Sunday Contentment
Published on 4 Jan 2009 at 9:54 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under Misc Journaling.
I like Sunday mornings.
I mean, I’ve always liked them. I was raised to see Sunday as the pinnacle of the week, as the time toward which everything else reaches. If I’m not at a church on a Sunday morning I feel terribly out of place, like a part of my soul decided to ignore my foolish body and find some Christians worshiping. I learned early on that I’m a much more content person if I just do what my soul wants and show up at church.
I’ve been a bit worried that all of this would change. That once I became a priest, and it was “my job” to be at church, it would become a burden. I’ve been a bit worried that the charm and magic, the quickening of my spirit during a hymn, all of that would somehow go away, that it’d slip out of my hands.
Thankfully, it hasn’t yet. Now, I know I’m only a few months into this thing. I’ve only been working full-time at an Episcopal parish for six months. I’ve only been ordained a priest 3 weeks. So, it could be that one, two, five, ten, or twenty years from now the joy of church will disappear for me.
But I hope not.
Maybe it’s like marriage, and you just need to work to always see the other for who they are, rejoicing in discovering the new depths of your spouse. Or maybe it’s like friendship, and you just have to learn to dance with the changes as both of you grow and become other people with different lives.
I have a feeling it has something to do with the Benedictine insistence upon stability, the idea that committing yourself to one thing over the long haul is spiritually formative in its own right.
I don’t know. But I hope that my love of Sundays sticks around.
Because now, I still get excited about going. When I am within the walls of our campus, my spirit feels at home. It’s like the way my spirit feels at my house, when I sit with Bethany on the couch: a certain sense that this is where I belong. Even now, though I’m sitting in my office, I can hear the 9:00 AM service being piped into the parish hall over the speakers (the system must still be on from Christmas). The sound of the hymns, the rise and fall of the celebrant’s voice, the people’s affirmation, it sounds like home to me.
And, strangely enough, home rarely gets old.
Almighty and everliving God, ruler of all things in heaven and earth, hear our prayers for this parish family. Strengthen the faithful, arouse the careless, and restore the penitent. Grant us all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within your holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
My Letter to the Transition Team
Published on 31 Dec 2008 at 9:49 am.
3 Comments.
Filed under In the News.
Since the election of our next president, Barack’s campaign web-site has hosted a form asking for his supporters to tell his transition team what is important to them. I initially ignored it, figuring my voice wouldn’t really be heard amid the flood of others. However, it’s been needling me ever since, as I hear a constant flow of discussion on only a very few areas of change the new administration hopes to undertake. So today I filled out the form and hopefully added my voice to the others who are asking for the same thing.
Regardless of whom you supported in the election, I’d encourage you to go to the site and make your voice known as well.
Dear Transition Team,
I’m confident you’ve already received a flood of advice and ideas for the incoming administration. I’m writing in hopes that by adding my voice to that of others, this issue may rise above the cacophony and real change will occur.
The bans on same-sex marriage in various state constitutions, along with the vicious and deceitful rhetoric with which they are often accompanied, are an assault on the foundations of the American ideal. They, combined with the military “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and the lack of comprehensive hate crime legislation, are the most shameful example of government collusion with bigotry and prejudice since the Jim Crow Laws.
I’m an Episcopal priest, straight, and happily married to my wife. Thus, one might think that I don’t bring this request from a self-serving place, that it comes from altruistic ideals. It is, however, much more complex than that. I believe strongly that our lives are interconnected, that what harms one of us harms each of us. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded white leaders who would rather sit on the fence than move forward with what they knew to be right, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963). As long as our government keeps basic civil rights from one class of people, as long as we as a society allow the misguided majority in certain states to overwhelm the rights of minorities, as long as we sit on our hands while our fellow human beings are treated as less than full humans, then all of our rights, all of our society, is in grave danger of being undermined and corrupted by the next tyrannical majority to spring up in your neighborhood.
I’m sure that many on your transition team agree with some of my sentiments. I’m confident that many don’t see this as a pressing issue, given the unstable economy and rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. However, I would urge you not to sweep this under the rug, don’t let it wait until you can get around to it. Bring our country into line with its own ideals, into a place where we can speak with integrity to the broader world about freedom, otherwise the rest will be battles won in the midst of a losing war.
Waiting with eager expectation for the day when full equality for my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters is signed into law, I remain your servant.
Grace,
Jared Cramer+
The Feast of the Holy Innocents
Published on 30 Dec 2008 at 9:17 am.
No Comments.
Filed under Sermons.
Matthew 2:13-18
13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 14 Then Joseph* got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’
The Massacre of the Infants16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
18 ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’
Today in the life of the church, we commemorate the Feast of the Holy Innocents (translated from Sunday).
The holy innocents were those children spoken of in our gospel reading, the ones that King Herod killed in a fury when the wise men did not return to tell him where the King of Israel was born. They are often called the “first martyrs” of the Christian tradition. But such a description raises a question. We commemorate saints due to their sanctity of life, and those that are martyrs we commemorate for their willingness to face death rather than deny Our Lord. But these children in the gospel lesson, they had no choice, they had no momentous stand where they proclaimed great testimony. The only testimony we receive from them is the loud weeping of the parents of Israel, as Rachel weeps for her children. So what can the Holy Innocents teach us?
I suggest that they can teach us this: that our actions affect one another, that our lives are interconnected. Throughout human history, and especially in our own society, there has persisted this idea that we live our own individual lives, that we can make the choices we deem right for us, that we can “live and let live,” so to speak.
The Christian tradition disagrees with this notion. Within the very being of God there dwells Three Persons, each of whose actions affect the other so much that we call the three persons One Being. The Christian tradition insists that our actions touch each other, that our lives are not individual streams, but are a complex web of relationships. And the Christian tradition teaches us that whatever we do, whether for good or evil, can have a profound affect on those around us.
The coming of Christ was a moment that affected all humanity… but only in a positive way.
Now, this is not to say that God is responsible for the deaths of the Holy Innocents. That they somehow “had to die” for Christ to come. Rather, it is to recognize that people can respond to Christ’s coming in different ways, and that those responses are not isolated events, but can ripple out into the society.
King Herod saw the coming of the King of Israel as a threat. And so he responded with fear and anxiety, killing anyone who might lay claim to his throne. He saw his own life as paramount, the affect his actions would have on others was inconsequential to him.
And this is nothing new. For centuries people have taken the coming of the Kingdom as a catalyst for their own wickedness, their own evil schemes. And we, as a church, lament those stories. But we’d also better pay careful attention to them, because this Feast reminds us that all that separates the three kings from the east from King Herod was a watchful eye for how their actions affected others. The wise men knew that their actions might cause harm, and so they sought to mitigate that harm, to do the greatest possible good. King Herod didn’t care what his actions would cause, he only cared for himself.
And so, in this season of Christmas, as we consider our own responses to the coming of Christ, the Holy Innocents would remind us that our response is not an individual act, but that our response can have a profound positive or negative effect on those around us. Will we be tyrants, concerned only with our own well-being in this season? Or will we be wise, looking carefully around us for how our actions affect others, and seeking to broaden the Kingdom of Christ while lessening our own?
We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
How the President of the United States Showed Up for my First Sunday Mass
Published on 21 Dec 2008 at 1:34 pm.
12 Comments.
Filed under Misc Journaling, Ministry.
Today I celebrated my first Sunday mass.
My first mass ever was celebrated this past Wednesday at 7:15 AM. Bethany got up extra early to be there, as did the rector and a handful of others. It was deeply meaningful.
But today was my first Sunday mass. And, to make it even better, it was at the 8:00 AM, Rite I liturgy, a liturgy that has been a deeply meaningful part of my own spiritual journey. Our senior warden is a regular at the service and when I saw him yesterday he gave me some good advice. “First,” he said, “Wait a couple seconds after the end of the prelude before you begin. Second, take your time. Don’t rush. Let the service be as it should.” I heard, marked, and inwardly digested his advice, pondering them in my heart as I got ready this morning. I was a little nervous, but primarily excited.
As I was putting on my cassock in my office, I heard another priest come in from outside. I poked my head out the door. “Good Morning!” I called out to our Associate for Worship and Pastoral Care.
She smiled, “Good morning. How do you feel?”
“A little nervous,” I admitted.
“Well, have you heard the news?” she asked.
I was a little confused. I thought for a moment, wondering what the news could be, and then said, “No, I don’t think I have.”
She smiled broadly, “The President of the United States is going to be in the congregation.”
I sputtered, “The President, like George W. Bush??”
She smiled, “Yep.”
For those who don’t know, the church where I serve, Historic Christ Church in Alexandria, VA, predates the revolutionary war. George Washington regularly worshiped here, his family even rented a pew. Though the rest of our church was upgraded to fancy new slip pews almost 200 years ago, George Washington’s family pew remains the traditional box pew. It has been tradition for a very long time for the sitting president to visit Christ Church at some time during their administration, usually on Washington’s birthday, and to sit in “The Washington Pew.” The last president to do this was George H.W. Bush. Bill Clinton never made it. George W. Bush hadn’t either. Not yet.
Our parish also has a couple cabinet members and other significant people in the administration as parishioners. They are very aware of this tradition and apparently had been trying to get President Bush to come for a while. Finally, it seems, he relented and late last night we got the call that he would be in attendance.
I quickly finished vesting, threw on a cloak to keep the freezing rain off my clothes, and headed over the historic church. Though I hadn’t noticed them coming in, now I saw that the place was swarming with Secret Service. I smiled at an agent as I made my way into the church. I went into the sacristy where our chancel chapter was bustling to get things ready. I took the altar book and stand and carried them up to the altar.
Going inside, I reverenced the altar and then placed the book and stand on it. I began working my way through the book, making sure all the proper pages were marked by ribbons and that the ribbons were in order. I quickly skimmed through the liturgy, reminding myself where all the gestures fit into this rite. Then I closed the book, reverenced the altar, and went back over the parish hall for our 7:30 AM meeting, first calling Bethany, who was debating whether to come to the 8:00 AM that morning, to let her know who would be in attendance.
Thankfully, our rector offered to do the announcements for me, a privilege I was only too happy to give up. After discussing the events of the morning, making sure everyone knew their part, we dispersed to our respective offices to finish preparing. I went over to the office of the other resident who started with me, asking “Do you still want to pray with me?”
“Sure,” Kim said.
We went into my office and I pulled two copies Rite Before Holy Eucharist out that I had adapted from the Sarum Rite and the 1965 Missale Romanum. I took a deep breath and then began the prayers, trying to settle my soul for the approaching service.
When we finished we headed over to the church and joined the gaggle of clergy that had filled up the sacristy. We did the usual last minute preparations, checking in with lay readers and chalice bearers. One of the chalice bearers, the aforementioned senior warden, clearly sensing my anxiety came over and put his hands on my shoulders, “Jared, just remember, he’s just another sinner in search of salvation.”
“You’re right, thanks,” I said, smiling.
A few moments before the end of the prelude, the presidential procession came in. Flanked by Secret Service agents, the President made his way to the “Washington Pew,” where he was joined by his wife and other members of his family. We all lined up to go in, with me for the first time taking the last place in the procession. As we began walking out the sacristy door to the aisle, I prayed to myself over and over again under my breath, “Be present, be present, O Jesus, our Great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of the bread; who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.”
The entrance to the 8:00 AM liturgy is not a sung hymn, so we made our way down the aisle with the organ playing softly. Everyone went to their places as I went through the chancel gate, came to the altar, reverenced, and then turned around. The organist finished playing as I opened my prayer book. I took a deep breath, counted to three, and then began, “Blessed by God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
From then on, the service went well. I had put Post-It notes throughout my Prayer Book to guide me through the liturgy. After the rector welcomed the President, did the announcements, making sure everyone knew that this was my first Sunday celebration of Holy Communion. The rector then said the offertory sentence and I made my way back into the chancel and to the altar. Kim was serving as my “deacon of the mass” and began preparing the table as I went through the altar book one more time making sure that everything was set up correctly. When Kim was done she moved to the side and I moved to the center of the altar. I made a few minor arrangements to all the elements set our on the corporal, then looked up and announced the page number of the Eucharist prayer. I took a deep breath and spread my hands out to the congregation, saying, “The Lord be with you.”
The congregation joined with me, participating in that ancient dialogue. I tried to speak out the words clearly, not just “saying the service,” but truly praying the prayers. I did a pretty good job containing my emotions until right before the “Great Amen.” I had only stumbled over a couple of words and was at the home stretch,
And although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses, through Jesus Christ our Lord;
At the word “unworthy,” I felt the emotion rose up in my throat. I grasped hold my sense of God’s grace, knowing that the sacraments are efficacious on the work that Christ did (ex opere operato), and somehow made my way through the rest of the sentence.
Then I raised up the elements high, proclaiming that all honor and glory would always go to the Triune God as the congregation assented, “AMEN.”
We said the Lord’s prayer and I broke the priest’s host over the chalice, briefly holding pieces up to the congregation, then quickly setting them on the paten and breaking them one more time. I counted to five, allowing the silence to fill the room, then announced the sacrifice of our paschal lamb as the congregation said they would “keep the feast.” I held the elements up and looked at the congregation, for the first time allowing myself to also look at the President, “The gifts of God for the people of God.”
It all clicked then. I’m not a huge fan of our President’s policies. Many of them contributed to my own exodus from the Republican party. I have great respect for his office, and have been impressed with some of his humanitarian work, particularly with AIDS in Africa. However, I still have some strong reservations about some of the things he’s done. But as I looked at him and all the other familiar faces filling the auditorium, I was convicted of the fact that the sacraments are indeed valid because of God’s work, not our own. Our senior warden’s reminder rang in my ears, “He’s just another sinner looking for salvation.” He is one small part of the people of God, the image of God is burned on his soul as well as mine, and that burning is just as much a work of grace for me as for him. And that, the fact that he is another human created in God’s image and also a brother in Christ through the sacrament of baptism, that is why he deserves the deepest amount of my respect.
I communed myself, profoundly aware of the power of Christ’s presence, the communed the other ministers and proceeded to commune the rest of the church. The President came up with his family about a third of the way in and he happened to be on my side of the rail. I always try hard to be present to each person as I give them the elements, but few people look up. President Bush looked right up at me with a big smile on his face as I gave him the wafer, “The body of our Lord Jesus Christ with was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life…”
After everyone had been communed and the elements put away, I led the people in the post-communion prayer and said the blessing, Father Scott’s voice quietly echoing in my mind. Kim said the dismissal, we both reverenced the altar, and then made our way out of the church.
I stopped in the sacristy to drop off my prayer book and put on a cloak (it was still awful cold) and then went outside. The President had already exited and was greeting our choir, posing for pictures with the whole group, including a handful of kids ushered into the picture by their parents. As a growing crowd of us waited on the other side of the walk, held back by the Secret Service, the President saw me and came over.
“So this was your opening show, huh?” he said with a smile on his face.
“Yes sir, Mr. President,” I said, smiling back, “It was nice of you to come, just for my first Eucharist.”
He laughed and smacked his hand on my arm, “Well you did a good job. We’ll see if that part about the Spirit coming down actually worked.”
I didn’t quite understand what he meant, “Here’s hopin’,” I responded.
He put his hand on my shoulder and stopped smiling, “No, I mean that it did, it did work.”
I smiled as he turned to greet someone else. I took a deep breath and then looked around for Bethany. I found her a few feet away standing against the wall. Just then Laura Bush, who was standing nearby, turned to me and smiled, putting out her hand. “Good morning,” I said, “I’m Jared.”
“Good morning, Jared,” she said, “it’s nice to meet you.”
“You too,” I said, then motioned for Bethany to come over, “Mrs. Bush, I’d like you to meet my wife, Bethany, we actually just go married.” The two of them shook hands and, as the President heard me say “just go married,” he turned around. “Mr. President, I’d like you to meet my wife, Bethany,” I said. The two of them shook hands, “Nice to meet you,” Bethany said.
“Congratulations,” the President said to both of us, then turning to Bethany, “So, you married a preacher, huh?”
Bethany smiled, “Yes I did.”
“Better than marrying a President,” he said, looking towards Laura. She laughed and the two of them moved on as I put my arm around Bethany. He greeted a few other people and then was ushered into the waiting limousine.
“Want to get a cup of coffee?” Bethany asked.
“Please,” I said.
We greeted a few other parishioners and then I headed up the stairs to take off my vestments.
The gifts of God for the people of God. That’s what this thing is all about. The gifts of God for the people of God. All of them.
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the words which we have heard this day with our outward ears, may, through thy grace, be so grafted inwardly in our hearts, that they may bring forth in us the fruit of good living, to the honor and praise of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
An Apologia for Anglican Worship
Published on 19 Dec 2008 at 10:17 am.
7 Comments.
Filed under Anglican Thoughts.
Over at Daily Episcopalian, there has been a lively comment discussion on a post entitled Holy Chaos, or: What Episcopalians can learn from Baptists. The author, a lay liturgist and an Episcopalian, serves as Director of Worship at an interdenominational church in New York City (both American Baptist and United Church of Christ). In the article she recounts her experiences of her church’s new senior minister who has “descended from the pulpit” (literally) and brought a certain spontaneity to their worship. She recounts how this growing spontaneity, the recovery of the evangelical “altar call,” and the rising emotion of the worship has profoundly affected herself and several other members. She then suggests that Episcopalians could learn a thing or two from her church’s experience, asking when we have “felt overpowered by the Spirit,” and suggesting that those who “proceed ‘by the book’” can sometimes border on idolatry and a lack of faith in God’s power to act in the moment.
OK, now the first thing to be said is this. Anglicanism has long insisted upon being “religiously noncompetitive.” That is, we recognize a diversity of ways to practice and engage in the Christian faith, knowing that our own peculiar way of doing this thing is not the only way to do it. Rather, this is the way that has been passed down to us while still being continually tested by each generation for faithful engagement. This is the way we have chosen, a discipline of Christianity to which we have submitted ourselves. We don’t think everyone needs to do it our way, we just know that we have found faithfulness and transformation in the Anglican tradition.
Thus, I can affirm much of what she says. I certainly can affirm her experience as valid, as an authentic experience of a certain type of worship and spirituality from a definite Christian tradition that has been around from the earliest days in certain places throughout the Church catholic. I grew up in the tradition she describes, I am acutely aware of the profound and transformative possibilities of an evangelical approach to worship rooted in revival traditions. It is the food that fed me for a decade of my life as a Christian.
Furthermore, central to the Anglican belief in diversity of approaches to the Christian faith is the ecclesiological insistence that we have things to learn from other parts of Christ’s body. Thus, we do, of course, have things that our evangelical, revival, and charismatic sisters and brothers can teach us. The hand can indeed teach something to the foot about its different experience as a member of the Body of Christ.
However, for them to teach us does not mean that the foot needs to turn into the hand.
Indeed, I believe that Anglicanism has a valid critique of the approach to worship she describes. Let’s take the use of a Book of Common Prayer, one of the fundamental markers of Anglican identity. In the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, their books of worship are resource books for clergy. In the Episcopal Church (TEC), clergy vow to uphold the worship of Christ as TEC has received them. Indeed, violation of the rubrics is one of the ten reasons for which a clergy person can be liable for Presentment and Trial (Canon IV.1.1.d). Let me repeat that, Episcopal clergy may be Presented, Inhibited, and Deposed for violating the rubrics of the BCP. Think about that next time you’re tempted to skip over the moment of silence after the fraction.
Now, we have not structured ourselves this way as a church because we are all fuss-budgets who want everything done just so. In my liturgy class, Marion Hatchett gave four functions of rubrics:
- To give direction to the conscientious clergyperson, church musician or any other person responsible for the worship of the church. They may work for reform, but until the church revises the BCP, clergy are bound to uphold the rubrics.
- To clarify what Episcopalians believe. The real authority is the BCP, the liturgical texts themselves. However the meaning of these texts is usually illuminated by the rubrics. (E.g., the essential aspect of baptism is in the rubrics).
- To ensure that the rites provide an icon of the liturgy.
- To protect the rights of the various orders of the church.
That fourth function is particularly important. One of the most common charges made against the polity and worship of those who follow the Anglican tradition is clericalism. However, clericalism is a danger in any religious tradition and, I would argue, is even more of a danger when you pretend you don’t have clergy. In the author’s essay, the worship is centered around her pastor and his willingness to change the worship, at the drop of a hat, because he feels something else may be appropriate. In TEC, the BCP and its rubrics exist to protect each order of the church. They protect the bishop’s prerogative (though not a bishop’s prerogative). They protect the deacon’s prerogative and the presbyter’s prerogative. And most importantly they protect the rights of the laity, as Marion says, “especially by providing some recourse when the laity is subject to an idiosyncratic egotistic priest.”
The second point where I would like to press the author is in her argument for a more emotionally stirring service. Anglicans have historically preferred a more reasoned approach to worship and conversion. We’d rather people were moved by the force of an argument that engages Scripture and tradition that a strangely warming feeling in their hearts. Now, that is not to say that we don’t believe in emotion, or in liturgy and preaching that emotionally affects us. It’s just that we recognize the limitations (and possibilities for manipulation) in more emotional, revival oriented worship.
Here a story from early in the life of former Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, is illuminating. While a student at Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1926 the three religious groups of Cambridge (Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, and Non-Comformist) organized a week-long mission to the university. Though originally interested in politics and debate, Ramsey found himself increasingly drawn to religion. During the mission, he was particularly drawn to the lectures of the Anglo-Catholic missioner, future Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple. He attended Temple’s lecture every night with the exception of the one night he attended the lecture of the evangelical missioner, W. P. Nicholson. He found Nicholson’s emotional revivalism absurd, whereas he resonated with Temple’s honest and intellectual approach to the complexities and difficulties of religion. Later, in a letter, Ramsey recalled his experience of Nicholson’s lecture,
I remember the Irish evangelist [Nicholson] as a super-modern gospeler, a Billy Graham. I found him whipping the people into hysteria. He kept saying they should come to the Lord by standing up—‘Stand up, sir, bless you!’ . . . ‘Stand up, lady, bless you!’ People were bobbing up and down all over the place. I was holding tight to my seat. In the midst of all this we had another verse of the hymn ‘Almost Persuaded’ and then the evangelist called for all hypocrites to leave the church. ‘You who came here to stare and maybe to laugh, you may leave the church now. Go back to your wine and your women and your cigarettes.’
The biographer who records this experience notes that within a couple minutes Ramsey got up and left the service “thoroughly revolted by such revivalism.”
Now, while Ramsey’s experience may be a bit strong, it resonates deep within me. There is something to the Anglican insistence on reason, on our hesitance for forms and structures that may be emotionally manipulative. As one commenter on the original article notes, “My church has an altar call every Sunday do where we get to come down front, pray, and rededicate our lives to Christ; it’s called the Holy Eucharist.” If people are going to come down front and have an experience with God, we believe that is safer and more appropriately done with the Presence of Christ, than with a personality down front. Indeed, I would argue that whereas the author puts her faith in the ability of clergy to move people in worship, Anglicans believe even more strongly in the ability of God to move people in worship, trusting far more in God’s power than our own.
The author argues that those who disagree with her church’s worship have a problem letting God be in control. I would posit that those of us in the Anglican tradition have a problem because it is not God who is in control in her church’s approach to worship, it is the pastor. Instead, we worship according to a liturgy and prayerbook, trusting that God will guide the church as she forms the liturgy and rubrics, seeking to craft a form of worship where both the emotional revivalist, the devoted catholic, and the skeptical intellectual can all come together and encounter a God who persistently and profoundly calls us into relationship with him and all parts of the body of Christ.
O Almighty God, who pours out on all who desire it the spirit of grace and of supplication: Deliver us, when we draw near to you, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind, that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affections we may worship you in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
