Had the mixed pleasure of helping to host a dinner party this evening. I say "mixed" because it was a charming bunch of people from my father's Episcopal congregation, but it was bad timing for me, considering this was Day 10 of Cough Fest 2008. (When I learned that Bernie Mac died of pneumonia, I ran to my medical references to check my symptoms).
In any case about halfway through hors d'oeuvres (or as I like to call them, "horse dove-reez"), the conversation turned to the recent Lambeth Conference, and from there quickly to the personage of one Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson. Episcopalians are a civilized folk by nature, but nothing breaks down that nature faster than talk of the Bishop of New Hampshire. The topic held for the better part of half an hour, despite the attempts of several people, including myself, to change the subject. I won't go into great detail, except to say that it ran the course of most such discussions: justice, Leviticus, shellfish, Paul, genetics, misogyny, the authority of scripture, catholic process, American hubris, and a local hero/villain Otis Charles. Remarkably enough, 5 years later and we are still stuck in this feedback loop. It's as if the entire Anglican world has hit a rut, and we are all just spinning our wheels, hoping that something will break one way or another. The fascinating thing to me is that most of the people in that room desperately wanted to talk about something else. Some didn't think it proper to talk controversy at a social function. Many were simply tired of talking about it after 5 years. But the conversation just wouldn't die. As soon as it seemed to have run its course, someone would inject one more comment, and it would start all over again. It was almost humorous, but in a very tragic sort of way. I find it incredibly frustrating, simply because I think that the right questions are not being asked, and very few people, on either side of the argument, are really looking at the consequences of what they are saying. I may write at some point about what I think those questions should be and what those consequences are, but for the moment I am just as tired by this as anyone.
On the bright side, the pesto was particularly good, and the tomatoes were a hit.
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4 comments:
Tomatoes? I want some tomatoes...
I need to find time to go up there and snag some...
I had a thought recently about writing about the Socio-Political Problems in the Democratization of Western Religious Organisations in a Post-Imperialist Age. But I figgured if I ever wanted to speak up about such things A) no one would want to talk to me, and B) it would be sturring up some really nasty stuff that might be better laying at the bottom of the political pond.
Still the political-sociological implications would make a great thesis.
What strikes me is that you are describing T[p]ECusa as Hell. One eternal dinner party discussing +VGR and all that.
We can even do a Dante-esque turn and have deeper circles, the last being at the party with Susan Russell and Bob Duncan while Vienna Sausages and Two Buck Chuck is served.
(With apolgies to the Rev. Ms. Russell and Bishop Duncan, if they were to discover my comment through google or some such thing.)
Will, do that, they are quite good this year.
I'd be glad to join you in working on that thesis, though we might not come to the same conclusions. Anglicanism is basically a British imperial institution that has never gotten over being cut loose of its imperial benefactor. I really don't think the re-founders of TEC had a clue about the import of what they were doing in 1789, or the effect that republican governance would have on our ecclesiology. 200 years later, and we still haven't really addressed those effects. And now we're face to face with the Church in other post-colonial societies, all trying to redefine their relationships with each other and the mother country. It could all make an interesting study, or a Pandora's Box.
Peregrinator, stop it, you're going to give me nightmares. I don't know how many novenas I'd have to say to avoid that, but I'd be willing to give it a shot.
Well you might actually be surprised as to how close we could get on this thesis. The conlusion is where we might differ, because I see it as a reoccuring cultural phenominon.
But even then we would likely be surprisingly close... My thesis is that Democracy ultimately has problems with religion, as the will of God is seen to be delivered by a majority vote. The minority are always presented as being either heartless or godless in one way or another... Thus "in God we trust" begins to take a new meaning... It becomes a protective statement from commiting mass herisy.
As for peregrinator's image of Dante's Inferno. I can see the irony, but that actually was cutting it a bit close to home... a little too close.
Of course, something along the line of Kierkergaard's Fear and Trembling is more what comes to my mind...
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