Nielsen’s Nook

Whether your voting for Barack Obama or not, the fact that America is at a place where she can nominate a Black man for presidential candidacy seems to indicate the sort of progress by which all Americans can be encouraged.

“What you see happening here tonight is the down payment of the fulfillment of dream of Martin Luther King,” he said. “Just a few short years ago in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, many people of color could not even register to vote and now, these people are voting for an African-American.”

“It was an amazing moment — not for African-Americans — for Americans,” CNN contributor Roland Martin said.

Read the full article at CNN.

It was brought to my attention recently that if a couple is having trouble conceiving, medical investigation into why is not covered under most medical insurances. Reasons that one or both are infertile could in some cases be life threatening. However, under the current capital driven healthcare system such gynocological exams are considered in the same realm as cosmetic surgery (e.g. plastic surgery). Consequently, the infertile poor remain infertile and only those infertile with means well beyond health insurance are able to pursue having children.

As a society do we really want to reduce having children in any set of circumstances to the realm of cosmetic surgery? Do we really want a medical system that will cover treatment when one’s digestive system is inhibited but not when one’s reproductive system is impaired? Does the capital model of healthcare really comport with a biblical worldview or the inalienable rights in which every citizen of the United States is to participate regardless of socio-economic status? Is it really good for business if 40-50% of the workforce in America is precluded from adequate healthcare on a purely economic basis?

What do you think?

I recently learned of the Anglican Society of the Holy Cross (SSC) and wanted to pass on this little historical tidbit to you. The following is quoted from the SSC Province of the Americas website:

SSC stands for Societas Sanctae Crucis - the Society of the Holy Cross. The Society was founded in London in 1855 by a small group of Anglo-Catholic priests led by Father Charles Lowder. At a time when the Catholic Revival in the Church of England was threatened by persecution and misunderstanding, these priests came together for support, mutual prayer and encouragement. Fr Lowder spelled out the objects of SSC:  ‘To defend and strengthen the spiritual life of the clergy, to defend the faith of the Church, and to carry on and aid Mission work both at home and abroad.  The members of this society, meeting together as they did in prayer and conference, were deeply impressed with the evils existing in the Church, and saw also, in the remedies adopted by St Vincent de Paul, the hope of lessening them.’

The Society has now spread throughout the world and is organised in autonomous Provinces under Provincial Masters elected by their Brethren.  Within each Province are various Regions headed by Regional Vicars, and the work of the Society at local level is carried forward in Chapters led by their Local Vicars.  Priests of the Society live under a common Rule and meet together in their local SSC Chapters every month or two for prayer, Mass and some kind of study or conversation.  Presiding over the Society worldwide is a Master-General who has a special responsibility to ensure an on-going fidelity among the Brethren to the spirit of the Society. The Americas Province is the province in the Western Hemisphere, with the majority of its members living in the USA and Canada.

SSC is not a devotional guild, but takes its stance upon a shared vision of ‘a disciplined priestly life fashioned after a definite spiritual rule.’  It is this Rule of Life which unites the Brethren in their various priestly ministries and lives. They are required to ‘consider their obligation to the Society as a close spiritual bond…which takes precedence to that of any other voluntary society.’  This obligation includes a commitment to attend local SSC Chapter meetings and annual Regional and Provincial Synods.  The life of the Society is experienced primarily through the local Chapter, and attendance at Chapter is of obligation unless prevented by genuine pastoral duties.

The fortunes of the Society have waxed and waned since the early days of the Catholic Revival, but for its members it has always been an important source of priestly formation, discipline and fraternity. Many of the best-known and best-loved priests of our Anglo-Catholic tradition have been brethren of SSC.  Priests of the Society can be recognized by the small gold lapel cross that they generally wear. On it is inscribed the motto of the Society - in hoc signo vinces - in this sign, conquer!

See also the article at Wikipedia.

Xavier Picket, at Reformed Blacks of America, has the first part of a thought provoking review of a new book out by Anthony Carter entitled Experiencing the Truth: Bringing the Reformation to the African-American Church. As a white guy in a global communion that is mostly not white but in a local church that is generally white, I found this review helpfully disturbing.

Mark 5:24-34 (ESV)

²⁴ … And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. ²⁵ And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, ²⁶ and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. ²⁷ She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. ²⁸ For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” ²⁹ And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. ³⁰ And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” ³¹ And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” ³² And he looked around to see who had done it. ³³ But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. ³⁴ And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Meditation

Jesus is on his way to heal the daughter of Jarius, a ruler of the synagogue. Embeded in the account of the healing of Jarius’ daughter is this account of the woman with the discharge of blood.

What struck me this morning was the question Jesus asked, “Who touched my garments?” The apostles give the obvious answer reflecting that all sorts of people would have been touching him given that a great crowd thronged about him as they walked.

The difference between the great thronging crowd and the woman with the discharge revolves around faith, hope and love. She had touched Jesus with purpose that is only spawned out of hope and that hope had produced faith and had come to find the healing powers of love. For Jesus does not turn as one perturbed by the power that had gone out from him; rather, he approaches our hope and faith in him as our Good Shepherd, the Caretaker of our Souls. He wants to personally know and comfort those whose hope and faith drives them to him. He heals not from a distance but as a Physician who deeply loves the infirmed. The woman was already healed, but Jesus wanted to stop and bless her face to face.

O Lord, our God, would you so stir us to hope that our faith would be expanded, our hearts dilated, that we might have greater capacity to receive and relish your love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord, who loves together with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dr. Peter Enns, former all-star professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, was interviewed at 10:00 am (Central) today by Public Radio WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane.

Dr. Enns’ now infamous and scholarly (and dare I say it … pastoral) book, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament seeks to approach difficulties in the Old Testament (e.g., two drastically different Hebrew Manuscripts of Jeremiah) and in terms of the Incarnation. Ultimately, Dr. Enns seeks to uphold the mystery of the divine and human union of Scripture as the basis for its trustworthiness in faith and practice.

Dr. Enns blogs at a time to tear down | A Time to Build Up.
Listen to the interview with WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane:

[Download]

Addendum:

About 41 minutes in, an atheist caller named Jim calls and makes the statement that if he would have had the paradigm of scripture that is presented in Inspiration and Incarnation, he wonders if that would not have saved his faith. Pete does a very pastoral job of encouraging Jim toward the God revealed in the Bible.

I happened to come across this album (if we may call it that), which is a recording of the Cistercian Monks of Stift Heilgenkreuz. If ever music could compel one to long to lay cruciform for hours before the altar of the LORD, this does. If ever the human voice could sound forth with symphonies of glory, the voices on this piece do merely that. I hope it brings as many worshipful tears to you as are beheld by this music.

If you’d like a copy, buy one through Amazon.

Commentary

[a] Βλέπετε literally “to look” ; however, in this context we get the connotation of looking out for something, to beware of something (BAGD, 143).

[b] ἀποστῆναι is from where we have the English cognate apostasy or apostatize. It resonates with the passage quoted from Psalm 97. Those who fall away will never enter God’s rest.

[c] καθʼ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν literally, “according to every day.” In colloquial English we would conceptually just say “daily” or “every day.”

[d] ἄχρις is Hellenistic Greek in form (BAGD, 128).

[e] μὴ σκληρυνθῇ τις ἐξ ὑμῶν literally “not be hardened some from among you”.

[f] τοῦ Χριστοῦ γεγόναμεν in the NA27 reads γεγόναμεν τοῦ χριστοῦ in the Byzantine text.

[g] ὑποστάσεως (ὑπόστασις) is translated realization here (c.f., BAGD, 847 and the use in Hebrews 11:1).  Jesus is the realization of both utter condemnation and the reconciliation of all who have participated in the great rebellion. We must hold fast to Christ as he is manifest to us now, the beginning of realization of the Cosmic Salvation of the World, that we may persevere to the final restoration of all things when Jesus returns in glory and splendor.

I woke early and made some coffee and enjoyed the remainder of the vow of silence that we took each night during the retreat. That time to pray, think and write was a treasure to be sure.

Overall, I think the retreat was a success for me. I wanted to meet as many from the diocese as possible. I think I at least shook hands with everyone. I was pleased to have conversations with every member of the Commission on Ministry that was present and I think those conversations went well. It is also a great thing to know the faces of those around the diocese that are also in the process of ordination.

It is a long process ahead, like a high mountain looming overhead. We’ve broken camp and have begun our climb. May the Lord in his good pleasure deliver his servant to its summit. Amen.

Friday was our first full day. I did not sleep well Thursday night so Friday was also a long day.

Positvely, I have been able to meet many people on the Commission for Ministry, which guides and governs much of the road towards holy orders.

This time has been eye opening for me as I begin to fathom the girth of diversity in the Diocese and how comfortable Anglicans are with ambiguity.

I am working through the whiplash of realizing that a year ago I had an M.Div. from a respected seminary, had decent national and good regional ecclesiastical relations. Now I have only a few local relationships, no national ones and have a theological education that is insufficient at best.

Lord have mercy and deliver your servant through these murky unknown waters. Amen.