supervise the arrest of all prostitutes in Oxford who had disobeyed a royal order to leave the town.” As Southern put it, the king regarded the three men “as peculiarly qualified for this hopeless task.” (p. 71, 1986 edition)

The second is that Grosseteste’s career was obscure and is not very well documented until he reached about age 55 when he suddenly rose to prominence.  Southern thinks this might have occurred because he was among those who assisted the 15 year old Henry III in getting a papal declaration that he was old enough to rule on his own in 1223.  Henry immediately rewarded those who assisted him. (p. 80, 81)

In any case, being around 55 and still somewhat obscure, I find this aspect of Robert Grosseteste’s career encouraging, although I will never be as brilliant as the man . . . or as R. W. Southern. 

John Fenwick on When Unity Efforts Fail

A number of papers from the aforementioned Anglican Patrimony Conference have been posted.  The one most intriguing to me is by John Fenwick, Primus of the Free Church of England and a key player in attempting to coordinate orthodox Anglican efforts in the U. K.

He reveals some very interesting history from the inside of the Canterbury-Rome unity push in the 70’s:

It was in the heady days of ARCIC 1. The Final Report had been sent around the Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Most of the responses were positive. It was expected to be officially endorsed at the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. The Vatican response was expected imminently. There was a feeling that something momentous was about to happen.

Prior to my appointment to Lambeth I had been lecturer in Christian worship at Trinity College, Bristol. Shortly after my arrival in the Ecumenical Affairs office, Christopher asked me to do some preliminary thinking about a liturgical project. (As Christopher put it, there’s no point in having a dog and barking yourself.) The project was what liturgical form the restoration of communion between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church might take. That was a heady request for a junior staff member! The most recent unity scheme around was the Covenant for Unity based on the Ten Propositions. That had proposed a day of liturgical events including the consecration of bishops. I remember working with that model and envisaging a service where the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury might jointly consecrate the first of a new generation of bishops whose Orders would be recognised by both Churches.

We were that close! Or at least so it seemed to some of those closely involved.

In retrospect that moment was a high water mark. The tide has been going out ever since.

As some may remember, the Vatican’s response not only did not come before the next Lambeth Conference as hoped; it did not come until 1991.  And not only the timing, but also its content was disappointing.

Even more disillusioning has been the Church of England’s liberal drift since then.  That leads Bishop Fenwick to make an interesting hypothesis:

I want to suggest that the Vatican’s 1991 response fits a pattern that has characterised ecumenical endeavour in the past half century – namely that unity initiatives have been halted by the refusal of what one might call the more conservative partner to act, and that as a result, the other partner has felt itself free to move further away from the historic Christian consensus.

I do not claim that what I am going to say has been rigorously historically tested, nor am I able to do so here, but I think the possibility of a pattern is worth considering.

And that pattern is simply that there seem to have been several occasions when the more conservative partner in a dialogue, by failing to take bold action, allowed the less conservative partner to move further away from traditional faith and practice.

And he gives other examples of this occurring, including failed efforts between Old Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

This pattern indeed merits consideration.  When jurisdictions are in the midst of unity efforts, their focus is often on how would merger/intercommunion affect us.  And that is certainly important.  But how it would affect the other party and the whole church, the Body of Christ, should not be overlooked.  And Fenwick does not let us ignore that, often for the disappointed party, a “move further away from traditional faith and practice” occurs after unity efforts fail.

Of course, in such cases we do not know what would have happened if unity efforts succeed.  For example, in the case of the Church of England and Roman Catholics, would Rome had been importing more liberalism to its harm? Would more Protestant-minded Anglicans feel pushed out of the Church of England?  I personally suspect the failure of ARCIC did more harm that what might have happened if it succeeded, and Fenwick seems to think that as well.  But we do not know.  And, yes, jurisdictions have to consider the stresses and pressures greater organizational unity may cause.  I sometimes wonder if the Anglican Church in North America, in its well meaning haste to bring Anglicans together, has not given such issues enough consideration.  If not done right, organizational unity can beget more disunity.

Nonetheless, Bishop Fenwick well reminds us that the good of the other party should be considered.  (And the bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church have done just that in joining and remaining in ACNA.)  We should avoid causing sister churches to stumble by turning them away without very good reason.

Care should also be taken in missionary efforts where there are existing Anglican jurisdictions.  Accordingly, Fenwick, in his conclusion, let it be known he still has mixed feelings about the consecration of orthodox bishops in the U. K. outside of existing jurisdictions.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Fenwick’s paper (I agree, at least for the most part.), it contains most interesting insight not often presented.  Read it all.

New Bishop of London: “Safeguarding is at the heart of the Gospel.”

No, it’s not. 

In fact, the most cursory knowledge of history and of current events informs that believing and preaching the Gospel is a good way to get killed or at least blackballed.  Anyone who preaches the Gospel and insists on the orthodox preaching of the Gospel by clergy has a snowball's chance of becoming a bishop in today’s Church of England, token flying bishops excepted . . . for now.

To be fair, Sarah Mullally was referring to churches safeguarding the young and vulnerable from abuse.  Certainly, churches have important roles to play in that regard.  But is safeguarding “at the heart of the Gospel”?

No.

Post-Charlottesville, The Double Standard Continues

After the awful events in Charlottesville, there has been an odd, but familiar phenomenon.  There are the rightful denunciations of the Nazis, KKK, etc.  But if someone even asks the denouncers if they have ever also denounced Antifa and Black Lives Matters, two groups who also have demonstrated racism and political violence, then even that question gets denounced.  Those who denounce both the Nazi types and Antifa and BLM, and who denounce double standards also get very similar treatment.  I’ve seen this sorry exercise even on the Facebook group page of the Anglican Church of North America, which is shameful.

This is an in-your-face example of a big double standard that has poisoned politics and the study of history since World War 2.  While the atrocities of the “Right”* are emphasized, the atrocities of the Left are downplayed or ignored, even if those atrocities are of a much greater scale.  The History Channel once was dubbed the Hitler Channel because of the frequency of its emphasis on Nazism and its atrocities. And certainly we should “never forget.”  But how often does one see documentaries of the atrocities under Lenin and Stalin, who killed millions more than Hitler?

Of course, there is much more to the study of history than the History Channel – thank God – but the phenomenon can be found across academia as well.  And when someone tries to provide some balance and focus on Communist evil, they often get grief for it.  The controversy that surrounded the publication of the Black Book of Communism is one example.

I detest this double standard, which only enables the Leftist New Totalitarians, who are a much greater danger than the KKK, neo-Nazis, and other loons.  If someone has been silent for over a year as Antifa has violently attacked peaceful demonstrators, Trump supporters, free speech, even those who simply wanted to hear a speaker, then his/her display of indignation over white supremacist violence is worth very little to me.

And, yes I will say it, President Trump was right to denounce violence from both sides.  And he was courageous to do so in the face of those who hate truth-telling about the Left.

By the way, these kind of double standards just feed hate.  Denouncing rightist hate while being silent about or even praising Leftist hate throws gasoline on hate.  The double standards must stop.  The political violence from both sides must be denounced and stopped.

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* I use “right” very loosely here.  Placing, say, Nazis on the right is highly questionable as they are a form of totalitarianism not very different from Communism.

Book Review: The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise

As a student of Western medieval history for over ten years now, the Muslim rule of Spain has been a subject that interested me, but that I had not quite gotten around to in any detail.  So when I heard good things about Dario Fernandez-Morera’s The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise, I decided to read it for myself.

The book is even better than I expected.  D. F. M. well debunks the hoary academic myth that Muslim Spain was a tolerant multi-cultural paradise. But it is the manner in which he does so that most impresses.  He begins his chapters with quotes from those holding the prominent viewpoint of the “Andalusian paradise.”  He frequently acknowledges their views, including points on which they are correct.  Also, he thoroughly documents that Christians and Jews in Spain, not only Muslims, were harsh in a number of their laws, restricted contact with each other, and were largely segregated, contributing to the lack of tolerance in Spain.  The Muslims were not the only bad guys, if you will.  So this book is no one-sided polemic.

Instead, this work is thoroughly scholarly.  D. F. M. quotes primary sources so much, it is almost overkill at times.  But he is debunking the dominant academic view of Muslim Spain; his near overkill is necessary.  Further, his notes and long bibliography take over a hundred pages!  The main text only goes to 240 pages – this is not a hard read.  But combined with the notes and bibliography, this is both a good introduction to the subject and an excellent resource for further study.

Sadly, the current state of academia is so averse to truth-telling about Islam and its history, one may have difficulty finding other books on Muslim Spain that are this good.  That makes this already (The publication date was 2016.) that much more a must have on the subject.

A personal note - I was struck while reading that the atrocities of ISIS and other Islamonazi groups are nothing new.  For example, how several medieval Muslim rulers turned executions into outlandish spectacles much like ISIS stood out to me.  These included mass executions that Muslims bragged of.  Trust that bragging is not too strong a word.  Actual history, as opposed to fashionable academic revising of it, and the view of Islam as a benign peaceful religion are not compatible.

But even if one disagrees with me on that observation, any open-minded student of Muslim Spain needs to get The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise.

It is Morning in America.

It is morning in America.

Yes, the new President will not be a perfect man, far from it.  And remember he was far, far from my first choice.

Yes, the problems we face cannot be solved in a day or a Hundred Days or four years.  Yes, the Washington Establishment of both parties will try to thwart needed change.  Further, they will try to destroy Trump in order to put the rest of us under their thumbs again.  Trump clearly even has his enemies in the intelligence agencies.

Yes, Democrats and Leftists will not suddenly begin respecting the Constitution and the Rule of Law.  Many of them are already doubling down on doing just the opposite.

Yes, there is no guarantee even a hopeful dawn as this will lead to good day and a good future.

But this morning, we can know that at the end of the day, we will have a President who loves this country.  And, for the first time since Reagan, we will have a President who is willing, nay, eager to say “NO” to the Washington/New York/California Establishment on behalf of the American people.

This morning, for the first time since 1989, we can know that at noon, we will have a President who is not named, Bush, Clinton, or Obama.

This morning, we have few guarantees as to what the future will bring.  But we can know this is a new morning to a new day.

It is morning in America.  And with this morning comes hope. 

Only by God’s good providence can this morning lead to bright days for this country.  But God is good and gracious beyond what we can imagine. So let us pray for President Donald Trump and for America.

*Apologies, of course, to the iconic Reagan 1984 campaign ad.

Holier Than Them

I’ve become a fan of A Catholic Thing.  A post there this morning is particularly incisive.  Anthony Esolen notes that we are very good at decrying the sins of other people, particularly in the past, such as slavery in the West and Nazism.

Though Esolen does not directly mention it, I think this part of what C. S. Lewis called the Modern Hubris, the delusion that we today are so much better and more enlightened than those of the past.

But we do not adequately appreciate the pressures put on societies to accept and cooperate with great public evils in the past.  And we downplay said pressures and our own weakness and public evils today.  I often look at today and see too much that resembles times of great evil in the past.  But I am surely a small minority.

Esolen identifies the great public evil today of the West to be the Sexual Revolution.  I’m not sure I agree.  But it cannot be denied that the Sexual Revolution has resulted in mass murder and mass madness, not to mention other forms of mass immorality and persecution of those who oppose these evils.  And how many are willing to lose their business or lose their job or to endure public ridicule and worse by refusing to go along to get along?

As the money paragraph from Esolen states:

…We are not called to oppose, notionally, comfortably, the characteristic evils of other ages, basking in the glow of a righteousness that costs nothing. We are called to suffer in opposing the characteristic evils of our age. And we will not begin even to conceive of how such a thing is possible, if we do not obey an authority that transcends mankind.