"How Firm a Foundation"

One of the projects we have always wanted our Beloved Godfather (perhaps in collaboration with our Beloved Godson) to undertake is the compilation of what we call "The Reference Hymnal." We imagine a collection of hymns, or at least of hymn lyrics, in their original forms with chief popular variants indicated.

This isn't easy. Which English verses of A Mighty Fortress are "chief variants," for example? And what about such hymns as Conditor alme siderum? The 7th-c. Latin original was almost completely re-written a thousand years later, as part of Urban VIII's breviary reform. Is it now one hymn with translations and variants, or two?

Still, for most hymns the idea is fairly straightforward, and might be useful to worship leaders and preachers who wanted to explore ideas which have been excised from the common hymnal versions. (Likely not to include the fervent hope, expressed in Faith of our Fathers, that England would return to papistry. But who knows what a preacher may need?).

Here, by way of f'rinstance, are the words to How Firm a Foundation, which not coincidentally we will sing come Sunday. Red indicates stanzas absent from LBW and ELW, and [brackets] indicate textual alterations.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word! [ELW: "in Christ Jesus, the Word"]
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled? [ELW, LBW: "Who unto the Savior"]

In every condition, in sickness, in health;
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid; [ELW, LBW: "your God," "give you aid"]
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand [ELW, LBW: "help you," "cause you"]
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie, [ELW, LBW: "your pathways"]
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply; [ELW, LBW: "your supply"]
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design [ELW, LBW: "hurt youu"]
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine. [ELW, LBW: "your dross," "your gold"]

Even down to old age all My people shall prove [ELW, LBW: "Throughout all their lifetime, my people']
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

In this case, the emendations are modest -- a house style that prefers you to thee, and an alteration of l.4 to avoid the awkwardness of "you, who." One might argue, profitably, over whether ELW's decision to identify the Word by name for people who may not get it is either useful interpretation or offensive dumbing-down.

As for avoiding mention of old age, well, blame a culture which worships youth and considers "old" to be a slur. And there's a sermon right there.

But the excised verses may be more interesting. The omitted second stanza rebukes the Prosperity Gospel up front. And the concluding thought of the fourth stanza -- that God will "sanctify to [us our] deepest distress" -- is actually alien to a lot of Protestants these days, especially liberal ones, despite the clear Protestantism of the hymn. (Not to mention its liberal appeal: sung at the funerals of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson). Food for thought.

One Deaconesss Number

Relevant to the discussion below, we're looking for comparative data on deaconesses. And please do look at Sister Cheryl's website, which supports her book, In the Footsteps of Phoebe. It's linked above. (We'll overlook the anti-ELCA snark that greets the reader up front).

As of April 2008, the ELCA's Deaconess Community claimed 76 rostered women, "ranging in age from 27 to 91." It's down to 72 now, according to a more recent press release.

As for the LC-MS, a Concordia Seminary article from 2004 claims that there "are about 100" deaconesses serving. (Curiously, and perhaps tellingly, the article proposes deaconesses as a remedy for an apparent shortage of LC-MS clergy). The website of Concordia University, Chicago, gives these numbers, which we assume to be reasonably current:

There are 172 Commissioned-Deaconesses on the LCMS Roster. Of those:
111 are Active
19 are on Candidate status
17 are on Non-Candidate status
25 are Emeritus

None of this is decisive, both because it is vague and because it doesn't give data for comparison prior to the ordination of women by the LCA and ALC. All of which is further complicated by the different history of deaconesses in the various church bodies. But it does, in a preliminary way, suggest that, per capita, a denomination which does not ordain women does have significantly more consecrated female lay workers than one which does ordain women. So perhaps Morgan is onto something.

Women Beware Women

Tip o' the biretta to our favorite former librarian for this one. (And of course to Thomas Middleton).

Episcopal Life has an opinion piece by Alda Marsh Morgan, who describes herself as "a theologically-educated lay woman and a former lay church worker," regarding the 35th anniversary of the [DFMS of the] PECUSA's first ordinations of women. She suggests that perhaps all the observances need not be celebratory, and argues that in fact the ordination of women may have done some damage:

There were few of my church worker colleagues who wished to be ordained, once it became possible, not because they didn't approve of women priests, but because we felt secure in our own vocation as theologically educated lay professionals. What we found offensive was the complete lack of respect for our own work and vocation on the part of the women who sought ordination and were committed to their own vocations as ordained ministers. Moreover, once ordination became available for women, most of us were no longer able to work in the church. The church's clericalism saw to that.

Many of us felt pushed aside, unappreciated, and -- to bring it all home -- we had to scramble to find jobs in other sectors or had to fight to find paid work in the church and other ways to continue to express our own vocational calls in ministry. More than a few left the church altogether and even more were embittered or close to despair.

This is strong stuff, and Morgan bravely owns her own sour grapes. But does she have a point? Our first instinct is to say yes. We've heard the complaint before, although never articulated so clearly. Our librarian friend has experienced some of this herself, and so have some of her Facebook friends. And it is certainly true that, among Lutherans, the number of deaconesses -- theologically educated, consecrated, professional church workers -- has plummeted in the years since women were first ordained.

But on the other hand, we Lutherans have a control on the experiment which the Episcopalians lack: the LC-MS. It has never ordained women, nor even been seriously tempted. Women in the LC-MS have been given to know, with increasing stridency over the years, that the roles available to them in the church's work are sharply defined and delineated. Among these, of course, is that of deaconess.

So -- has the the deaconess community of the LC-MS flourished while that of the ELCA has floundered? Has it declined modestly, as other professional roles have opened to women? or has it tanked along with the ELCA community? We genuinely don't know the relevant numbers. (For those who may have access to them, these would be the number of deaconesses per church member in each of the LC-MS, ALC and LCA circa 1970, and the same numbers for some recent year in the two remaining church bodies. We can count the AELC out because it was so small, and because that's practically the Egg's house policy anyway).

Any researchers out there?

Rigorism and the Culture of Hypocrisy

So. The ELCA has decided -- by a modest majority -- that it will pursue liturgical and canonical means to bless romantic unions between people of the same sex. It will, by the same token, now permit congregations and synods that so choose to call and roster people living in such unions.

This was a difficult decision, painful for many on either side of the question. A friend who supported the ELCA's decision strongly, and who was present at the assembly, circulated notes which said, in part:

We have moved into a very different place as a church. There are people looking lost, crying. The church they love and have faithfully served their whole lives is changing into something they do not recognize. There is no glory to be had because of their loss, no comfort to be gained from their discomfort. Their pain is real and, probably, growing.

... It pains me that as we [move] closer to my full inclusion in the church that others grow in their feelings of exclusion. I lived with those feelings since I came out to myself at the age of 14. Those feelings will envelope you, feeling like a soaked, heavy quilt hanging on your constantly, its weight never becoming lighter.

This is worth remembering.

But here's another thing worth remembering: this change in the church's policy may seem greater than it is. You could argue, as we often have, that the church's practice will change little, and for the better. After all, we have always ordained gay people. We have also ordained straight people who are not married. And while in both cases we did ask them to live in celibacy, it is surely no secret that, over the years, many have neglected to do so.

(Incidentally, the same expectations apply to laypeople, and always have. Nobody ever talks about this, because it has been a long time since the ELCA or any of its predecessor churches was minded to censure laypeople for these things.)

Anyway, the fact of this neglect doesn't make it right, to be sure; we pastors often neglect to do tother things the church expressly expects of us -- remain sober, refrain from gluttony or wrath, remain married for life, even find time for recreation and self-care. These are grave things. But it is worth remembering that effective and holy ministry has been conducted by people who have not lived up to the church's expectations.

Here's what has happened, though, over the years. The church has been torn between two impulses, each of them praiseworthy: to accept people as they are, without judgment; and to maintain its traditional rules of behavior. Historians sometimes call them the tendencies toward laxism and rirorism. Now, those aren't easy impulses to balance, and never have been. In some apostolic communities, soldiers and judges were excluded from church membership; until quite recently -- some of our own lifetimes -- a divorced pastor was certain to lose his call and likely to be defrocked.

(Reading the canons of the various ecumenical councils is a fascinating experience, if one stops looking at Christology and starts looking only at the repeated calls for "reform" of morals in general and clerical morals in particular. It is as though nobody ever lived quite the way they were called to. But of course, the details of "the way they were called to" have changed significantly through the years.)

Among Lutherans (even the LC-MS, if imperceptibly), the balance has gradually shifted toward acceptance without judgment at the expense of rules. But many Christian communities have decisively chosen the alternative path, declaring any number of behaviors immoral and therefore unacceptable among the faithful. There are, of course, Bible-based arguments which exclude not only divorce but also tattoos, church organs, women who don't wear hats, and lots of other things that many of us -- but not all -- find unexceptionable.

Rigorism is a very attractive public posture for a church. People really do love rules, and they want their church to have and display the highest ethical standard. This is a great and proven way to attract new recruits, many of whom will hold themselves to this high standard, at least until they don't anymore. And even then, they'll keep up appearances.

Here's what rigorism does: it creates a culture of hypocrisy. There are dozens of easy examples. (As a former Baptist we know likes to remark, the difference between a liberal Baptist and a conservative Baptist is that the liberal will make eye contact when you meet at the liquor store.) But the example of gay Lutheran pastors is worth noting. For generations, their church has said one thing and done another, often in ways that are astonishingly overt.

• In the 1930s and 40s, our synod elected -- repeatedly -- a bishop who had lived with another man since about 1900. This fellow was identified in the press as the bishop's "friend" and even "physician," but this was just euphemism. They lived together, with one interruption, for their entire adult lives. It was about as public as such a relationship could have been, but there is no evidence that anybody ever ... said anything about it.

• Many, many leaders of the catholic-revival movement have been what an old ELCA document called "homosexual in their self-understanding," whether or not they remained celibate. (Some surely did, others certainly did not). One thinks of Newman, his bones intermixed with those of Fr. Ambrose St. John; or one thinks of the homophobic slur implicit in the snarky expression "chancel prancer." Come on: Did you really think that, beneath the liturgical and ecclesiastical battles of the last 175 years, there wasn't an element of gay-versus-antigay jousting? Of course there was.

Now, this was barely hypocrisy. It was more like a sort of truce, between the rigorist and laxist positions, not quite "don't ask, don't tell," but one in which other matters were sometimes used as substitutes for a frank discussion of sexual behavior and its moral consequences. We suspect that many people in many churches wish that the clock could be turned back, and this truce could be restored.

But it can't, and here's why. The public discourse regarding sexuality has changed dramatically over the past half-century. Divorce no longer requires "residency" at a Nevada dude ranch; cohabitation scandalizes barely anybody; and we all know that Spencer Tracy was married, but not to Katherine Hepburn. We are more frank now, often to an embarrassing degree. (And let's be clear: this is excess frankness is not an unalloyed joy for anybody).

What this means in parish practice is that, for example, a pastor who lived for thirty years with the same man, traveling together from one rectory to another, would have a much more difficult time passing that fellow off as his physician. People would simply assume, and act accordingly -- giving the couple a choice between admission (even if tacit) and deceit.

Indeed, the very possibility of celibacy seems not to enter the minds of the faithful any longer. Some years ago, when an unmarried colleague moved in with her fiance, a parishioner disclosed his very understandable difficulty with this obvious pastoral misstep. But when we suggested that perhaps they were managing to cohabit chastely, said parishioner could not even consider the possibility. Or consider a gay pastor, whom we know to have been celibate, and who was discovered by a church member, browsing in the wrong aisle of a local porn shop. (Another obvious misstep, but pity the poor guy, who was really struggling to maintain his celibacy). Within days, the pastor was on his way to joblessness.

In a society like ours, there really isn't much of a closet left to hide in.

So this is where the hypocrisy comes in. For example: A gay colleague recently sent us a clipping from his hometown newspaper, including an interview with his hometown pastor, a friend and mentor. Our friend has been "out" to his old pastor for decades, but has nonetheless been welcome in the parish, even preaching and presiding when he's in town. In the article, the hometown pastor is quoted, often, decrying the ELCA's new position in florid terms, which he swears is a church-dividing anathema to his congregation. But if you look closely at the accompanying photograph, of a beautiful church in the midst of worship, there is a gay man holding the Eucharistic bread over the altar.

This is the sort of thing that has become common in recent years, and which we consider a sort of well-intentioned but ultimately soul-destroying hypocrisy. A rigorist theory joined to a laxist practice seems sort of charming, doesn't it? But in fact, it undermines both. The hometown pastor has knowingly invited to preside at his parish table someone he believes ought to be subject to ecclesiastical discipline; surely this is (by his own lights) an abuse of his parishioners, if not an insult to God. Meanwhile, his public comments on the subject are hurtful to the colleague who has loved him and trusted in his goodwill. In his effort to be personally kind and doctrinally faithful, he has fallen into an ethical trap, which threatens his integrity on every side.

The ELCA has not, despite its critics, broken faith with a long and well-reasoned tradition of Christian moral theology. At least not this month. It has taken steps to make its canons accord with its practice, so that people can speak frankly about their own lives and loves. It has obviated the old and tiresome game of pretending not to know what one does know, of deceiving oneself and others -- or of pretending to be deceived when one really isn't. In that sense, the questions that have been decided, at least ad interim, are less about sexual ethics than about the ethics of truth and lies.

If You're Preaching on Sunday ...

... consider the "De-baptism" phenomenon.

Atheists have begun "de-baptizing" themselves. Sometimes this involves buying a certificate that they can hang on the wall; sometimes it involves having a guy in robes point a blow-dryer at you to dry off any remnant of the water.

One wonders why atheists, having abandoned religion, still need its customs and ceremonies, even if only in the form of mockery. Oh no -- one doesn't wonder, does one? One knows.

Anyway, it might be an angle to approach the followers of Jesus in John 6 who just can't hack it, and turn away. (After five slow weeks of John 6, we suspect that many of the faithful will be a bit squirmy in the pews themselves).

Barney Speaks, Uhh, Frankly

Conservative activists have been turning out at town hall meetings, casting ever-more-ludicrous aspersions upon the president and his call for health-care reform. To our horror, they actually seem to be gaining some traction, proving that PT Barnum was right about the birth-rate of suckers.

In this precious clip, one woman (possibly a Larouche plant) asks Barney Frank why he is supporting Obama's "Hitler-like policies." Because, yes, providing health care for poor people is a lot like exterminating Jews, Gypsies and gays. And the Bay State's favorite gay Jew treats her with exactly the respect she deserves. Enjoy:

"Like arguing with a dining room table." The guy's our new hero.

Back to School: Anxious Parents' Edition

Honestly, we've never made much of US News and World Report's college rankings. Apart from selling magazines, they exist primarily to torture anxious parents of the striving class. Nobody else can, or should, take them too seriously.

Case in point: our own alma mater is currently tied for 11th place among liberal arts colleges. Eleventh? It's an outrage. Why, the school we're tied with isn't even on the East Coast. (Our safety school, incidentally, came in 14th among national universities. Which is just as silly, since that would place it behind schools in the Midwest and South. We aren't having any of that nonsense, thanks!)

Looking for church-related colleges on the list can be a somewhat dispiriting adventure. It's easy enough with "national universities." Emory, Notre Dame and Vanderbilt, tied for 18th place, jump out and smack you on the face. But small colleges? Many of the best were begun by church bodies, but have since renounced the relationship (Wesleyan University, for example, isn't really Wesleyan at all). Many others have tenuous relationships to their churches. Bard (37th), shockingly, retains its Episcopal affiliation. We grew up nearby, have had friends who graduated and even worked there, and have even graced the campus with our own collegiate inebriety -- and nobody ever said a word on the subject. (On the other hand, Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, seems pretty frankly Jesuit -- and Wheaton, at 56th, is as as protestant as the day is long. Or more so.)

So what is a church-related small college? And how good can they be? These are practically metaphysical questions, but they are the kind that parents and students may be inclined to ask.

Anyway, let's skip the metaphysics and get to the part Egg readers really care about: Lutheran colleges. We didn't read all that closely, so apologies if we missed somebody, but the answer seems to be St. Olaf at 47th place, followed by Gettysburg at 49th. St John's, Collegeville and Drew University -- respectively, Benedictine and Methodist -- are tied with Muhlenberg for 71st. Others follow. And all of these, by the way, are ranked higher than some better-known schools, including Virginia Military Institute and even Bennington. (Not to mention higher than some schools with good reps among conservative Christians, like Westmont and Calvin).

As for the Concordia system that the LCMS and its disjecta membrae continue to brag about ... well, we couldn't find them in our search. But maybe we just didn't go far enough down the list.

Omarosa Goes to Seminary

We've actually never heard of this woman, but apparently she's famous as a result of her appearances on a reality show. Before that, she worked for Al Gore. (Tip o' the biretta to Babyrunaround for this.)

Anyway, Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, a celebrity in the classic sense of being celebrated less for one's achievements than for one's existence, has enrolled at a Methodist seminary in Ohio, where she is reported to be studying for a "Doctor of Ministry" degree.

Nothing remarkable there. Or almost nothing. Father Anonymous has many friends and colleagues who hold this degree. It's pretty common ... among ministers. And that's the thing, y'see.

The D. Min. is a "clinical" degree, meaning that it is intended as a form of advanced study for practitioners. Gordon-Conwell describes theirs as "is the highest professional degree for men and women already successfully engaged in ministry." It is not a Ph.D., intended for those who are going to teach. (Hardened cynics say that it is a fluff degree, intended to burnish the resumes of ministers too lazy to pursue a real doctorate. We disagree, but see their point.)

Meanwhile, Stallworth-Manigault has a BA in Broadcast Journalism and an MA in Communications. Apart from being a celebrity, she works as a political consultant. (And shows a lot of belly button while doing it. We're so glad Carville didn't think of this.)

So. What part of her life's experience thus far constitutes "successful engagement in ministry"? We aren't quite sure.

Speaking of Lutherans ...

... did you know they're doing something this week? Besides living in the world's most expensive cities?

The ELCA is holding its biennial Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis. Among the many subjects to be debated and decided upon are SEX the election of a vice-president SEX Methodists SEX malaria and HIV SEX the budget SEX and some other stuff nobody is really paying attention to.

Owing to the timely intervention of an Adirondack vacation, we have not been following the events thus far. Owing to high blood pressure and a propensity for yelling at the computer when it says things we don't like, we probably won't follow the live feed these next few days. Fortunately, we have friends who do this sort of thing for us.

Pastor Joelle's blog, linked above, carries an outstanding description of the first day's antics. She describes some parliamentary wrangling over whether passage of a particular proposal SEX would require a simple majority or a supermajority. She ably describes the intellectual pros and visceral cons of requiring a supermajority, but then goes on to say the things that really matter, and which all Lutherans will need to remember this week:

This is going to be a divisive decision, regardless of how it goes or how it is passed. A super majority is not going to make the losing side happy.

And I'm tired of hearing all this angst about the "angry people in the pews" who are going to take their marbles and go home if we decide to recognize God's call to gay people in committed relationships. (Actually we are not even voting to do that – we are voting to be willing to abide in the same church with those who do and those who don't).

What about the people who have left already because of the way we do things now? What about all the congregations who have been excluded from full participation in the ELCA because they like their gay non-celibate pastor very much and are quietly without any whining just going about the work of God, many of them even sending financial support to the mission of the ELCA? Are they less important?

The delegation from our own synod, while as serious as a heart attack regarding the issues, takes another approach to reporting the day's affairs:

We encourage our readers to follow both sources -- Pastor Joelle and Convivium New York -- as their authoritative guide to SEX the ELCA Churchwide Assembly.

Lutherans Live the Life of Luxury

Yes, we know: when you think high-end living, Lutherans aren't the religious community that jumps to mind. (Hello, Episcopalians). In the popular imagination, including our own, Lutherans are modest people living modest lives. Think of little old ladies in homes with pine panelling, pressed-glass candy bowls, and a collection of figurines that look almost like Hummel and are really just as good.

Oh yeah? Well, suck it, popular imagination. Because a study by the United Bank of Switzerland reveals that the most expensive cities in the world are Oslo and Copenhagen -- cities as full of Lutherans as any on earth. Second and third place in the expensive-city sweepstakes go to Zurich and Geneva, the historic bastions of Calvinism. Rome, for those who lean that way, was Number 17 -- after both Helsinki and Stockholm.

As for New York -- well, we were a bit miffed to see that old Gotham came in sixth. But then we looked at the top of the chart, and saw that each city was assigned a number greater or less than 100 -- which was New York. get it? We're the yardstick by which other expensive cities are measured.

Nothing Funny Here

If we make a joke, some readers will accuse us of a divisive touch-down dance, which is not our intention here at all. Other readers will accuse us of beating a dead horse, which may actually come closer to the mark. But in fact, we think that there is something worth noting in this terrible, terrible story from Australia.

Here's the gist:

Wilfred Edward Dennis is on trial for a series of sexual assaults against a minor, said to have taken place in the 1970s, when he was a priest of the Anglican Church.

After a recent extortion demand by the victim, Dennis called his bishop, who asked him if there had been other instances. "Oh, yes," Dennis is said to have answered. As many as 41.

Now, the main point here -- assuming the story to be true -- is that Dennis is a dirtbag, who should never have been admitted to holy orders, who has done incalculable damage to the lives of many boys, and who should now spend the remainder of his life in prison. (In most prisons, we are given to understand, it is likely to be a brief remainder.)

But here's another factoid which we are afraid may not get sufficient play:

Dennis is not, nor has he been for some time, a priest of the Anglican Church, which with 3.7 million members is the second-largest religious community in Australia, and a significant force in that nation's public life. He is a priest of the Anglican Catholic Church, which is part of the "Continuing Anglican" movement. It has 25 Australian congregations, is not part of the Anglican Communion, and its principal raison d'etre is opposition to the ordination of women.

In other words, a schismatic. And you know how the Egg loves schismatics.

For the sake of clarity, we point out that, when Dennis committed these crimes, he was apparently still part of the mainstream church. Nor, by any means, do we mean to suggest that there is some necessary relationship between schismatic church groups and sexual misconduct. Not a necessary, one-thing-leads-to-another, relationship.

But there is a relationship. We have spent a lot of time reflecting on James Nestingen's claim that, in the ELCA's early years, the tiny cohort of AELC pastors accounted for a disproportionately large number of misconduct cases. (To be honest, we'd like to see some hard numbers on this, but doubt that any will ever be made public.) In our own synod, several shocking misconduct cases have been resolved, extra legis, by schism -- when, rather than accept his guilt and take his punishment, a pastor joins the ranks of a micro-denomination, usually taking his congregation along as dowry.

There are, we suspect, at least two different elements in this relationship between schismatics and misconduct.

First, a full-sized modern denomination typically has some safeguards in place to identify and remove miscreants. Psychological testing for seminarians, "boundaries workshops" for the clergy, and accountability and discipline through a church hierarchy which has become accustomed to covering its own tail in legal matters. While the effectiveness of these safeguards may vary, and it is well-known that they sometimes break down altogether (thank you, Cardinal Law), they do exist. And for that very reason, these are less hospitable environments than the tiny church bodies created by and for the disaffected.

Second, offenders (whether actual or potential) are not stupid. They may well lack impulse control, but they do not lack intellect. They know where they are most likely to get away with the things they do, and they gravitate toward such places. Our biggest concern is that the faithful often fail to see this. If Pastor Bob says that the Orthodox Five-Points Church of the Westminster Confession is just as good as the PCUSA -- better, even, because it doesn't have gays, women or those damned intrusive presbyteries -- they believe him, because he's their pastor. He knows, even if they don't, that he has led the flock into a gently permissive pasture, in which delicate questions go unasked.

And add to these elements a third, which is less direct but arguably more potent: invincible self-righteousness. This was, and remains, the Missouri Synod's principal export; it was the mother's milk on which those AELC babes had sucked their whole lives, supported by a series of univocal institutions, and unchallenged by the example of other Lutheran bodies, from which they were largely protected. They entered the AELC and later the ELCA convinced of their utter superiority -- intellectual, moral and otherwise -- to those around them.

One finds the same flaw, writ in miniature, among the other schismatics. Wilfred Dennis left a church of the Anglican Communion because he felt that he and his friends possessed a higher truth than the many millions of their brethren, acting prayerfully and in union with one another; likewise Marcel Lefebvre and the Roman Communion, and so forth and so on. One almost wants to scream: Seriously? And a guy who molested 41 children thought he had the moral high ground?

So, we'll say it again: Schism is an ugly thing, and schismatics take on some of that ugliness. It may sometimes be inevitable, even necessary, but that does not make it good in itself, or in any way praiseworthy. And let the faithful beware, because when they and their congregations line up with these people, "it is as if someone fled from a lion and was met by a bear."

If You Like Gregorian Chant ...

... and we know you do, consider clicking around the site Jogueschant.org, linked above. They have dowloadable scores and MP3 files, available for free. The resources are conveniently arranged to folow the church calendar.

Also check out this experiment, which allows you to read and listen at the same time. We couldn't find it on YouTube yet, so this is stolen from New Liturgical Movement:

Plugging for Another Blog

Among its many current delights, GetReligion offers these bits of overlooked news:

1. Amidst all the other turmoil, Episcopalians have settled upon a second reason to prevent somebody from becoming a bishop. Even if elected by his diocese, the national church refuses to admit a priest who is also an ordained Buddhist (whatever, exactly, that means). Can one blame it?
2. Methodists. Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of them, but they don't get much attention? If you added the ELCA and the PECUSA together, you could still throw in the UCC just for laughs before adding it up to match the American membership of the UMC. GR describes some recent wrangling over polity, behind which inevitably is wrangling over sex, and asks a serious question: Why doesn't the press give these people more attention?

"The Curate's Egg"

Some months ago, Father Anonymous sat with two clerical friends at a swell New York City restaurant, and listened as these gentlemen attempted to order complicated cocktails of some sort -- ginger martinis, maybe? -- from a series of waiters who alternately recommended the drink and doubted that its ingredients were in stock. In the end, they settled for second best -- "Sapphire martini with double vermouth and and a twist, straight up in a chilled stem glass," or something equally longwinded.

By the time their beverages had been ordered, confected and delivered, Father A. had finished his Amstel (which he had ordered in two Heminwayesque syllables: "Beer, please." He still glows when recollecting that isolated moment of uncharacteristic brevity).

The point to this anecdote is simply to mention that your obdt. svt. is a less-than-sophisticated drinker. Once upon a time, like most college boys, he cultivated a taste for whiskey (Macallan 25, if somebody else was buying), but that was long ago and far away. We toothless old men like our milk warm and and our bedtimes early.

What was our point again? Oh, yes. We were reading a Weekly Standard article, which made several countercultural arguments regarding cocktails.

First, that the Frank and Dino knew squat about drinking:

"[T]he best cocktails were not the product of the 1950s when the Rat Pack set the standard, but the 1920s when piano bars and hot jazz ruled and people changed their clothes for the evening. Our most elegant cocktails were part of the great modern revolution in design and had the same sleek lines as that era's airplanes and motorcars. The drink names of this era celebrate just what the plane, train, and liner meant to travel and horizons--the Aviation, the Bijou, the Metropolitan, and the Sidecar; the Havana, the Bombay, the Honolulu. And these drinks were wondrous balances of fresh ingredients. During the "Swingers" era of the 1990s, what you could get were very large Martinis that were often just chilled gin--six ounces or more in a single glass.

Second, that water is not the enemy:

"diluting the alcohol is much of the point of the cocktail. Do not underestimate the value of water in cocktails. It is what separates us from our less-civilized forebears who began the consumption of distilled spirits. The meeting of water with alcohol and flavorings civilizes the mix, allowing the spirit's rich flavors to prosper and diminishing the harsh bite of the liquor--which is after all something of an industrial byproduct. The key to making cocktails in large batches and ahead of time is to pour in water before chilling the mixture in a pitcher. It is a difficult moment, I acknowledge: a plunge into the unknown accompanied by a sense of impending disaster. But have faith and you will be rewarded."

Both points well taken. And the Sazerac was held up for special praise, which warms our absinthe-bitter heart. What caught us off guard, however, was an unfamiliar expression. The article suggested that today's syrupy messes are generally "a curate's egg of ingredients." Heavens, thought we. Have bartenders been stealing provender from the lesser clergy?

Turns out, at least according to Wikipedia, that this delightful expression means "something partly good and partly bad, so that the whole is spoiled." It comes from a Punch cartoon. At a la-de-da breakfast, a bishop says, "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr. Jones." To which the wretched-looking curate replies humbly, "Oh, no, my lord. I assure you that parts of it are excellent."

It's funny, in an 1895 sort of way. But it's also useful. After all, how many things, despite some good ingredients, are spoiled by their bad ones? Anglican conservatives surely argue thus about the [FDMS of the] PECUSA. We ourselves have often thought as much of those people in St. Louis.

On the other hand, one doesn't want to go too far with all this. People, and the communities people build, aren't really much like eggs. The bits of icky rottenness simply don't diminish the goodness of the good bits. How else could anyone stand to live in New York City? Or, for that matter, anyplace else?

Somebody Finally Asks the Question

Michael Hiltzik, in the LA Times, asks: "What's so great about private health insurance?"

He begins:

Throughout the heroic struggle in Congress to provide a "public option" in health insurance, one question never seems to get answered: Why are we so intent on protecting the private option? ...

The [insurance] firms take billions of dollars out of the U.S. healthcare wallet as profits, while imposing enormous administrative costs on doctors, hospitals, employers and patients. They've introduced complexity into the system at every level. Your doctor has to fight them to get approval for the treatment he or she thinks is best for you. Your hospital has to fight them for approval for every day you're laid up. Then they have to fight them to get their bills paid, and you do too.

When Orphrey Bandings Go to the Dark Side

There's a blog devoted to bad vestments. It's very small, and they have royally pissed off our friend Pastor Joelle, so they lose points for that as a matter of principle. It seems to be run by snide Anglican conservatives (redundancy alert!) who condescend to all the usual things. More points lost. And a few of the "ugly vestments" are really quite nice, in a modern sort of way. So there's that.

But still. It's a cute idea for a blog.

Why Do People -- Ahem -- "Get Saved"?

While wasting precious time on Facebook this afternoon, Father A. came across a brief form of this advertisement:

I realize this sounds a little cynical but really… who do you know who ever got saved because of an altruistic motive? Okay, time's up.

If then people only get saved because they have a need, a want, some problem, or some fear, then you should show them, right in your ad, how you and your church can help them get what they want.

I’m not talking about the prosperity gospel here. I am talking about better marriages, stronger kids, closer relationships, fellowship with God, a sense of meaning and purpose – things like that! Your Church most likely does that for people all the time. Let the people who are reading your ads know this and more people will respond to your message.

Um. Well. We suppose that this may reflect a certain kind of voluntarist religiosity popular in America, in which one decides for oneself to be saved, and makes that decision based upon a sober cost/benefits analysis. And we suppose that advertising the supposed benefits makes sense. (Although, in all frankness, there was a time when advertising the probably costs worked just as well -- "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die," etc.) That these benefits are classed as "altruistic" is a little odd, but let it pass for now.

And we further suppose that those of different theological persuasions might have different answers to the question. A Calvinist might respond that [some] people are saved because a sovereign God has willed it from eternity, and a Methodist that people are saved by grace, but can only appreciate it as they grow in holiness. An Unitarian might look puzzled and murmur, "Saved? From what?"

For the record, it seems to us that there is only one right answer to the question of why people get saved: Because the incarnate God suffered and died for their sake, only to rise three days later in victory. As to why they are able to believe it -- to receive the gift by faith -- we can offer no answer except another act of divine grace. (And incidentally, the only motive involved here is thoroughly altruistic -- and belongs to God.)

But of course the sort of people who place ads like this are really not asking about God's saving power; they are asking about an act of human will. What they really want to answer, then, is this: Why do people come to church? And that's a pretty good question. We doubt, however, that slick copywriting has much to do with it.

Things You Shouldn't Do In Church

From Giuseppe Baldeschi, Ceremonial of the Roman Rite (1895):

The clergy should comport themselves in choir with silence, modesty, and recollection; abstaining from everything that would indicate frivolity or irreverence, such as reading letters, talking, giving snuff to each other, gazing about, sitting cross-legged, lolling in their seats and other acts of this nature.

Heavens!  How are we to sit through Mass without our snuff?

We Win! ACNA Loses, Episcopalians Still In-Between.

But we win.  That's the important part.

A California judge has ruled that the Episcopal diocese of San Joaquin, and its bishop Jerry Lamb, are the legal owners of the property now held by schismatic bishop John-David Schofield and the 40 parishes that have taken his side and left the [DFMS of the] PECUSA.

We are experts in neither canon nor canon nor civil law, but this accords with our limited understanding of the case.  (It is apparently parallel to the provisions governing those Lutheran congregations that were formerly part of the LCA, although the church constitutions are surely quite different.)  

Needless to say, this judgment does not end the standoff, even in San Joaquin.  The case at hand was only the first, albeit the weightiest, of five brought by the Episcopal diocese against Schofield and his adherents.  So there are more cases to judge, and -- as the Modesto Bee gently puts it, Lamb acknowledged that he doesn't expect Schofield or priests in those 40 parishes to give up their properties soon.  

No, we expect not.  Possession is nine points, and all that..

So even though Schofield lost in court, it is hard to say that Lamb actually won.  It's more accurate to say that he and his team have taken the first hill in what will likely be a long and bloody battle.  Fratricide usually is.

But we won, and here's why:

Father Anonymous is a frequent reader of GetReligion.org, a website devoted to press coverage of religious affairs -- with a heavy focus on Christianity.  It is run by a team of professional journalists who are transparent about their own religious commitments, and interested in the way their colleagues often seem to report the wrong story when religion is concerned.  The site is excellent, although the correspondents do occasionally seem to read through a doctrinally conservative lens.  And the comments, as opposed to the actual stories, not infrequently devolve into arguments about doctrine, rather than sticking to media criticism.  But these are minor complaints, at best.

Anyway.  Months and months ago, somebody on GR argued that the press was ignorantly taking sides every time it referred to the group of former Episcopalians who would later become ACNA as "breakaway" parishes, priests or dioceses.  After all, argued whoever it was, it is the claim of these fine people that they have not left their church, but that it has left them; and further, that they remain part of the global Anglican family.  So how can anyone say they have broken away?

Father A. pointed out, delicately, that they were breaking away, as a legal and institutional matter, from the church body of which they had long been constituent parts, by which their priests were ordained, and which in many cases had provided the money and personnel with which their parishes had been founded.   Their position in the Anglican Communion was unclear (and is much less so now, by the way).  No; they had left their old church to form a new one.  Just ask the IRS, which surely required them to apply for a new recognition of their tax-exempt status.  Or the Church Pension Fund.

Needless to say, this argument was not received with much enthusiasm at GR.  An initial condescending "explanation" of the doctrinal argument, followed by a polite silence.  We were mildly annoyed.

No more, however.  Thanks to Fresno County Superior Court Judge Adolfo Corona, our cause has been vindicated.  The law agrees with us -- they have broken away from the institution of which they had formerly been part, and, as a matter of law, lost claim to their title.  We're right, the GR commenters were wrong.  So there! 

Romania: Like Italy, But Cheaper

"How can you not give up some Milan action for Transylvania?"  So asks Jaunted.com, celebrating the Romanian budget carrier WizzAir.  

We agree completely, and so we make this special offer for Egg readers  Those of you who take advantage of cheap airfares (and support the flagging Romanian economy) will win our super-duper prize:  a guided tour of downtown Cluj.  In English!

Still in Chicago ...

... and limited internet access.  Not  to mention time!  This ecumenical orientation for foreign missionaries would be a pretty exhausting thing even if Baby Anonymous weren't along for the ride.  Which he is. 

So pity poor Father A., who is temporarily unable to offer his tart commentary on all the subjects that interest him (including, nota bene, the apparently imminent rebirth of Captain America.  That was fast -- it took something like fifty years to bring back Bucky).

But here are some of the things that have caught our attention this week:

• Item:  Henry Louis Gates arrested for entering his own home.  
  
• Item:  The McCormick Seminary admin building, which we mentioned a while back, is very attractive.  Some architect earned his money.  Too bad they spent a more on it than they are likely to sell it for.
  
• Item:  Here's where we went to church last Sunday.  Not (by a long shot) the prettiest building we have ever seen, nor the best liturgy, nor the warmest crowd.  But all of the above were done well enough, and one thing was done marvelously:  child-friendlinesss.  This did not mean condescension -- no "children's church" or smarmy Sunday School presentations.  Just a lot of kids, doing the things kids do, and nobody letting it bother them.  (And a small note mention in the bulletin of a staffed nursery, which nobody felt the need to use).
  
• Item:  These people offer security consulting for churches sending out foreign missionaries.  Good to know they exist, innit?
  
• Item:  Swine flu will kill us all.  After it makes us change our communion practices.
  

That Toddlin' Town

In Chicago, and -- to our delight -- deeply impressed by the ELCA's mission staff. Seriously. We'll blog more when time permits.

Forgot One, Lisa

In tomorrow's Times Magazine, Lisa Belkin has an interesting thought piece on the phenomenon of the wronged political wife, and its perception by married women everywhere. Here's the money quote:

Because while the cameras are always focused on the errant husband, we are transfixed by the wife. From Clinton to Craig to Spitzer to Edwards to Ensign we wonder: Why does she take this? Why do we take this? So when Jenny Sanford broke the mold and dispatched her husband to face the cameras alone, we cheered. Maybe this time she’d leave him. Maybe there was hope for us.

Well, yes. But she left out an important recent example: Dina Matos McGreevy.

When the erstwhile Garden State governor outed himself as a "gay American" -- the phrase still grates, five years later -- she stood beside him on the podium. She was expressionless, except for a small wince when he acknowledged "the pain I have caused ... my wife." He called her "extraordinary," even as he alluded to the "likely impact" of his sexuality upon his family.

But since then, they have had an especially nasty public divorce and custody battle. Books have been written, Oprah's couch has been bounced upon. For a while there, Dina was on the warpath, Kramer-vs-Kramer style. Nobody could blame her; the eventually-to-be-Rev. Mr. McGreevy is a sleazy guy, and she has every reason to make herself and her children visibly, patently, distinct from him. And that required some baring of the teeth.

And we at the Egg do admire the patrician reserve of Jenny Sanford, who seems like a hell of a woman. But we also admire Dina Matos, in the ring, fighting for her dignity.

Why, oh why, do people do these things?

On 28 June, Austrian bishop Ludwig Schwarz celebrated Mass at the church of St. Peter in Linz. the service was well-attended. Local politicians were there. You know who else was there? Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger.

Mayr-Lumetzberger is a native of Linz, and routinely worships at St. Peter's, so we suppose her presence at this festival service wasn't altogether shocking. But it was probably unwelcome. You see, she is a former Benedictine nun who has since (a) left her order; (b) been married; (c) been ordained priest by an Independent Catholic bishop and (d) been ordained bishop, or so she says, by some unnamed bishop, of some Catholic persuasion or other. Needless to say, the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize any of her supposed ordinations, and has excommunicated her.

So, also needless to say, when she presented herself to Bishop Schwarz, with outstretched palms, he refused to communicate her. He didn't really have much choice -- that's what "excommunicated" means.

Awkward moment, yes? But not half so awkward as the next, when Mayr-Lumetzberger reached out and seized a wafer from the ciborium. And yes, she was vested at the time -- alb and stole, with a pectoral cross.

Now, don't get us wrong here. We at the Egg support the ordination of women. (You do see that big picture of Mary Magdalene on the masthead, right? First person to preach a Resurrection sermon. Causa est, so far as we're concerned.) But we look for a little bit of common sense, in all the faithful -- even those with a righteous bone to pick.

She claims that, even though she never presents herself to the parish priest for communion, she expected to receive on this occasion. This strikes us as a fib. We daresay she must have known that the bishop was duty-bound to refuse her -- and that had he allowed himself any conscientious wiggle-room, by saying "I didn't recognize her," the pectoral cross was a kind of giveaway. She clearly went expecting to be refused; whether she went preparing to make a scene we cannot say. But she did make a scene.

We ourselves occasionally show up in a Papist house of worship. When we are there in our official capacity -- whether vested, in clericals, or otherwise -- we take for granted that we will not communicate. If a well-intentioned person tries to steer us toward an outstretched host (or, on one memorable occasion, a concelebration chasuble) we politely demur. Not because we agree with the doctrine of the place, but because there are rules -- and even if they are only human rules, it would be boorish of us to flout them.

Now, if Frau -- err, Bischopfin -- Mayr-Lumetzberger really wants to receive Holy Communion, we encourage her to visit us. Our church's communion policy -- that the invitation to the table comes from Christ in baptism -- is a matter of public record. And although we are currently pretty far from Austria, in just a few months, we will be a quick plane-ride away.

Please Let it Be Forgot. Please.

Beating a dead horse? Sure. But we just can't help ourselves.

A friend who should probably remain anonymous recently emailed to us a precis of the recent Seminex reunion. (Seminex, for those who have had better things to bone up on over the years, was the seminary of the AELC). A lot of it was the usual reunion song-and-dance, in this case larded with some unfortunate comparisons of Seminex to Bonhoffer's underground seminary at Finkenwald. (Do you really think -- no matter who you are -- that the comparison will make you look good?)

But it was at the closing worship that things got out of hand. (It has been our experience that closing worship services are often where the crazy auntie gets out of the attic, and compares the Trinity to spumoni, or bursts into tears, or sings a bad song off-key. Or outs herself, for no apparent reason. Perhaps the wizened gnomes who plan such events don't want us to enjoy them so much that distract us from our parishes, and therefore arrange it so that, even after three entirely pleasant days, we will nonetheless drive home scowling and muttering imprecations. But we digress.)

The two preachers -- rarely a good thing, this business of two preachers -- decided to structure their homily around an extended analogy of Seminex to Camelot.

Really? You really want to got there? Camelot?

Okay, okay. We know it's a cliche at this point. Anybody who wants to look back fondly on anything, at least anybody of a certain age, starts murmuring Camelot. The fault belongs largely to Jackie Kennedy, who -- just a week after her husband was assassinated -- requested an interview with semi-official hagiographer Theodore H. White, and talked about her husband's administration, summoning up the now-desperately-tired lyric, "Don't let it be forgot," et cetera. (Of course, we could also blame the other T.H. White for The Sword in the Stone, or Chretien de Troyes for apparently coining the name of the place. But mostly we blame the canny Mrs. K.)

So it's a cliche. So what? Why does it bug us to see it applied to Seminex? Glad you asked.

First, because it is such a vivid example of Boomer self-regard. To compare anything to the legendary court of King Arthur is silly on its face; to compare everything to it -- as they very nearly do -- is annoying to the rest of us, who don't think quite so highly of Boomerdom's various bragging points. (Students for a Non-Violent Society? Actually kind of violent at the end. Microsoft? Actually a near-monopoly peddling inadequate products. Even the Kennedy Administration itself, and its enduring PR machine, spent decades lying about the Cuban Missile Crisis -- embarrassed to admit that its hero actually [gasp!] negotiated a settlement.)

And second, because -- and we're being delicate here -- Seminex was no Camelot. For the students and professors, it must have seemed that way. It was the great, big, righteous battle of their lives, which largely formed them into the pastors they have become -- all of which helps explain why they so love to talk about it in mythic terms. (In the beginning, they called themselves "Elim," an acronym for Evangelical Lutherans in Mission, but also one of Israel's stops in its desert journey.)

But for the rest of us, there was nothing romantic, and little heroic, about the story. It is a sordid tale, about people wounded by their church but who nonetheless continue to carry forward the worst of its legacy. The Missouri takeover was a nasty business, but it does not necessarily follow that the resistance to it was pure and good. Specifically, as Egg readers are by now desperately tired of hearing, we believe that these wounded souls brought into the ELCA their own tortured psychodrama, including a combination of Missouri's invincible self-righteousness and their own hard-learned experience in the arts of seizing ecclesiastical power.

The LCMS has been, from its origins, an organization devoted to justifying its own existence by self-mythologizing, claiming to be the city on a hill, shining the light of pure doctrine upon the benighted world, the righteous remnant of pure Lutheranism in a world of decadent liberal Protestantism. The AELC was more of the same, a lot more liberal and a hair less Protestant -- but just as prone to self-righteous prattle. And apparently it still is.

More Signs of the End Times

Mainline decline? Or something worse?

Back in 1975, McCormick, a seminary of the Presbyterian Church USA, shacked up with the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. McCormick moved its campus to be next to LSTC, and they began to share facilities, while keeping an independent administration.

Now, there's nothing really remarkable about this arrangement. Seminaries are not large institutions, and various cooperative relationships are commonplace. These range from fairly distant (opening a few classrooms so that an out-of-town school can offer extension classes) to the nearly symbiotic (San Francisco's GTU, or McCormick).

Sharing facilities is an especially reasonable strategy, because of the peculiar nature of many seminaries. They require exactly the same resources, including the same specialized libraries (and chapels). But, because of their denominational connections and theological perspectives, they can't just merge. (Although mergers within a denomination are not unusual, even those can be problematic; just ask Hartwick.) And of course, they are generally small -- and shrinking. So they share.

Anyway, after 35 years of so, McCormick is "disengaging" from its relationship with the Lutherans. Why, you ask? Hint: Not because it has finally saved up enough money to strike out on its own.

In 2003 McCormick constructed its own administration building on the campus, but now that building will be put up for sale.

A report in Crain's Chicago Real Estate Daily said McCormick's capital program, which included construction of its administration building, left the seminary $30 million in debt with annual bond payments of $1 million.

"We are simply spending a disproportionate and, unfortunately, growing share of our resources on occupancy-related costs," said the Rev. Cynthia M. Campbell, McCormick president, on the seminary's Web site. In addition, McCormick funds 70 percent of its budget from the school's endowment, which recently lost about 30 percent of its value, she said.

We aren't sure yet what's actually going to happen to McCormick. We expect they aren't either. But it probably doesn't involve going forward as a property-owning, degree-granting institution. Which makes us wonder whether there is room for another Auburn Seminary in the world, much less in the PCUSA.

So. Is this just more of the same, as the so-called mainline churches shrivel up and die? Is it further fallout from the financial mess? Or is it the result of the wishful thinking that too often governs church affairs -- did it really make sense to fund 70 percent of your budget from an endowment? (For comparison, the average for endowed institutions is 20%, but much higher among seminaries -- Harvard and Yale run 35-45%; and Princeton a whopping 76%).

Or is there a fourth possibility: that the PCUSA, with about 3 million members, doesn't need ten denominational seminaries and two "seminaries affiliated by covenant." The ELCA, with almost 2 million more members (at least until the schism next year), probably doesn't need its eight seminaries and two extension centers. And that's not about decline; that's about efficiencies of scale, resulting from the mergers which created the current church bodies, but didn't address the surplus sems of the predecessor bodies. In which case, the end of McCormick (like the end of Wartburg, Trinity, or either of the Pennsylvania schools) is really just a case of Darwinian economics doing what bureaucrats didn't.

Dept. of No Surprise: Angry Bulls Trample Drunken Pedestrians

Courtesy of Ernest Hemingway, the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona long since ceased to be a curious local custom. It is, and has been for decades, an embarrassing cliche -- affluent foreigners crowd the town and try to pretend that they too have are nursing an unspeakable pain, which they mask behind the veneer of world-weary sophistication and feats of reckless athleticism. Except that they're really a podiatrist from Norway and a data-systems analyst from Dallas, or whatever.

Basically, its a branch of Euro-Disney. With bulls.

Shed No Tears

Robert Macnamara is dead.

They say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but in this case we'll make an exception. Macnamara, for the very youngest of our readers, was Secretary of Defense under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He was, very largely, the man responsible for America's prosecution of a war in Viet Nam -- a war which cost 58,000 American lives, not to mention millions of Vietnamese. Yes -- millions. And a war which Macnamara himself concluded, eventually, could not be won and should not have been fought.

It's not that he was a bloodthirsty monster. He wasn't. He was an economist and an auto executive -- a technocrat or, to put it plainly, a bean counter. At least that's the usual spin. But there was more to the war, and to Macnamara's work to make it happen and keep it going, than mere numbers -- if only because the numbers were so terrible. A man truly driven by cost-benefits analysis would have pulled out by 1965.

We suspect that Macnamara was driven by two demonic forces. First, there was his own pride; the man had been a colonel during WWII, a Harvard professor, and a stunningly successful president of Ford -- all by his early 40s. We have to assume that he was one of those irritating overachievers who simply can't live with failure, meaning that they can't recognize the limitations imposed by their own humanity. That's called hubris, and people who paid attention in their Word Civ were supposed to know about it. (So much for Cal Berkeley, by the way).

Second, there was the lunacy of modern Manichaeism -- by which we mean, specifically, the postwar division of the world into East and West, Communist and Anti-communist, Red and Red, White, and Blue. Not that Stalin was a good guy, or that the worst errors of Roosevelt, Churchill or (even) Truman made them in any way his moral equivalents. Communism was wretched, and deserved worse than it got. But the sleep of reason -- by which we mean reactive anticommunism -- bred its own monsters: think of McCarthy and the blacklists, or the (seemingly endless) Cuban embargo. Of these, the war in Viet Nam was infinitely the most monstrous.

There is another effect of the Viet Nam conflict which needs to be mentioned as well. Even though American politics have long been bipartisan, and often fiercely so, and even though the anticommunist right was already pretty fierce, the war was still a colossal wedge, splitting American society. It drove the Left from protest marches to domestic terrorism, and forced the Right into a permanent defensive crouch. It created some caricatures and reinforced others, providing a treasury of public postures and rhetorical tropes that are recycled to this day.

In a sense, Viet Nam created everything that came later: not just the self-doubting "malaise" of the 1970s or the self-righteous preening of all the Boomers who pretend they were at Woodstock, but also Watergate (among the conspirators' crimes, remember, was breaking into the files of Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked the DoD's secret history of the war). Reagan exploited the growing national division skillfully; Clinton -- despite his centrism -- was nearly undone by it; Bush Jr., with vastly less skill than Reagan or Clinton, attempted to exploit the same cultural and political divide, and in the course of his bumbling gave us Nam II.

So if Viet Nam created modern America, and Macnamara created Viet Nam -- well, we know who to blame. Not to mention that his damn company made lousy cars.

Brush Up Your Greek

The newest information technology has just met some of the oldest. Per the AP:

The surviving pages of the world's oldest Christian Bible have been reunited — digitally. The early work known as the Codex Sinaiticus has been housed in four separate locations across the world for more than 150 years. But starting Monday, it became available for perusal on the Web at http://www.codexsinaiticus.org so scholars and other readers can get a closer look at what the British Library calls a "unique treasure." ....

As it survives today, Codex Sinaiticus comprises just over 400 large leaves of prepared animal skin, each of which measures 15 inches by 13.5 inches (380 millimeters by 345 millimeters). It is the oldest book that contains a complete New Testament and is only missing parts of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha.

This is truly remarkable, at least for scholars. And even for the rest of us, it is cool.

Dept. of No Surprise: Sarah Palin Makes No Sense

We didn't see the press conference in which the Alaska governor resigned. Apparently, not many people did; it was announced hastily, and coverage was thin.

Speculation as to her motive is rampant. Does this resignation signal a retreat from public life, or a plan to focus on building support in the Lower 48 for her 2012 run? Is she trying nobly to protect her family from the David Lettermans of the world, or more basely to protect herself from further ethics investigations?

Honestly, we have no idea. Nor have we much idea as to whether she seemed more cogent in person than she does in the radio and press clips that we have come across thus far. But in those clips, it must be said, she seems to make no sense at all: she rambles from one disjointed phrase to another, uses an awkward sports metaphor, seems to equate quitting with a year and half left on her term with deciding not to seek re-election, and gives Gen. Macarthur credit for something somebody else said.

Her main point, so far as we can tell, was this:

... I thought about how much fun other governors have as lame ducks. They maybe travel around their state, travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international trade missions.

I’m not going to put Alaskans through that. I promised efficiencies and effectiveness. That’s not how I’m wired. I’m not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual.

Um, Governor? One great way to spare your constituents the cost of unnecessary travel is to stay home and do your job. (Which, arguably, may often include travel around your state, but we suppose that's a matter of opinion.) You remember, the job they elected you to do?

It is one thing for an elected official to resign because they have betrayed the public trust -- like Nixon (certainly), Spitzer (lamentably), and Sanford (probably). Is is another to resign because they don't want to go on trade missions.

Dick Cheney Works With Iranian Regime

Pet today's Times, top leaders of the Iranian reformist movement have offered confessions -- they conspired to topple the government, and they were trained to do so by foreign governments. And both Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad are great men and servants of the people. Allahu akbar.

These confessions, we are advised, probably resulted from "pressure tactics like sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and torture."

We fully expect that the reformists will be "expunged from the political process." Our only question is what the regime will do with them. They could be killed, of course -- but the eyes of the world are open just now. They can't very well be exiled, because seven out of ten (or maybe two out of ten, the numbers are murky) would just return to the fight. And these men are committed to the overthrow of the government -- they have said so themselves.

The only answer is to lock them up in some extrajudicial prison camp, administered by the government forces and beyond the purview of the courts or even the Red Cross. But where can the Iranians find such a wonderland? Well, we understand there are some empty beds at Guantanamo Bay.

Gladwell on Anderson on Copyrights

Compared to Beresford (below), Chris Anderson seems younger and less crotchety. But he is no less skeptical about intellectual property rights.

At least as described by Malcolm Gladwell, in a New Yorker review linked above, Anderson believes that in the coming era "products made of ideas" -- books, music, news articles, and much, much more -- will be capital-F free. This is because digital reproduction and transmission are themselves nearly free, and so exert a constant downward pressure on prices, more or less requiring vendors to use content as the bait to attract clicks, which are then (in the appalling new term of art) "monetized," or given financial value, by some alternative means. Which is codeword for "advertising, like on Google."

Gladwell demolishes this case with a few easy strokes. He points to YouTube, Google's hugely successful subsisdiary -- if success is measured by number of users. If success is measured by actually making money, then YouTube is a flop: "Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube will lose close to half a billion dollars this year. If it were a bank, it would be eligible for TARP funds."

But Gladwell's main point is that even if digital reproduction and distribution seem to be so inexpensive that they are free, the truth is that they depend upon an enormous and costly infrastructure. He likens it to the production and distribution of electrical power. Apparently, digging up coal to burn only amounts to 20% of your bill; the rest is (or was in the 1960s; perhaps this has changed) the cost of building and maintaining the plants, powerlines, and so forth. Just replace that with server farms and wireless networks -- not to mention the telephone and electrical lines still needed to make the Net go.

All of this touches, at least a bit, on the question we raised yesterday, regarding copyrighted liturgical material. Honestly, the publication of hymns and so forth works a lot more neatly with Anderson's model than, say, newspapers or pharmaceuticals. The truth is that when the Times and the WaPo die, there will be markedly less and markedly worse news coverage of world events; BBC and NPR will be all we have left. If Big Pharma lost all patent protection on its formulae, you can bet that there would never be any new drugs for less-widespread diseases, ever again. But if GIA and Augsburg-Fortress (and all their competitors) were to go 20 years without publishing a single new hymn, it is doubtful that anybody would notice or care. In other words, their intellectual property already has a strikingly low value.

What about their infrastructure? Historically, it was books -- the editing, manufacture and distribution of same. It probably still is; but how much longer will that be a viable business? Secular book publishing is a wounded animal. Books intended for worship are a specialty item, and might well be affected by different market forces. Augsburg's new ELW is said to have sold very well, because, after all, church pews look naked without those neat rows of hymnals in their slots on the back. On the other hand, our own congregation didn't buy them, and doesn't plan to -- not because of any particular feelings about ELW, material from which we use often, but rather because we just don't use our hymnals anymore.

(Aside: Anybody want to buy 200 or so LBWs? Or Supplement 1992? Or several dozen copies of TLH, including the Braille edition and Large-Print Missal? Just asking.)

We have already said that we pay, quite happily, for the Sundays and Seasons online service, which provides us a license for most Augsburg liturgical materials, in a convenient electronic form. But can we be honest? We wouldn't pay much for the license. We pay for the convenience -- which is worth a great deal. But we would happily pay, say, half as much for the same sort of access to material that was not copyright-protected.

So one business decision that the publishers may need to make, not far down the line, is whether to continue creating new liturgical content, especially at the rate they have done so these past few decades. Unlike an old newspaper, public-domain liturgical materials have a great deal of value -- at least as much as the new stuff, and that is a charitable assessment.

"I Will No Longer Sing Hymns ..."

... that are under copyright.

This is the bold and seemingly silly declaration of one David Beresford, writing in Gilbert, the magazine of the American Chesterton Society. (A scan is linked above, courtesy of Musica Sacra).

Beresford seems to be staking out the crotchetiest of crotchety-old-man territory here. His article is a familiar laundry list of everything wrong with music in Roman Catholic parishes over the last, oh, forty-seven years or so:

First came the tambourine, wielded by earnest young ladies who were trying to get everyone to sing "Cum-Bye-Yaw." Then ... our parish advanced to folk-masses complete with lead and bass guitars, electric piano, and drums in front of the altar. ...

The following songs were sung during Mass on a regular basis: "One Tin Soldier," "Share the Land," "Imagine" -- yes, by John Lennon -- "The Rose," "You Light Up My Life," "Let it Be," and "Blowin' in the Wind." I do not know why these were chosen out of all that was available on the radio at that time. I can see no reason why we did not sing "Convoy," or better yet, "A Boy Named Sue." In fact, a good argument can be made for singing "A Boy Named Sue" {which] has all the elements that the modern innovators like: a non-traditional family, ambivalence about gender, and the implicit message that girls (and by extension, men with girl's names) are subject to societal oppression.

This is droll, but it is also tired material. We've all read Why Catholics Can't Sing, or at least the testy comments on the Usus Antiquior blogs. And as he admits, the worst excesses have long since passed; "instead of Beatles songs at Mass, [we are now] given insipid, gender-neutral translations of the psalms set to sacchartine melodies."

Beresford goes on, however, to make a more interesting, and contemporary, point, not about secular songs but about most recent sacred music: that "these hymns are now private property, and I cannot escape the suspicion that the Mass is not meant to be carved up by copyrights into private enclosures in which we are only allowed to sing or pray 'with permission of the publishers.' "

In other words, information wants to be free. Paging Larry Lessig! Or, prophetically, "Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me." Yes, GIA turns out to be Pharaoh -- and here we thought it was Rupert Murdoch.

Joking aside, here is a theological point worth considering: that copyright laws, and the associated fees, are a form of captivity for congregations. This isn't so much about the modest payments that we are asked to make for licensing -- they will break the bank of only the smallest parish. It is, seriously, the principle of the thing. Christian worship -- and the grace of God which is conveyed in that worship -- is free by its nature. Ought it be something for which we depend upon human permissions?

Beresford answers with a firm "No," and announces his determination that, "while at Mass, I will no longer sing hymns with copyrights attached to them." And when he comes a cross an old hymn which has been altered (and the modern alterations of which are therefore copyrighted), he will "sing the old words out loud (very loud) complete with thees, thous and thys."

But hold on a second. The question of copyrighted hymns leads naturally to the question of copyrighted Bible translations, which these includes nearly all of them except the KJV, Geneva and Douay. Not to mention the more delicate question of paying guest preachers (presumably, one pays one's own pastor not for Sunday morning but for the work he or she does during the rest of the week, with the understanding that it all culminates -- and begins anew -- on Sunday).

And even if we put those concerns in abeyance, Beresford's solution is certainly boorish. One really shouldn't disrupt worship, and one really should sing along to the best of one's ability. (There are some comments at NLM which put this matter more sternly).

But still, his article strikes a not with us -- an old and uncopyrighted note. Many of the hymns written since the 1930s -- meaning those under copyright -- are either musically weak or theologically thin, or both. And yet these -- the worst of the tradition -- are the ones we pay for. Surely the time has come for a parish hymnal consisting entirely of public-domain material.