The Deacon's Slant

Thoughts on a Kairos Weekend

2010-04-21T10:57:00.002-05:00

This past weekend (April 15-18), I was part of the team for Kairos #29 at the Coffield Unit in Texas. I know many of you were praying for the participants and the team - Thank You!

Kairos is a wonderful prison ministry, but what makes it so effective? We don't have huge revivals or large tent meetings. We don't have Altar Calls or pressure the men to make a commitment to Jesus Christ.

I think there are four major features of the Kairos weekend that make it so effective:

We listen to the inmates. This is the most critical feature of Kairos. We do not preach. We teach very little. But we listen to and respect the inmates. This is something new to them.
The team members make themselves vulnerable to the participants and other team members. We do not hide the fact that we are still sinners. We confess ours sins in our talks and meditations as appropriate. We also allow ourselves to be "foolish" during songs. When I serve, I try to do all the "dance" moves to songs such as "Jesus is the Rock" or "Pharoh, Pharoh." There is a time to be serious and a time to be foolish. The important thing is to know the difference.
We come from many different denominations. This is also critical. We may have our differences and we are upfront with the inmates that we have differences. But we are united by the Lordship of Jesus Christ and a common call to serve in His Name. We NEVER proclaim one denomination or group as better or worse than another. One inmate I counselled with said that he was upset and confused by all the divisions and denomination in the Church, but that he had finally seen "The Church" in action on the Kairos Weekend. Our willingness to put aside differences to focus on Jesus Christ is an important part of the witness of Kairos to the inmates. They often see denominations as rival gangs. Our unity suprises and amazes them.
We come back. We don't just present Jesus and then take him to the next unit. We come back to visit Jesus. Jesus lives in our prison system and in Texas, he wears the white uniform of an inmate.

All of these things are critical to the success of Kairos because of one thing and one thing only - God's agape love. We model that love to the "brothers-in-white" and we show evidence of that love both within the team members and among the inmates.

This weekend we had a committed Wiccan man tell us that this is the first love he had seen in a very long time and, while he did not accept Jesus, he committed to coming back for the followup weekends. We had a white supremist embrace Jesus Christ and the men of other color at his table family. I had a Jehovah Witness question me about the Trinity.

The greatest thing about Kairos is that it "works" in spite of the team members! We make countless mistakes, but God is faithful to the work and the Holy Spirit is present.

Please pray for the continuing ministry of Kairos and for the new 42 brothers in white that just completed this past weekend. Pray that God will continue to work through Kairos and in the lives of the team, the inmates, and the unit staff.

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

Archbishop Anis' call for New Leadership

2010-02-05T09:55:00.002-06:00

The Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon, the "blogfather" of the Anglican Communion, has a post about Archbishop Anis' call for a new executive leadership in the Anglican Communion.

As much as I respect +Anis, I cannot join him in this call. I think we spend way too much time worrying about leadership in the Church. We need to concentrate, instead, on discipleship.

We need new discipleship for our Church. As I've remarked in the past, TEC (and I would bet CofE and ACoC and other western, Christendom models) does a very poor job of making disciples out of members. We then take our members and look for leadership qualities in them and send them off to seminary without first making sure that they are gounded disciples. We look for people who can organize and inspire, but we don't seem to care what they inspire to.

We, particularly the clergy, need to be better disciples before we can be better leaders. We need to make sure that our leaders are disciples first.

A disciple is not just a "student" but closer to an "apprentice." The apprentice hears the voice of his master (the Holy Spirit) and does what the Holy Spirit says. in TEC, we have substituted the voice of the spirit of the age for the Holy Spirit. If you doubt that, look at how we discuss and debate issues. We form advocacy groups and put out press releases. We fight in courtrooms and use the canons of our Church like cudgels to beat each other with. We fight with political will and not with enlightened debate on the teaching of the Church.

And we wonder why we are declining in membership.

I call for a renewed focus on discipleship within the Church. Before you send someone to the Commission on Ministry, ask them what being a disciple of Jesus Christ means. Before electing a bishop or a person to the vestry, ask them how discipleship is evidenced in their lives.

We need to be more focused on being disciples first and leaders second.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The Agony and The Sinner - by George Herbert

2010-02-02T09:07:00.004-06:00

I recently came across a copy of The Temple by George Herbert. Here are two of the poems that caused me to give thanks for such a faithful priest and poet.

The Agony
Philosphers have measured mountains,
Fatholmed the depths of seas, of states, and kings,
Walked with a staff to heaveN, and traced fountains:
But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it does more behoove:
Yet few there are that sounds them, Sin and Love.
Whoever would know Sin, let him repair:
Unto mount olivet; there he shall see
A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
His skin, his garments bloody be.
Sin is that press and vice which forces pain
To hunt his cruel food through every vein.
Whoever does not know Love,
let him assayAnd taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach; then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine
Which my God feels as blood, but I as wine,

The Sinner
Lord, how I am all with fever, when I seek
What I have treasured in my memory!
Since, if my soul makes even with the week,
Every seventh note by right is due to thee.
I find there quarries of piled vanities,
But shreds of holiness, that dare not venture
to show their face, since cross to thy decrees:
There to circumference earth is, heaven center.
In so much dregs he quintessence is small.
The spirit and good extract of my heart
Comes to about the many hundreth part.
Yet, Lord, restore thine image, hear my call.
And though my hart heart scarcely can to the groan
Remember that thou once didst write in stone.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Health Care Revisited Part 2

2010-02-01T21:00:00.002-06:00

In my previous post, I listed three types of health care:

Primary Care - normal doctor stuff.
Catastrophic care - ER Stuff, Major Illness, accidents, etc.
Chronic Care - long term illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, and some mental illnesses.

There are several problems with how health care is delivered in America today. I would like to address what I think are the two biggest.

Using insurance the wrong way - we have divorced the reception of services from the payment for services. There is little incentive for the patient to be fiscally involved in his or her health care
Overuse of some types of health care. This is primarily "defensive medicine" where a doctor orders test as a precaution, not against the adverse health, but against a malpractice lawsuit. This also comes when a doctor orders a battery of lab results from a lab in which the doctor is a partner or orders rehab in a clinic where the doctor is a partner. There is a tendency to over-order in such cases.

First, let's talk "insurance." The purpose of insurance is to provide relief in the event of an unforseen and catastrophic loss. We have home owner's insurance to cover costs associated with major and unpredictable damage such as fire, flood (a separate policy), lightening, major theft, or other damage. We don't ask home owner's insurance to cover light bulbs going out or the replacement of air filters or routine maintenance on the grounds. Most financial analysts will tell you to take as high a deductible as you can reasonably afford because it will save you in the long run.

But, when it comes to health insurance, we ask that it cover every single visit to the doctor. At the beginning of the year, I had a visit with my doctor to get blood work on my diabetes. (The blood work came back good with a glucose level of 100 and an A1C of 6.2.) I suggested that I pay the doctor for the visit right then because I had started a new deductible year. However, the office couldn't do that. They had to file the insurance, wait for it to deny, then bill me and wait for me to pay. All the filing and tracking requires a person to handle. So, the costs of delivering routine medical care have gone up because of the friction involved due to the instrusion of health insurance into a type of care that is not a good candidate for insurance - routine, primary care. To reduce the cost of insurance (and the cost of delivering health care), we should return to a high deductible plan that covers only chronic or catastrophic care. Currently, most employees are allowed to have a set amount taken from their paycheck, pre-tax, to cover health care costs. But, the amounts are lost if they are not used. So, may people either have too little take out or they spend wildly at the end of the year so as not to lose the money they've already spent.

We should change this to a health care savings account that can be carried over year to year and will grow tax free. The money in this account can be used for later costs such as rehab or even long term care. If a person dies with money in this account, the money should be taxed at capital gains rates before it becomes part of the person's estate. This would return primary care back to a transaction between the patient and the doctor and it could reduce the cost of delivering care because it reduces the friction of paying for the service.

My next post on health care will dicuss "defensive and offensive medicine."

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

Health Care Revisited Part 1.

2010-01-21T10:54:00.003-06:00

As some of you may know, my "day" job is as a computer programmer for Dell Perot Systems (Perot Systems was purchased by Dell last October). I work in our Health Care area and I work with Health Insurance companies, designing and writing programs for our Claims Payment and Premium Billing system, Xcelys. I've been working in the payer side of health care for 13 years now.

Now when we talk about Health Care Reform, we are not talking about reforming health care in the US. We aren't even talking about reforming how it is delivered. We are talking about how to pay for and ration health care. Now "rationing" is a "bad" word. But as everyone who has taking any courses in economics can tell you, almost everything is rationed one way or another. We ration most things in the US by ability to pay. Not everyone who wants diamonds has them. Only those who have enough money to pay for diamonds have them.

Currently, health care is paid for, primarily, by insurance. The purpose of insurance is risk management. You buy home owners insurance to mitigate the risk of catastrophic loss because of damage to your home. You don't buy home owners insurance to fix a leaky toilet or replace the filters on your air conditioner/heater. We don't buy insurance to pay for someone to cut our grass or even trim our trees. Those things are considered normal costs of owning a home.

One of the problems with health insurance is that we ask too much of it and we are using it for too many things. I submit that there are three types of health care

Primary Care - this is the normal health care that we receive. It is doctors visits for routine physicals and immunizations or when you get the flu or a cold. I don't believe that insurance should cover this type of care. Covering primary care is like asking your car insurance to pay for oil changes or tune ups.
Catastrophic Care - this consists of things that are rare, but expensive when they happen. Examples could be specialized tests or surgery or trips to the emergency room or catastrophic illnesses like cancer. These cannot be planned for on an individual basis
Chronic Care - this consists of chronic diseases such as diabetes or asthma or even some mental illnesses. Maintenance care for these diseases is necessary and relatively inexpensive, but it can grow to be very expensive and, if the maintenance care is not received, the chronic disease will turn into a catastrophic one. Some form of payment sharing should be done by insurance because both parties have a strong interest in avoiding the costs of catastrophic care.

My next post will concern other impacts to the costs of delivering health care such as defensive medicine and legal fees as well as the friction costs of insurance and how we can reduce them.

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

The Confession of St. Peter

2010-01-18T10:35:00.002-06:00

Today is the Feast of the Confession of Saint Peter the Apostle. Today, we remember Peter's confession "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matt 16:16). His answer comes to the most important question we will ever face? "But who do you say that I (Jesus) am?"

To put this in a bit of context, Jesus starts by asking what seems to be a theoretical question: "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" Jesus is not directly about himself here. He seems to be asking what appears to be some "coffee hour" question. When the Son of Man comes, what are people expecting? The various answers are John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. The people were expecting some form of strong and forceful person as the Son of Man.

After listening to what the people were expecting, Jesus asks, "But who do you say that I am?" This is where Peter, inspired by God, answers.

Now, what did Peter mean by "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God?" Well, I don't think he fully understood what he was saying. I believe that Peter was still thinking in terms of a "traditional" Messiah (Christ) who would throw out the hated Romans, reform the Jewish state and restore the Kingship of David. For evidence of this, simply read the rest of the Gospels and look at how often Peter puts his foot in his mouth. Heck, right after saying this, he goes so far as to contradict Jesus when Jesus says that he will have to die and then be raised on the third day (Matt 16:21-24).

So, who do you say that Jesus is?

The Church answers this question with two words: "Savior" and "Lord."

Jesus is our Savior. Americans don't like to hear that we have a Savior, let alone that we need one. We are the people of the Self Made Man. We are the people that pulled ourselves up by our boot straps. We are the people of John Wayne and Gary Cooper at High Noon. We are the rugged individualist. If Pelagius lived in the 20th or 21st century, he would be an American. But we need a Savior! We cannot save ourselves, no matter how hard we try. Jesus is that Savior. He saves us from the power of sin and death. By submitting to the ultimate that sin could dish out, Jesus defeats sin and death and we participate in that victory through our baptism and our life in Jesus Christ. We need Jesus like we need oxygen or water.

Jesus asks you "Who do you say that I am?" I pray that you answer: "You are my Savior. I need you.?"

Jesus in our Lord. If Americans don't like to hear that we need a savior, we even less like to hear that we need a Lord. After all, we are all little lords in our own homes. It seems that our national motto is "You aren't the boss of me!" (Witness TEC's answers to the Anglican Communion.) If we admit that we can't save ourselves, we also must admit that we cannot make the decisions in our lives that lead to salvation or lead to union with God through Jesus Christ. We need direction. We need someone to help us know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it? We need a Lord. This does not mean that we live an escapist life where we make no decisions. A large part of the Christian life is coming to know God so well that we make the right decisions by habit and by nature. We can only have God's law and will written on our hearts if we let God do that. By our fallen nature, our hearts are inclined away from God. We need a Lord to bring our hearts and our wills back to the state that God desires.

Jesus asks you "Who do you say that I am?" I pray that you will answer: "You are my Lord. I will follow you."

Jesus is our Savior and our Lord. He saves us from sin and death and leads us to know the Will of God and provides us direction in our lives to know God's will and the strength (through Grace) to do it.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

J. I. Packer and Catechesis

2010-01-12T19:00:00.002-06:00

I had a wonderful "Godincidence" (a "coincidence" that can be attributed to God) this weekend. Dr. J. I. Packer (the author of Knowing God and other books) came to town for the Bishop Stanton lecture. Normally this takes place in November, but this was how the schedule worked out.

Anyway, Dr. Packer's latest crusade is for improved catechesis - instruction in the faith. This is something that the Episcopal Church has done poorly for several decades. We seem to operate under the notion that everyone is already a Christian and they don't need instruction. This is something that I feel very strongly about. We don't seem to care about Christian Education - particularly for adults! We operate as if the Catechism class is where you "graduate" and you don't have to be in Sunday School any more.

Now one of my duties at St. James is to teach our Catechsism class every year. I normally do a combined youth and adult class and I refuse to talk down to the young people. The class is about 1/2 lecture and 1/2 small group discussion - with adults and kids sitting in the same groups.

The "Godincidence" is that my Catechism class started last Sunday (Jan 10th) - the day after Dr. Packer's lecture!

Anyway, here is what we cover in the class
1. Who is God - the Father
2. Who is God - Jesus, the Son
3. Who is God - the Holy Spirt and the Trinity
4. Who are we?
5. What is our goal? (To live a life filled with and powered by God's Grace)
6. Where do we live the life of Grace? - The Church
7. How do we live the life of Grace? - by Faith.
8. What is this faith? The Baptismal Covenant
9. What is this faith? The Nicene Creed
10. How do we grow in faith and grace? - Prayer
11. How do we grow in faith and grace? - Study
12. How do we grow in faith and grace? - Ministry
13. How do we grow in faith and grace? - Sacraments
14. What obstacles can we expect in our life? Sin (and overcoming obstacles)
15. Sin and Virtue (APESLAG, and FHL Time For Prune Juice)
16. How is the Parish and Church structured?

Anyway, that is my basic outline. I will be teaching the class from now until Trinity Sunday when our Bishop will come to confirm.

Please pray for me and for the class.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Perception and Reality

2010-01-07T10:27:00.002-06:00

One of the phrases I loathe in today's business and social world is "Perception is Reality." Today, Matt Kennedy published a story on Stand Firm about the definition of "faithfulness" and it brought this problem to mind.

One of the tenents of post-modernism is that every person has their own meaning for words and, so, the only thing that really matters is what the reader or listener understand the meaning to be - that the author's intent should not be attended to or it should be secondary to the listener's/reader's understanding. The first part of that statement is true. We all have, because of our experiences, our own shading on the meanings of words - particularly words with religious significant such as "faithfulness." However, the second statement - that the author's intent should be seconded to one's understanding does not follow. The author's intent and meaning should be what drives the conversation, not the reader's understanding.

I believe that this is a problem that comes up from "perception is reality" thinking. It is true that we act on our own perception of reality. But that does not mean that our perception is reality. Reality is reality and our perception is always faulty.

In religious terms, the difference between Reality and our perception is commonly called "sin." If I perceive that marital faithfullness is not broken unless I have sexual intercourse outside of marriage and I then have several female friends where we perform oral sex on each other, then I do not perceive that I have sinned, but I still have sinned. My perception did not match reality. Even if my wife agrees with me, I still have sinned. I submit that the majority of our sins are committed because we truly do not and cannot perceive reality. But we still sin.

So, how do we come to perceive reality more truly? Some submit that this is a problem of knowledge. We simply need to be instructed in what the right is and then we will do it. Some submit that this is a problem of our nature and we should just accept that we are all just human and we should support and bless those who are being faithful to their perceived reality.

I say that it is a matter of our will and not our minds. Our wills are so twisted that we cannot know reality - even when we are educated about it. Our will reject reality in favor of our perception. The way to solve this is not just education (although education can be a part of it). We need to have our wills destroyed and remade. This is the process of sanctification or theosis. This is the process of developing our conscience (with knowledge) and submission of our wills to God's will. So, how do we know God's will? Well, as individuals it is very hard to know God's will. God's voice sounds an aweful lot like our own when we are by ourselves. We have to listen to what God has said in the past (Scripture and Tradition) and listen to what the Church says now (Reason).

The second answer (just accept that we are sinful and then bless people when they are being true to their perception) denies that there really is sin. It makes Jesus' sacrifice on the cross meaningless and empties the Resurrection of its power. We cannot bless sinful behavior - no matter how well meaning the behavior is.

Perception is not reality. Reality is reality. We need to pray and study and submit so that we can see reality more clearly. Changing our perception to match Reality is not so much a problem of the mind. It is a problem of the will. We need "to die daily to sin" so that we can perceive reality.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

More about Plano Schools

2009-11-12T10:09:00.003-06:00

Here is an update about the Plano ISD School situation. I'm sorry it is so late in coming.

The School Board had a very difficult task. In the end, they did not opt for any of the six plans for school feeders in the east side. The created a new plan that was very similar to one of the economically balanced plans.

I believe this is a major victory for the Latino Community in Plano and for the parents in the east side (where most of the poverty is located). PISD even had its first public input session in Spanish at a school with a large Latino community! The fact that they asked for and listened to the opinions of our Latino brothers and sisters is a major victory!

So, what is next? Well, next on my radar is the organizing and launching of what I am calling the "homework clinic." One of the problems in elementary (K-5) and middle school (6-8) in some of the poorer communities is that the teachers don't hand out as much homework as gets handed out in more affluent schools. This is a problem because the kids don't get the much needed reinforcement that homework provides. I am proposing that we have a nightly homework clinic at the schools where people from the larger community will come to the school cafeteria every evening from 4:30 to say 6:30 or so and be there as a resource to help the kids with homework. I am trying to organize the leaders at different churches and the PTAs and the school administration to get this accomplished.

Please pray that I will find the time necessary to do this and that the way will be opened with the school administration for us to accomplish this ministry and that people will volunteer and that parents will have their kids go to the clinics.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Note: actually published on Jan 7, 2010

Plano Schools - Re-segregation?

2009-11-11T08:59:00.016-06:00

Note: Blue is Williams, Magenta is McMillen

It's been a while since I've written anything - I know. I've been busy with work and with a local school project.

Plano Independent School District has a unique way of dividing its grades

Elementary school runs from K-5. Middle School is 6-8. High School is 9 and 10 and the Senior High School is 11 and 12.

In the east side of Plano, there is currently one Senior High school and one High School. PISD is building another. The problem comes out with how do we divide the middle schools between the high schools.

East Plano has a very wide mix of economic status. In "Old Plano", there are a lot of Latinos and a lot of African Americans. In far east Plano, including the suburbs of Parker and Murphy, there are many wealthy families that live in homes that are 500,000 or more (5k square feet).

There are currently six plans that the School Board is considering. Three plans that have the biggest support among the School Board will put the two newest middle schools into the new high school (these are located in the richer part of town) and the two older middle schools to the old high school. The problem is that in doing so, over 90% of the Latino students in east Plano will be sent to the old High School. Also over 92% of the Economically Disadvanted students in east Plano will be sent to the old high school and just under 8% of them will be at the new high school. The new middle school is equidistant from the two high schools, so this isn't really about "neighborhood schools." To me, this is an issue of Justice. To segregate the schools either by race or by economic status is just plain wrong. The image above shows the breakdown of Latino students and Economically Disadvanted students under plans E456 and under the most balanced plan, E3. Click on it to get a bigger picture.

When I spoke at the public hearing I said that to concentrate this much poverty at one school while alleviating the other school of almost all poverty is morally reprehensible. When I said that at the public hearing, I got boo'ed. I have had people ask me how I can call myself a Christian Minister and still make statements like that. I wonder how people can call themselves Christian and support that level of segregation. How can I be a Deacon in Christ's church and not call society's attention to this injustice? How can I not raise the alarm of immorality and injustice? I have received a lot of flak on this, but I have also received a lot of support. When I spoke to the Bishop Suffragan about it, he supported me as did the Archdeacon. I haven't had an opportunity to speak with my Ordinary about it yet.

I would ask you all to please pray for the Parents and Board Members who support the plans that effectively segregate the Latino and poor children into one high school. Pray that God will soften their hearts and open their eyes.

Also pray for me, that I not be consumed with anger. It is hard to meet anger with love and bitterness with joy. Pray that I will be given the grace to do just that.

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

Where Your Treasure Is

2009-07-29T11:07:00.003-05:00

Since 815 cut the entire evangelism budget for the next three years I have been struck (and angered) by the fact that they budgeted over three million dollars for litigation in the next three years and this does not include moneys to support the "remnant" dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, and San Joaquin so that they can spend more of their locally raised money on litigation.

Jesus said that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. It seems that TEC's treasure is in empty buildings and in doing nothing to fill them.

There are a number of issues at stake here. I think that the biggest issue is lack of Christian formation among both the clergy and the laity. Being formed to know Jesus means being formed to be an evangelist - to "proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ." We all promised to do that when we were baptized or when we renewed our own baptismal covenant at every baptism in which we participated. I doubt that too many at 815 can proclaim the good news of God in Christ because if they could, they would. The good news (gospell) is not that people gave buildings or money in perpetuity for the exclusive use of TEC. The good news is that God came among us as one of us to defeat sin and death and to pay the price for our own sins. We participate in that victory and as co-workers with God in His plan to renew (resurrect) all of creation by our baptism in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Thus our old nature is killed (and is being killed) and we are to be raised with a new nature. How can you know that good news and not work to help others understand that their struggle against sin and death has already been won and that they can work with God to continue the struggle among the rest of creation?

Also, I see the litigation and fighting to the death to own the buildings as one of the fruits of the decades long struggle. This seems to be to be the result of a "We won. You Lost. Get over it." mentality. This also belies a lack of Christian formation as this is the attitude of the political arena and not the attitude one should have with Christian brothers and sisters.

Since 815's heart is not with evangelism, but is with litigation, how can we change their hearts? I don't know that we can. But we can and should work to change the hearts of the people in our congregations and dioceses. We need to focus on teaching our people the fundamentals of the faith. We need to get them involved in Bible Study and Adult Sunday School. We need to get them involved in prayer, study, and ministry. We need to move them to an accountability group where they are accountable to each other for their Christian lives. In short, we need to concentrate more on making disciples than on adding members.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Evangelism

2009-07-22T10:49:00.002-05:00

In light of TEC's decision to eliminate the entire evangelism office at the national level, I now suggest that this was only symbolic anyway. While what it symbolizes is significant - it symbolizes that TEC does not find Evangelism important, but finds bureaucracy important, it finds litigation important, it finds social programs important. But it does not find Evangelism important.

So, what is evangelism and why is it so important? Most importantly, what can we - as persons, small groups, congregations and dioceses do to increase evangelism?

First, evangelism is spreading the Good News. So, what is the good news? It is simply this. God has begun His plan to deal with sin and death and evil in the world - first with the creation of man and then with the calling of the patriarchs. I think that the central point of Holy Scripture occurs in Genesis with God's call of Abram - By you all nations will be blessed.

Next, from the Patriarchs, God called Israel to be his special people in rescuing the world from evil, death, and sin. In the fullness of time, God Himself became part of His creation in the person of Jesus. Jesus went about healing the effects of evil, sin and death and, himself, became subject to their greatest effects and, in doing so, defeated them! The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is both the seal on his victory and the promise of our own sharing in his triumph. By our personal incorporation into the Body of Christ (the Church) through baptism (in which we are killed and raised to new life), we can participate with God in His work of redeeming all of creation.

So, that is the good news! God does not abandon us to death and sin; He redeems us from them and gives us work today to help in the reconciliation of all creation. Part of that work is to get others involved in the work by helping them to participate in God's victory and in His work. Evangelism is the act of recruiting other laborers into God's work and God's victory.

So, if we are getting no help from 815 (which may not be a bad thing. You can almost track the growth of the bureaucracy at 815 and the decline of membership and attendance in TEC), what do we do? First, we become evangelists ourselves. We learn how to share the Good News of what God has done for us, in us, and through us and what God can do for, in and through others. Evangelism is not just making guests or visitors in a congregation feel welcome, thought that may be part of a congregation's evangelism plan.

I submit that each congregation has an "Evangelism Plan" that helps the clergy and vestry of that congregation become better evangelists and lead others to become evangelists too.

One tool I've used is what I've heard called "life lines" where we chart our live on a graph with good points and bad points in our lives. We do this in two lines - the first represents our physical life. The second represents our spiritual lives - our relationship with God. We then look for correlation between the two. This took helps us understand what God has done for, in, and through us.

What your plans for evangelism? How many people have you successfully recruited (or gotten them to recognize God's recruiting) to work with us in the redemption of the entire creation. What are you going to do differently to become an evangelist?

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

TEC Eliminates Evangelism Program

2009-07-20T07:30:00.002-05:00

From Fr. Terry Martin (who was TEC's Evangelism Officer), we find out that, as part of the budget cuts at 815, TEC is eliminating the entire evangelism program.

Isn't this like eating your seed corn? Now, more than ever, I am convinced that the leadership of The Episcopal Church does not know Jesus Christ. They may think they know him, but it seems obvious to me that they do not.

Evangelism is essential to the Christian faith. It is part of its very core. Jesus' final "marching orders" to the Church are found in the Great Commission

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been
given to me. God therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the
close of the age." (Matt 28:18-20)

You can also read Luke's version of this

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; andyou shall
be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the
earth. (Acts 1:8)

I am fairly involved in the Cursillo movement here in Dallas. The first talk of the Cursillo weekend in "Ideals" and we learn that you can determine what your ideal is by tracking where you spend your time, your energy, and your money. TEC has budgeted between 3 and 4 million dollars for litigation (depending on how you read the budget). This does not count providing much of the operating budget of San Joaquin and Fort Worth so they can sue the current owners of the property. TEC would rather spend its money on litigation - to recover empty buildings that need to be maintained and cannot be sold for their "book value" - rather than on growing the Church.

815 is a bureaucrats heaven and an evangelists nightmare. The bureaucratic beast that is 815 needs to be starved. Unfortunately, 815 responds by cutting programs that feed the hungry and expand the gospel rather than going on a diet themselves.

Let me get back to the leadership of TEC's knowledge of Jesus. If you know Jesus, you are filled with a desire to make him known to others. It is now a common saying that Evangelism is one hungry person telling another hungry person where there is food. The leadership of TEC does not recognize its hunger and doesn't seem to know where the food it.

As a Deacon in Christ's One, Holy, Catholic, and Aposotolic Church, it falls to me to "interpret to the Church the needs, concerns and hopes of the world." (BCP 543). What the world needs more than anything else is Jesus. TEC would rather give us litigation than Jesus. TEC would rather give us bureauracy than Jesus. TEC would rather give us unending arguments about the blessing of sin than give us Jesus.

We need Jesus. Please, Bishops and leaders in TEC, give us Jesus.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Sunday's OT Lesson

2009-07-17T21:33:00.002-05:00

I am preparing a sermon for Sunday. A friend of mine has been busy at General Convention and asked me to preach for him at his congregation this week. I still use the BCP lectionary (until Advent) and the OT lesson struck me as I was praying over it.

Because of the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry,
I smote him, I hid my face and was angry;
but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart

I think this is a very apt description of our (not just TEC, but all of us) relationship with God. Whether we covet money or sex or power, we all have sin that we prefer to God. That is what it means to be fallen.

I have seen his ways, but I will heal him;
I will lead him and requite him with comfort,
creating for his mourners (the repentant) the fruit of the
lips.

God is good! Even though He knows our sinful nature, and our ways, He still reaches out to us to heal us - to restore us - to save us.

Peace, peace, to the far and to the near, says the Lord;
and I will heal him.
But the wicked are like the tossing sea;
for it cannot rest, and its waters toss up mire and dirt.
There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked

God loves us and wants to heal us. But what if we refuse God's peace? Then we are like a tossing sea.

Right now, I feel like I am in a tossing sea. The turmoil that TEC is in makes me feel like I will never reach land again. But God promises peace. We need to hold on to that promise and find our peace in Jesus Christ.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

We've been here before

2009-07-17T20:54:00.003-05:00

With the passage of D025 (saying that sexually active homosexuals can and are called to be bishops) and C056 (asking the SCLM to develop "liturgical resources" for blessing same sex unions) the Episcopal Church has told the Anglican Communion "we don't want to be a part of you - except on our own terms." I am saddened beyond words.

But the Church has been here before. Over the centuries, the people of God have turned away from God time and time again. They have "forsaken thy covenant" (I Kings 19:14). Everytime the people of God turned their backs on God, they suffered consequences and I belive this time is no different. But in every time there has been a faithful remnat - even if it is a small one. This time is no different.

Israel turned its back on God several times, but neither Elijah nor Isaiah, neither Ezekiel nor Jeremiah took God's people away. They stayed and witnessed and died among "a people of unclean lips." They maintained their covenant with God through the apostacy and eventual exile of God's people.

Anthony didn't start another church when he went to he desert because the church in his day (3rd century) had become too enamored of power and wealth.

Athanasius didn't start another church when he was exiled himself and the Church was too focused on political power after having become the State Church.

The Cappodocians didn't start another church when the Church declared itself Arian in the middle of the fourth century.

Neither Francis nor Dominic started another church when the Church in their day became too focused on secular power and approval.

When the CofE had become simply a religious laminate on an ungodly society, Wesley didn't leave it. He worked to reform it from within and did not succeed in his lifetime! In fact, his followers were kicked out of the Church.

In all these cases, the prophets and leaders for reform in their day did not live to see the fruits of their labors. We may not live to see a wholesome Episcopal Church in the USA. But I have faith to God will call the Church to Himself again - just as He called the people of Israel back to the desert to woo them in Hosea.

We need to recover the spirit of those early reformers and the spirit of the prophets. We need to be true to our covenant and work to reform our own lives and the lives of our congregations. We need to recover the prophetic voice and action that is our inheiritance. We need to be more faithful in prayer and study and ministry.

Tonight, let us weep for the good that was PECUSA, ECUSA, TEC.

Tomorrow let us rise and set our faces towards God - the only one who can reform TEC!

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

A Sad Day

2009-07-14T16:59:00.002-05:00

Today is a very sad day for me. The Episcopal Church has choosen to walk apart. The House of Bishops approved resolution D025 which, in effect, stops the moritorium on ordaining a person sexually active outside of marriage to the Episcopate. TEC has effectively thumbed its nose at the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Communion and its own members. The leadership of this Church cares nothing for the fellowship of other Christians - only those who agree with them.

What will happen now? I don't know. I do know that the young boy who learned to serve God's altar at Trinity Cathedral in the 70s is crying because he doesn't understand what his Church is doing. I do know that the young man who was found by Jesus in TEC in California at Camp San Joaquin is asking his Lord what happened.

I do know that the young adult who got married and started (and then raised) a family in the Episcopal Church is not so much confused as hurt. Why would the Church turn its back on her Lord and on the rest of the Church?

But the deacon who was ordained five years ago is caught between sadness at the lack of will that the leadership in TEC has to hear God's word and anger that they refuse to listen. Part of the role of Deacon is that of prophet. To tell the Church what God has said. I am caught between Jeremiah's Lamentations and Hosea's anger. I find it rather interesting that God chose the metaphor of Marriage and Haroltry to explain Israel's faithlessness.

What now? I don't know. Tonight I will re-read Lamentations. I have a sermon to prepar for Sunday and the Gospel for Sunday is the feeding of the five thousand in Mark. Even in a far away place, God takes what we offer and provides abundance for it. Even when there is no hope in buying food to feed the people, there is God's provision for feeding those who stay to listen to the Lord as he teaches. I offer what I have to God and ask Him to multiply it. I pray that TEC learns to listen to God again as it drifts in the wilderness of secularism.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

What is the Goal?

2009-07-13T10:58:00.003-05:00

Right now, it is very easy to get lost in the political wrangling of General Convention for the Episcopal Church. I spent Saturday afternoon at the Coffield unit and was reminded that the goal of the Christian Life is union with God. It is in places like prison, or the homeless shelters or food banks where we meet Jesus. It is where "the least of these" dwell that we find the confirmation of all our doctrines and dogmas. I had several conversations with inmates that are worried about their Christian walk and that they don't feel the ardour that they felt in their first conversion. Let me share the story that I shared with them. I read this in a commentary on the Rule of Benedict by Joan Chittister (spelling?) This story helps us remember that the goal of the Christian Life is union with God, not political wrangling or a specific outcome at General Convention.

There was a young novice monk who came to the master of novices and
asked: "Master what must I do to attain God?"

The master replied: "To attain God, you must do two things."

The novice thinks "Two things? I can do two things! This will
be easy!"

"First," says the master, "you must know that nothing you can do or think
or say will ever help you to attain God."

"And the second?" asks the novice - rather heartbroken and scared.

The master replies: "You must live as if you don't know the
first."

Union with God is not our work. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. We can't put ourselves right with God nor can we make God love us more or less. But, and this is a rather large "but," we must be willing participants in our own sanctification. We must work hard at surrendering to God and we must practice self examination and denial and ask God to help us see ourselves honestly. The Christian life is easy because it is lived by God's grace. It is hard because we don't always want God's grace - we are too afraid that it will change us too much.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Kudos to Verizon and Frys!

2009-07-13T10:46:00.003-05:00

I have Verizon's FIOS Fiber Optic service for my internet at home. Friday evening, my modem/router died. So, Saturday morning, I went to Fry's (my toy store) and picked up another modem/router. But when I got it home, it did not have the installation disk. So I took it back to Frys to get a replacement, but they were out of modem/routers, so I would have to purchase a modem and separate router (making my geek level increase). I got them home and called Verizon to register the new MAC address. The tech on the phone (who spoke flawless and mid-west accented English!) told me that Verizon would send me a new Router for free! So, I took the modem and router I had purchased from Frys back to Frys and they credited my card with no problems.

The technical support at Verizon and the customer focus at both Verizon and Frys are great and I strongly recommend both companies to anyone who reads this blog.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Political Activism or Discernment

2009-07-09T08:54:00.002-05:00

One of the problems with General Convention is that it is a political body. It makes decisions using political means. This is not a bad model for issues of church order, such as welcoming new dioceses, setting budget priorities, setting up the guidelines by which deacons, priests, and bishops are ordained or disciplined.

But it is a very bad model for deciding theological issues. The problem with the political model is that it is subject to political activism. People now make theological decisions based on political means. The problem with that is the decision is determined before the community does the discernment. And, when discernment is called for, it is called for in a political setting, so those who are politically active or politically driven are the ones who make the statements to the "discernment" committee/group. So, the method of discernment itself is subjected to political activism.

The largest problem with GC is that it uses the wrong means to do theological discernment. It asks, not what is the will of God, but what is the will of the deputies and bishops. All too often, they end up with the will of men and women, not the will of God.

So, how do we discern the will of God? First, we ask God to show us His will. We compare our answers to see if they are congruent with how God's will has been determined in times past (Scripture and Tradition). Looking at Scripture, I am struck by the pain and damage done to God's people when they insist on their own will instead of God's will. Perhaps the greatest example of this is the establishment of a King for Israel. When Israel insisted on a King, instead of letting YHWH be King, they selected Saul and, as a direct result of Israel becoming like the nations, you had the oppression of the poor, the rise of syncretism and idolatry, the dividing of the Kingdom and the people forgetting their covenant with God - and, eventually, the destruction of the 10 tribes and the Exile of Judah.

Looking at TEC today, I see a rise in TEC becoming like "the nation" or like the secular world. We speak of "rights" but not of "righteousness." We have forgotten our Covenant - or at least the first three promises (to continue in the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to persevere in resisting evil, and to love your neighbor as yourself). We have divided the kingdom and are facing our own exile.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

General Convention and Disneyland

2009-07-08T08:46:00.004-05:00

As most of the Episcopal world know, General Convention is underway right now in Anahiem California - also the location for Disneyland. So, what is the difference between General Convention and Disneyland?

One is a place, designed the part patrons from their money, where they try to suspend reality - full of strange people in odd costumes.

The other is a theme park.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

"Reforming" the Episcopal Church

2009-07-06T08:28:00.002-05:00

Today marks the formation of yet another conservative coalition (the ecclesiastical version of YACC) - the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in the United Kingdom. I believe that, overall, this is a good thing. But it has been tried ad nauseum in the United States with limited success.

The problem with YACC is that conservative Anglicans tend to not be focused on political wrangling nor on long term strategy or even tactics. When it comes to political groups, I'm not much of a joiner. I like politcal wrangling far too much and I enjoy the cut and thrust of parlimentary debate. These are necessary and good things, but they can be so time consuming that I lose focus on Jesus as the goal.

Theology aside, that is my major critique of the liberal/progressive side of the Church. They are politically astute and they organize and plan and strategize much better than the conservative side does. They make their goals clear and their goal is not reconcilliation with God through Jesus Christ. Their goal is the success in implimenting a political goal using the methods learned in the Civil Rights struggles of the 50s and 60s - political activism and civil (ecclesiastical?) disobedience.

The conservatives cannot fight the progressive political machine using the progressives' tools. Reform of the Episcopal Church is a lost cause when we attempt it using political means - especially at the national (General Convention) level. If we are to concentrate on political actions, we need to concentrate at the local levels - vestry members, diocesan convention delegates, members of the Commission on Ministry, Standing Committee, and Executive Committee of the dioceses in which we worship.

But more important than local political wrangling is personal reformation and catechesis - instruction in the faith - for both the laity and the clergy. We need to return to God and let God fight for us. There are so many "conservative coalitions" that are trying to fight politics with politics. We need to recover the goal of union with God through Jesus Christ. Before we can fight politically, we need to fight spiritually. We need to remove our egos from the struggle and work to follow Jesus only. We are too much like the Church in Corinth with different leaders and different factions. I fear that we are repeating the Continuing Anglican mess of the late 70s and 80s where personality conflicts caused a fracture in what could have been a good movement.

So, I remain in TEC. I am not called to reform the Church - that is God's job. I am not even called to reform my diocese or parish. Again, that's God's job. I am not even called to reform myself. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. What am I called to do? First I am called to be faithful in prayer and study of Scriptures to more fully know the mind of God. Second, I am to help others become faithful in prayer and study so they too can more fully know the mind of God. Third, I am to help lead my congregation and my diocese out into ministry in the world. I am to help the Church recall her baptismal covenant and repent where she has fallen - especially the first promise to continue in the Apostles' teaching and fellowship.

Unfortunately, I doubt many on either side of the progressive/conservative divide will listen to me. But, again, my job is not to make them listen. My job is to be faithful in proclaiming God's Word and to help lead the Church to recover what she has lost so she can go into the world and make disciples.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

But Wait! There's More!

2009-06-29T09:00:00.005-05:00

Yesterday Billy Mays died. He was an old fashioned "pitchman" who was very skilled in his art. I can't count the number of commercials or infomercials I've seen with him.

When I learned of his death, all I could think of was this:

David Caradine (of Kung Fu fame) died. But we're not through yet
Ed McMahon died. Hold on! We're just getting getting started
Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died.
But wait, there's more!

I know. It is "gallow's humor" but I would like to think that Billy Mays had enough of a sense of humor about himself and his profession to laugh at this.

Is the world really diminished by the loss of yet another pitch man? I believe it is because the world is always diminished by the death of any human being. I don't know the state of the souls of any of these persons above. But that is not my job. I can entrust them to God's mercy and care.

While Billy Mays always promised us "more," his products often did not deliver on their implied promises. But God's promise is that there will always be more! God promises us abundant life and never ending grace and growth in the new live we receive through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ! Why do we spend our time wanting "more" and "easier, faster, cheaper?" We should focus on the only source of "more" in all creation - God. Do you want more? Seek God; for with God there is always more.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

A Good Job for the Vergers Among Us

2009-06-26T10:25:00.002-05:00

Over at Scott Gunn's Blog, I saw the video below:

I think that we could assign the task of policing cell phone usage to our vergers. Their verges could make wonderful instruments of correction!

What do you think?

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Jesus and the Death of Celebrities

2009-06-26T08:05:00.003-05:00

This week has seen the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. All were big stars and many people feel loss because of these icons (idols?) of popular culture. Like every boy my age, Farrah Fawcett epitomized female beauty. Her iconic bathing suit poster was a fixture in many of my friend's rooms (my parents did not allow such things).

Why are we so fixated on celebrities? Why do we invest so much of our selves in them? Why do care so much about such people as Michael, Farrah and Ed? I believe it is because we long to be connected to someone, but we don't want to risk being hurt by them. We cannot really be hurt by a celebrity, but we can be connected to them by tabliods, Entertainment Tonight, TV, and by the the internet. We can feel we know them and we can project on to them all our hopes and fears. Celebrities are as real to us as we want them to be. We know about them but we don't know them. We say we love them, but we can't love them because we don't know them.

I find that in the Church, there are many who see Jesus as a celebrity. We've all seen and heard about what people project onto Jesus. Jesus the Pacifist. Jesus the Socialist. Jesus the Communist. Jesus the Vegetarian. Jesus the fighter for Social Justice. Jesus the (fill in the blank). Perhaps we do this ourselves? We project our desires and needs onto Jesus.

C. S. Lewis called this "Christianity and...." We've seen people claim that Jesus would be a strong supporter of the pro-choice movement. We've seen people claim that Jesus would be a strong proponent of the pro-life movement. What happens is that we assume that our cause is Jesus' cause. We assume that Jesus would find what we deem to be important to be as important as we think it is.

I believe this is the state that most "Christians" are in. We are enamored of the Celebrity Jesus and don't take the time to know the real Jesus. We are satisified with the "Entertainment Tonight" version of Jesus where we know enough about Jesus to know that he thinks like we do, likes what we like and approves of us.

So, what is the solution? The solution is to know Jesus, not just know about Him. The solution is to have a personal relationship with Jesus. So, how do we do that? The tried and tested method to do that has been handed to us over the centuries. The method includes three things:

Piety - a rich prayer life can be for everyone. The Book of Common Payer is a great resource for prayer life. In addition to discursive prayer, try some meditative and contemplative prayer. Be involved in the worship life of a congregation. Knowing Jesus is not just a personal effort - I would say it is not even primarily a personal effort. Knowing Jesus can best be done in community (See my sermon on the Holy Trinity and Community). Be involved in the sacraments of Holy Communion and Confession.

Study - Learning about Jesus through study of the Holy Scriptures and book about Christian living is critical to every Christians life. Study tells us about the Jesus we meet in prayer and worship. Every Christian should be reading Holy Scripture every day. Studying is simply learning what others who know Jesus know about Jesus. Like piety, study should have its personal and corporate aspects. Are you involved in personal study as well as a corporate study? If not, you should be. As Archbishop Rowan Williams said, only the whole Church knows the whole Truth.

Ministry - The place where I meet Jesus most often is in ministry. Ministry helps me to know Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit because it shows me that I am not up to the job given to me. If you really want to know Jesus, go serve him in ministry. When we minister, we are not so much acting as Jesus as we are meeting Jesus. When we teach Sunday School, we are meeting Jesus in the students. When we visit the sick or shut in, we are meeting Jesus there. When we are ministering in prison or at a homeless shelter, we are meeting Jesus there too. To know Jesus, go visit him in ministry.

In the deaths of McMahon, Fawcett, and Jackson, great talent has left the world. But there is a greater power than celebrity. It can and will change your life. Are you ready to know Jesus as a person and not as a celebrity?

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

More Thoughts on Reforming Medical Care

2009-06-25T08:41:00.003-05:00

Actually, it is not the medical care that needs reform or that people are talking about reforming. It is the payment for delivery of medicare care that people insist needs reforming. The medical care in the US is superb - if you have insurance or are independently wealthy.

President Obama insists that he can save money by having a government run insurance system. The savings will come from efficiencies of scale. The problem is that "government effeciency" is an oxymoron.

Reducing the costs of a process entails two things. The first is efficiency - doing thing right. Effeciency is concerned with doing something in as few steps or with as little effort as possible. Touch typing is more efficient that "hunt and peck." (I and am very glad I took a typing class my freshman year of High School!) Government bureaucracies are notoriously inefficient.

The second way to get cost reduction is effectiveness - doing the right things. Here is a possible cost saving from government payment for healthcare. By eliminating or reducing the "defensive medicine" that doctors often do in order to defend against malpractice suits, we can reduce costs. The problem is that there is no guarantee that the defensive medicine will stop or that malpractice suits will slow or cease.

Another issue of effectiveness is fraud prevention. Private insurance companies are very diligent about finding and preventing fraud. After all, fraud affects the "bottom line". Government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid or the VA, are nortorious for fraud and waste. The idea that the government will be more diligent about fraud than a private insurance company is not one that is borne out by experience.

Right now, the government runs several health programs such as Medicare and the VA. These are not well loved by either providers or by many of their patients. I propose that the current administration show us it can create efficiencies of scale and increase the health care outcomes by first fixing these programs such that people look forward to being on Medicare or going to the VA. Next, we can let the government employees (including Congress and the congressional staffers) use these programs exclusively for their care. After we get these programs in order, and our elected representatives have shown their trust in them by using them for their own care, then we can look at expanding government run care to the rest of the nation.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Is this the best argument they have?

2009-06-23T16:35:00.004-05:00

Over at the Episcopal Cafe, there is an article calling attention two "theological" sources regarding the blessing of same sex unions and the ordination of GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, and Transgendered) people. If you are interested, here is the Chicago Consultation's contribution to the discussion (PDF). It is entitled "We Will With God's Help" (WWWGH). I've just read through it and the argument comes down to this:

We baptize GLBT persons, so they are full members of the Church, so they should be eligible to be ordained.

Now, on its face, I have no argument with that statement. It is true. If that is all that the Chicago Consultation and TEC want to say, then I can only agree with them.

However, the undertone of this group is that we are talking about men and women who are sexually active in GLB (not so sure about the "T") relationships. Men sexually active with men or women sexually active with women. In this case, it is not their orientation that disqualifies them, but their unrepentant sin.

All sexual activity outside of marriage is sinful. Sin breaks the relationship between the person and God, the person and the Church, and the person and him/her self.

Part of our baptismal covenant is this question:

Will you perserver in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent
and return to the Lord?

The candidate answers: "I will with God's help."

In the document, there is no section that even questions whether homoerotic behavior is good or blessed. It simply assumes that it is.

Does this mean that homosexual persons are not loved by God? In no way do I hold that homosexual persons are not loved by God. They are indeed loved by God and full members of the Church by the virtue of their baptisms. But they are not wholesome examples of a Christian life if they are sexually active outside of marriage. The drug addict, the cleptomaniac, the serial adulterer, the sinner (any sinner) are all loved by God and are full members of the Church. But when they put their personal understanding of morality above what the Church teaches, then they are not wholesome examples of those called to lead the Church.

If we are going to move past the "he said/she said" dialogue that we have been having, then we need to be able to show, from Scripture and Tradition, where God blesses same sex unions or we need to go back to a status quo ante where we don't bless same sex unions and the only people we ordain are people who are either celibate or sexually active only inside of marriage (as traditionally defined).

Assuming what you want to prove is an old game, but it doesn't move the conversation along.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Ordaining two new Deacons

2009-06-21T14:58:00.004-05:00

Yesterday (June 20th,) Bishop Stanton ordained two new deacons (Beverly Patterson and Betsy Randall). I had the honor of preaching at the ordination. When the Bishop Called me, I was floored and said "yes" after picking my jaw up off the floor. Here is the sermon I preached Saturday:

Deacons’ Ordination 2009

Jeremiah 1:4-9

Psalm 84

Acts 6:2-7

Luke 22:24-27

Almighty God, give us ears to hear, minds to understand and the will to do those things that you teach us today. Amen.

Today the Church is setting aside two persons to be deacons. It is a joyous occasion in the life of the Church and in the lives of Betsy Randall and Beverly Patterson.

So, what are we doing today? Is today a kind of “graduation” ceremony where we are telling the world that we have two people who have “made it” – that they’ve successfully navigated through a rather complicated and frustrating Ordination Process? Are marking the completion of an arduous journey and rewarding two people who have been faithful members of the Church?
No, today we are not marking the completion of anything and being ordained is definitely not a reward for past service. Being ordained is not a reward for anything nor is it a sign of any special competence. As one of my past Rectors said, proof that God loves His Church is that she has survived her clergy.

Ordination is setting apart a person for the ministry of Word and Sacrament. Today, we set apart Beverly and Betsy as Deacons in Christ One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

The word “deacon,” “diakonos,” means “servant” or “minister.” It is translated as “minister” 20 times in the NT and as “servant” 8 times. In the passage we heard from Acts today, the Apostles say “it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve (diakeno) tables” and “we (the apostles) will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry (diakonia) of the word.” So the congregation (not the Apostles) picked out seven men, the apostles laid hands on them and the Church had its first deacons – assistants to the Apostles. Many scholars today don’t think of the 7 as deacons as we understand that term today. In one sense they are right, the office of deacon has evolved just as the office of Bishop and of Presbyter has. The Church has almost always taught that they were deacons and I tend to agree with the Church rather than modern scholars on what the Church did 2000 years ago.

Today the Office of Deacon is evolving still. In this diocese, we have a deacon responsible for Christian formation. We have deacons who handle pastoral care for congregations. We have deacons who are hospital chaplains, who work in ministries related to senior citizens, deal with end of life issues as Hospice Chaplains, work in translating Holy Scriptures in to various languages, and are involved in prison ministry. The office of deacon is one that ministers on the margins of society. We deacons have a mission of being the voice for those who have no voice and for helping them to find their voice. We deacons have changed from, what all the Books of Common Prayer from the Ordinal in 1550 to the 1928 BCP called “this inferior office” to an order with its own dignity and personality.

Today, I would like to discuss the Office of Deacon in three images: the Deacon as Icon of Jesus Christ, the Deacon as Prophet and the Deacon as a Walking Sacrament of Ministry.

Deacons are Icons of Jesus Christ the servant. In the Gospel we just heard, Jesus says that he is among us as “one who serves.” Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity incarnate, the one through whom all things were made – this same Jesus comes among us to serve. We hear that often, but do we really believe it? Let’s stop to think about it for a second. God. Comes. Among. Us. To. Serve. How many of us really believe that Jesus is among us as one who serves? George Herbert, the wonderful priest and poet of the 17th century, wrote thus:

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, / Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack / From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning / if I lack'd anything.
"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here"; / Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear, / I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply, / "Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame / Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?" /"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat." / So I did sit and eat.

Deacons are icons of Jesus who bids us sit and eat.

St. Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Magnesians, describes deacons as being entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ. That is an awesome responsibility to lay on any person and today we lay that responsibility on two new deacons. Deacons, entrusted with the servant ministry of Jesus Christ are icons – windows through which the Church and the world can see Jesus and see the joy in giving themselves to the service of others. We human beings, made in God’s image, were designed to give. We, by design receive more when we give more. We were not designed to hold and horde. Our society has lied to us over and over again and we have all too often bought into that lie. Society tells us that we are individuals who exist for our own self-defined good. That is a lie. The truth is that we are persons designed by the Triune God to live in community whose life together reflects the inner life of the Holy Trinity where each person gives himself to the others. Our life together should reflect that inner life and it is the Deacon who should be the window, the Icon, into that life by showing us Our Lord who is among us as one who serves.

In addition to being Icons, Deacons are prophets. In the Examination, the Bishop tells the candidates that they are to “interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world.” This entails speaking to the Church things her members may not want to hear. In the Episcopal Church, we hear a lot about “prophetic voice” or the need to be “prophetic.” I think we hear that because we have forgotten what a prophet is or what a prophet does. The prophets never called Israel out of its covenant. They always called Israel to repent because they were not following their covenant. Likewise, the Deacon calls the Church to remember her Covenant and to repent. This is why the Deacon is the preferred person to invite the people to confess their sins in the Eucharistic liturgy. All too often we look the other way when confronted with the needs, concerns or hopes of the world – particularly if they are embodied in a person who is smelly or homeless or dying or poor or mentally ill or in prison. It is the deacon’s task to stand up to the Church and say “No! We promised we would care for them! It is not ‘someone’s’ responsibility to care for the poor, the sick, the uneducated, the smelly, and those we don’t like. It is our responsibility to care for them.” In caring for those on the margins of society, we are caring for Jesus himself.

Almost 14 years ago, I walked into my first prison. I was, at the same time, very scared and rather proud of myself. I was going to bring the ministry of Jesus Christ to the men at the Beto unit. I got there and found out that I was wrong – very wrong. I was not bringing Jesus any where that He didn’t already exist. I was not acting as Jesus among the incarcerated; I was serving Jesus by serving the incarcerated.

Deacon’s have the prophetic role of reminding the Church of her Covenant with God. As Episcopalians we express that Covenant in our Baptismal Covenant it is part of the Deacon’s role to call the Church back to its covenant – the whole covenant - when it forgets. This can be a very thankless role. It can get some people upset at you. Deacons have been known to upset the apple cart from time to time. Perhaps the best image of the Deacon as Prophet is Francis of Assisi. Saint Francis was never ordained priest. I like to say that he was the most admired and least emulated of the Deacons. He had the temerity to remind the Church that she should not exist as a power in the world, let alone the greatest power in the world. The Church should be a servant to the world.

Finally, I would like to talk about the Deacon as a walking sacrament. As we all know, a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, give by Christ as a sure and certain means by which we receive that Grace. Now, I am not trying to add to the list of Sacraments. But Deacons are outward and visible signs of the grace that is ministry. God gives us work to do for His kingdom, not because He needs us to do it but so that we can participate with God in the growth of His kingdom. Ministry is, itself, a gift from God and as I said earlier, we were designed by God to receive much more than we give when we are involved in ministry. The Deacons among us remind us that we were designed to give and we receive and grow more when we give than we do when we take or when we hold on to what we have.

Let me take just a moment to talk about ministry. I remember about 9 years ago when I started my own path towards ordination. I thought that ordination would expand my opportunities for ministry. I quickly learned that not to be the case. Rather than expanding opportunities for ministry, ordination focuses your ministry. And just as focusing light restricts where it shines, ordination restricts your ministry. But where you do minister is brighter because the ministry is more focused. A deacons’ ministry is more focused than that of a layperson’s. Likewise a priest’s ministry is more focused than a deacon’s and the ministry of Bishop is the most focused and the most restricted.

Deacons are outward and visible signs of ministry. Their focus in ministry helps others to see their own ministries. Deacons enable the Church to minister and to find new ministries the Church didn’t know about.

So, we see Deacons as Icon’s of Jesus Christ the Servant by which we more clearly see how God comes among us to serve us and to help us serve others. We see the deacon as the prophetic voice to the Church that reminds the Church of her Covenant with God when the Church forgets and we see the Deacon as a Walking Sacrament of the grace and gift of ministry – as one who models and empowers the ministry that God gives us. Deacons are all these things and so much more.

It has grown customary for the preacher to deliver a charge to the ordinands towards the end of the sermon. Betsy and Beverly, will you please stand.

Today you are being ordained as deacons. You are being set apart to be Icons, Prophets, and Walking Sacraments to help the Church see Jesus, recall her covenant with her Lord and to go forth in Jesus’ name to minister to others. My charge to you is three fold. First, you are to interpret to the Church, the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world. What the world needs more than anything else is Jesus. Give us Jesus. Be that Icon of Jesus so that the world can see its need of Him. Be faithful in prayer and study so that you can give us Jesus. In giving us Jesus, together, we all can give the world Jesus.

Second, you both plan on being ordained presbyters at a future date. That is good. But, let this time be a time to be formed as Deacons – not as Junior Priests. Let God form you into His servants. Find an experienced deacon and let him or her help you become the Deacon you are called to be. In the parishes where you will work, you will encounter pressure to “get on with being ordained a priest.” Don’t give in to that pressure because it is from half-baked deacons that we get half-baked priests. Find some work that is distinctively diaconal. Spend some time at a homeless shelter; work in a food bank; go to prison. Bring members of the church with you and get them involved in ministry. Let God continue to form you as deacons. When you believe you have sufficiently been formed as deacons, then come before the Commission on Ministry and the Standing Committee to be ordained as presbyters.

Finally, never forget that you continue to be deacons even after you are ordained as presbyters. Let your diaconal formation help to form you as priests. Let God continue to form you as deacons even as He forms you as priests.

One of the men I did Clinical Pastoral Education with five years ago was a Dominican monk who was ordained deacon and then priest. I was present at his diaconal ordination. While I have my issues with how Rome does some things, I believe they nailed the Bishop’s charge to the deacons at ordination. In a minute, Bishop Stanton will lay his hands on you and make you Deacons. He will then give you a Bible as a sign of your authority to proclaim God’s word. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Bishop hands the new Deacon a Book of the Gospels with these words (mark them well): “Receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ whose herald you now are. Read what you have received. Believe what you read. Teach what you believe. Live what you teach.” Beverly and Betsy, soon you will join the ranks of Deacons in Christ’s one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. You will be given the Holy Scriptures. Read them. Believe them. Teach them. Live them.

In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the Fundamental Differences

2009-06-18T11:04:00.003-05:00

We all know that the issue of human sexuality is not really the issue. I've heard it said that the real issue is one of Authority. Who has the authority to change the teaching of the Church. Just as TEC says that dioceses do not have the authority to leave TEC (an assertion I deny, by the way, but that's another post), I submit that no Diocese nor Province has the authority to change the Church's moral teaching. What General Convention did in 2000, 2003, and 2006 regarding the moral teaching of the Church is beyond its authority.

I think it is even more fundamental than that. I believe that the fundamental issue is one of anthropology - what is man (and woman). And, even before that, Who is God. Let's leave the definition of God out of this discussion (for now). I want to discuss anthropology as it relates to what men and women are.

On the conservative side of things (both politically and theologically) we tend to believe that man was created good but is fallen. Thus, we tend to think of man, in his natural state, as a "twisted" individual. We may want to do good and to be good, but we lack the ability to do so. We are so bent by our sin that we don't even know what is good anymore. Thus, we need an external source to help us know and understand what God desires from us. We identify with Paul in Roman's 7

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I
have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it our. For what I
do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep
on doing. (Rom 7:18, 19)

Thus, our natural state is one of brokenness and the inability to do good. Our natural state is one of separation from God. For this reason, God became man in the person of Jesus Christ so that we (and all creation) might be redeemed and be united to God by God's grace. In the conservatives eyes, mankind needs to die so it can be reborn. We've marred God's image and lost His likeness by our sinful actions.

On the other hand, most progressives I've known tend to think that man is basically good. Our natural state is one of blessedness. They like to speak of "Original Blessing" not "Original Sin." They believe that most people want to do the good and, if we just educate them enough, they will choose the good. Mankind needs fixing, not re-creation. Man still has a lot of the image of God and still bears His likeness.

That is an oversimplification, of course, but I find it to be true to a large extent.

So, how does this play out? In terms of the sexuality debate, the conservatives see homosexual orientation as a consequence of our fallen nature. Progressives see homosexual orientation as a natural occurrence and, therefore, a moral good or moral neutral. In terms of Evangelism, the conservative see other faiths as not participating in the new creation that all men need. Progressives see that all faiths as expressions of man's quest for God and, thus, evangelism is not as necessary.

So, which is it? Is mankind basically sinful and fallen (and thus with a need to die to self and be raised to new life) or is mankind basically good (and thus needs only education and improvement)?

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Update on Leila - Praise and thanksgiving

2009-06-13T11:16:00.003-05:00

Thank you all for your continued prayers for my family and for my two year old grand-niece, Liela. At my last report, Leila was still in the hospital and she had been diagnosed as brain dead.

Well, she started to breath on her own and the hospital eventually sent her home under hospice care so she could die.

But my sister in law kept noticing things that Leila was not supposed to be able to do - such as reacting to outside stimuli or focusing her eyes. She mentioned this to the hospice people and they (of course) thought that Elaine was imagining things as this is not uncommon.

But then they started to notice Leila reacting too. "This isn't possible" they thought. But she was reacting more and more. So, the scheduled an evaluation with yet another group that specialized in retraining childrens' brains after serious injury.

They came and evaluated Leila and determined that, while there is brain damage, Leila is actually in a coma and is not brain dead. There are things they can do to help her - especially after she comes out of the coma!

We serve an awesome God! I know that sounds cliched, but I can't think of a better way to say it. Please continue to pray that God will bring Leila to the fullness of life and continue to heal her.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

A Proposal for Generous Orthodoxy

2009-06-11T15:41:00.003-05:00

The apparent defeat of Kevin Thew Forrester to receive the necessary consents to become Bishop of Northern Michigan has caused a fire storm. Greg Jones at the Anglican Centrist talks about the difference between "establishment liberals" and

[A]n impressive cadre of Episcopalian laity and clergy who are very serious (and usually very educated) about theology and the Anglican tradition. This group tends to agree on matters of theology, liturgy and church order, AND, in regard to the affirmation of women's ordination and the inclusion of all the baptized into sacramental life and leadership.

I've known several people who support blessing same sex unions and ordaining men or women involved in same sex unions, but who are believed the Nicene Creed in its "plain sense" rather than redefining the words to fit their worldview. They insist on the Trinity being "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Ghost)" rather than "Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer" (a modalistic version of the Trinity as it names three functions, not three persons). They insist on the Incarnation and that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. They insist that Jesus' death on the cross somehow puts us right with God (atonement). They insist on a physical resurrection (as if there were any other kind).

Now, I support the ordination of women in the Church and I believe in "full inclusion" of all people (gay, straight, tall, short, thin, fat, blue, red, green, etc.) in the sacramental life of the Church. The problem is that I don't agree with blessing what the Church calls "sin." That is the heart of the matter.

The whole issue before the Church right now is not "what do we do with sexually active homosexual men and women?" Rather, it is two fold. The first is "what is the limit of authority to define sin?" and "How do we know what is sinful?"

The "How do we know what is sinful?" question has been answered by the Church. Up until recently, there was no question that homosexual sex was sinful. That is still the official position of the Church Catholic and the Anglican Communion as a whole. There are people who are trying to change the teaching of the Church such that life long mutually monogamous homosexual relationships (gay marriage if you will) are no longer considered sinful.

But, until the Church changes its teaching, the teaching stands. Think of the matter of changing the speed limit on a street. There is a street by my house that is four lanes and divided, but the speed limit is 30 mph. It is a rather nice revenue producer for the city as people regularly travel at 40-45 mph on it. Now I think the speed limit should be 35 or 40. I can lobby the city council to change it, but I cannot travel 40-45 while I am lobbying for the law to be changed without paying the fine when I am caught.

Now I do not want to exclude my creedally orthodox brothers and sisters in Christ. So I have a proposal for those who find themselves creedally orthodox, but who support blessing same sex unions and ordaining men or women involved in same sex unions:

Accept that the current teaching of the Church is that gay sex is sinful. Being gay or even being gay and involved in a long term relationship should not be a bar to membership in the church.
There will be no public blessings of same sex unions. If you must bless same sex unions, please do them under the guise of "house blessings" or some such private affair
Only support for ordination those who can articulate and teach the creedally orthodox faith. Put a moritorium on ordaining homosexual men or women involved in any sexual activity outside of man/woman marriage until the Anglican Communion determines that either gay marriage is blessed by God or it is morally neutral.
Continue to lobby the Church to change her teaching on same sex unions if you disagree with it, but do not publically act outside of that received teaching until the Church changes her consensus.

As for me, I will continue to the Church to maintain her teaching on the subject until I can be convinced, with arguments from Scripture or Tradition that blessing same sex unions better reflects the Will of God and calling them sinful.

How does that sound to you all?

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

No Big Deal?

2009-06-09T15:16:00.004-05:00

Over at Kendall Harmon's blog, Titus One Nine, he has an article about the Presiding Bishop's visit to Oregon. You can read the article Canon Harmon reference here.

There is a question and answer section with the reporter. One of the questions is this:

Q: Oregon seems far removed from the big Episcopal controversy over
gay ordinations --
A: That's a good thing. The controversy isn't that big; it's just noisy in some places.

This is something that I am tired of hearing. This seems to say "What we are talking about not not really a "big deal." It is rather inconsequential to the living of the faith."

Either the people making this statement are blind to what is happening in the Church world wide or they are delusional to think that what is happening to TEC and to the Anglican Communion because of the innovations that they are forcing on us are not "that big."

If the blessing of same sex unions or ordination of those involved in same sex unions is not essential to the Christian Faith, then why are you forcing this innovation on the Church. The rest of the Church has said that the current moral teaching (sex is only blessed inside of marriage and marriage is only one man and one woman) is essential to the faith. The reappraisers/revisionist/progressives must either believe that their innovation is essential or they must believe that the Church itself is not a big deal.

I know there are few reappraisers/progressives that read this blog. Can you say why this issue is worth splitting the Church over? If so, can you share where this is found in Holy Scripture (according to our Presiding Bishop, Holy Scripture is our primary source of authority)?

Please be honest with us. Either admit that you believe this issues is on par with the Creeds or you don't believe that the Church is the body of Christ and can be split over non-essentials.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

nb - edited to correct a typographical error - Chruch to Church.

Trinity Sunday

2009-06-08T09:37:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was a very special treat for me. My dad is in town for the graduation of my daughter, Elizabeth, from High School (tonight!). During our Clergy Family day at the Diocese' camp near Lake Texoma, the Bishop sent me to St. Martin's in Lancaster, a small mission in a southern suburb of Dallas, to lead worship and perform a Deacon's Administration from the Reserve Sacarment. Their supply priest was to be out of Pentecost and Trinity and the Bishop wanted me to go, so I went.

But I believe it is always preferable to Celebrate Holy Communion instead of a Deacon's Administration. My dad is a priest in the Diocese of West Texas and, so, I contacted the Bishop's office and received permission for dad to celebrate yesterday. So, yesterday I and my dad, for the first time since I was ordained, were both leading worship and were the only clergy.

I also had the joy of preaching for my dad on Trinity Sunday. Aware of Dom Gregory Dix's admonition that no one can preach on the Trinity for more than 15 minutes without falling into heresy, I offer this sermon that I preached yesterday.

Almighty God, give us ears to hear, minds to understand and the will to do those things that you teach us today. Amen.

I just prepared a Confirmation Class at St. James. Part of every class is where the instructor scares the students by reminding them that the Bishop has the right to ask any question of a candidate before administering the Sacrament of Confirmation. I’ve travelled with Bishops Stanton, Jecko, and Lambert to many confirmations and I have never seen a bishop do this, but jokes abound about what happens when a bishop decides to ask a question.

At one parish, there was a very shy young man and the Bishop decided to ask him “Tell me about the Holy Trinity” expecting to have the boy say something like “We worship one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

The boy mumbles and kicks his feet. The bishop says: “What did you say?

The boy mumbles again, so the bishop, somewhat frustrated says: “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand.”

The Boy also frustrated responds loudly: “You’re not supposed to understand, Bishop, it’s a mystery.”

Today, Trinity Sunday, is the one day of the year set aside for the remembrance of a Doctrine of the Church and not an event that occurred in history. The Resurrection is an historical event. The crossing of the Red Sea is a historical event. Pentecost is a historical event, but there is not a specific day when the Trinity made itself known. While the Doctrine of the Trinity is supported by Holy Scripture, it is not specifically defined there. The Resurrection is defined in Holy Scripture. The Atonement (by which we are made acceptable to God by the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ) is laid out in Holy Scripture. That God created the heavens and the earth is specifically mentioned in Holy Scripture. But the word “Trinity” never appears in Holy Scripture.

So, what is the Trinity and why do we believe it and even set aside a day to remember it? First, the Trinity is a very simple doctrine to state, but it is very hard to understand. The doctrine of the Trinity simply states that we believe in One God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The three persons are co-equal and co-eternal. All are “God” but there is only one God. So, God is three and God is one. When we hear something like that, it causes our minds to boggle, so we try to rationalize it.

The first “rationalization” that we normally run to is to try to describe God as One God with three functions. I’ve heard people try to explain the Trinity using the analogy of the different roles they have in life. For example, I am a husband, a father, and a deacon. They describe God as acting as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit just as I act as husband, father, or deacon. Now this sounds good because it emphasizes the unity of God. There is One God. But let’s look where it leads. If there is only one God and not three distinct persons, then Jesus (God incarnate) cannot be fully God. Because if Jesus is fully God and God is not three persons, then where is God while Jesus walks the earth? Where is God when Jesus dies on the cross? If there is only one person in different roles, then, Jesus cannot be God. If Jesus is not God, he could not have lived a sinless life and his death on the Cross is, somewhat, deserved and, therefore it cannot be a “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.” So, if God is not at least two persons, (the Father and the Son) then we cannot be reconciled with God through Jesus Christ. So, the Trinity cannot be one God with three functions. That is actually a classical heresy called “Modalism” – one God with three “modes” of relating to us. The Church actually rejected this heresy in its early days.

While Modalism is a heresy in one direction, there is another heresy in the other direction. This heresy emphasizes the three Persons of the Trinity at the expense of their unity. So, there are three gods, but that only the Father is fully God. The Son and the Holy Spirit are close to God, but not fully God. This comes by an attempt to take the word “Father” too literally. Arius, the first proponent of this thought believed that since there was a time when a human father was not a father – my dad was not a father until I was born – that there must have been a time when the Son did not exist. If the Son is not eternal, then the Son cannot be fully God. And, again, if Jesus, being the Incarnate Son, is not fully God, then he cannot pay the price for our sins. By the way, this controversy rocked the Church to its core. Are you familiar with the phrase “It doesn’t make an iota’s worth of difference?” That phrase actually comes to us from this controversy. Arius – the chief architect of this heresy said that the Son was of like nature – in Greek homoiousious with the Father. Athanasius, the chief architect of the Nicene Creed (which we will say in a moment) said that the Son was of the same nature in Greek homoousous with the Father. The only difference between these words was the letter “I” – in Greek it is called “iota.” Those who were not Christians at the time and those who didn’t want to fight about the nature of God thought that this was an awful lot of fuss and anger and hatred over the smallest letter in the alphabet. It was and is of critical importance, but we’ll get to the reasons for that in a bit.

Scripture witnesses that the Son of God has to be separate from God the Father and still is God. John’s Gospel begins “In the Beginning was the Word and the Word with with God and the Word was God.” A little further on, John writes “…and the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us.” This simple passage – read each year on the Sunday after Christmas and on Christmas Day itself – witnesses that the Word of God – God the Son – is at the same time With God and Is God. That cannot be true unless there are at least two persons in the Godhead.

Scripture clearly witnesses to two persons, but we say that there are three persons in the Godhead. Why is that? Again, it is the witness of Holy Scripture and the practice of the Church. The New Testament talks about the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God. Why do we say that the Holy Spirit is God as well? There are several reasons, but let me give the basic one. When we baptize in the Church, we baptize in the Name (not names, but name) of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Our earliest recorded liturgies are mentioned in the Didache (written at the end of the 1st Century or the beginning of the second) and Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (written about 215AD and speaks of tradition that Hippolytus received). The person being baptized is dunked three times – for the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Today when we baptize, we pour water on the persons head three times saying I baptize you in the Name of the Father (pour) and of the Son (pour) and of the Holy Spirit (pour). We are baptized into the singular name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is something that is attested to in Holy Scripture and it is what we have always done. If the Holy Spirit is not God, then we are baptizing someone into a creature, not into the Creator. If the Holy Spirit is not God, then he cannot bring us into all truth and cannot give us new life as we say the Holy Spirit does in the Nicene Creed.

Now, I’ve tried to keep the theological and historical part of this sermon as short as possible. I find it interesting and fascinating but many of us are more interested in the (big yawn) “so what?” question. What was that big deal about the iota? What does the Doctrine of the Trinity matter?

First, I would say it matters because it speaks to the ultimate nature of God. If God is not a Trinity of persons in unity of being, then we are worshipping a very false God. We are moving away from what is real to what is not real and that movement has eternal consequences for us. We need to understand God as He is (or at least understand Him as much as we are able). Second, the question has to be asked, “How are we saved?” The Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross has to be a pure sacrifice – it has to be an undeserved death, so it has to be made by a person without sin. God alone is without sin, so only God can put us right with God.

Finally, the Trinity points to one very important truth about God. God is, at his essence, Community. The inner life of God is a constant dance where each person gives himself to the other. Our society does not understand the need for community. We shut ourselves in our homes and surround ourselves with TV and computers and stuff in the hopes that we can generate for ourselves that sense of community that we long for. The internet is full of places where people try to form community, but don’t want to risk themselves in the process. That is not how we were designed to live. God designed us to live, not as individuals who exist for their own benefit and their own good, but as persons whose life together reflects the life of the Holy Trinity. We were designed to care more for the other persons in our community that we do for ourselves. But we are so blinded by our sins that we cannot see the need for or the benefit of caring for the others more than for ourselves, so we erect walls around ourselves and hide our selves from each other.

The first thing that God says about man is “It is not good for man to be alone.” Why not? Well, it is not good for the man to be alone because he is made in God’s image and God is not alone – God is community.

The Church, in addition to being the Body of Christ, is the place where we learn to live out the life of the Holy Trinity. Here is where we learn to care for others more than ourselves. This place is where we start to give of ourselves and find out that we receive much more than we give when we give. God designed us to live in community and to live by giving away our own life. Bishop Michael Marshall of England said (and I believe he was quoting someone else) that we were designed to love people and use things but we ended up loving things and using people. This place is where to start to undo all the damage that our society has done to us and that we have done to ourselves. Here is where we learn to love by following the example of God who “so loved the world that He gave is only son, that whoever believed in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

This passage from today’s Gospel actually points to my favorite image of the Trinity. We say that God is many things, but one of the most common we hear is that God is Love. Now too many people say that or hear that and hear “God is not judgmental” or “God doesn’t really care what I do because he loves me.” Those ideas are just as false as the two heresies I mentioned earlier. Love absolutely cares what the one loved does – right dad? As the recipient of loving discipline and as a father who attempts to give out loving discipline, I can say that love requires discipline.

But let’s get back to God being love. God is love. That is a true statement. Now, God is also unchanging. If God is love, then God has always been Love. Now Love is a verb. We normally don’t say “I have love for you” we say “I love you.” Love is what is called a “transitive verb.” It always requires an object. It is meaningless to say “I love.” I don’t love. I love someone or something. So if God is love and God alone is eternal, then there has to be an object of that love that is separate from the lover. That object of God’s love is God the Son. God the Father loves God the Son and always has. The Son loves the Father and always has. The Love that flows from the Father to the Son and back from the Son to the Father is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is Love personified. So, in the Trinity we have the Lover (God the Father), the Loved (God the Son) and the Love itself (God the Holy Spirit). All are separate, but all are required to have or to be love.

Today we celebrate the Holy Trinity. Today we celebrate that God loves us and the whole world so much that He became one of us – to share in our human nature so that he could share his divine nature with us. God calls us to reflect in our lives, His life within the Holy Trinity by living in community and by caring for each other more than we care for ourselves. This can be scary and frightening, but it is also the life we were designed to live. Will you join me in asking God to help us live that life and asking for the strength to let our lives reflect God’s life in the Holy Trinity?

In the Name of God: Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

Five Years Ago Today

2009-06-05T07:07:00.003-05:00

On 06/05/04 I (and three others) was ordained to the Sacred Order of Deacons in

Christ's One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Anniversaries are good times for reflections, so here are some of my reflections on beign a deacon?

First, I am still being formed as a Deacon. This is a life long process and I am sure every clergy person will tell you. How am I different today than I was five years ago? I am not so quick to step in. I urge others to step in so that they, too, can find the joy that comes from serving God by serving His people. I understand even better my role as a servant and as a minister. I represent Jesus and the Church to God's people outside and inside the Church. When I was first ordained, I thought that the locus of ministry for a deacon was mainly outside the Church. I now find that deacons minister inside the Church as well as outside the Church.

I also see authority differently. All authority that I have is given to me on a temporary basis. There is very little that I can demand to do and almost nothing I should insist on. I work for the Bishop and serve where and when he chooses. A great example of this came up last week. I had prepared a confirmation class and our Bishop Suffragan was making his first visit to St. James to baptize and confirm on Pentecost. However, there is a small congregation in one of Dallas' suburbs whose supply priest was not available and the diocese could not find another supply priest for Pentecost, so the Bishop sent me to do a Deacon's Administration from the Reserve Sacrament. I would have loved to be at my home parish to see the class I prepared and worked with since January be confirmed and take their place as ministers in the Church, but the Bishop had other needs and sent me to fulfill those needs. As an added bonus, I got a chance to preach on Pentecost! Deacons very rarely get to preach on major feast days.

As a deacon - and especially as a non-stipendary deacon - I stand with one foot in the Church and one in the secular world and I act as a sort of bridge between the Church and the world. I bring the concerns of the world to the attention of the Church (particularly in terms of prison ministry) and I bring the message of reconciliation from the Church to the lost and needy of the world.

In the past five years, I have been changed and I continue to be changed. I find great joy and satisfaction in my service. May God continue to form me as His deacon, servant, and minister.

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

The Reappraiser Method

2009-05-27T14:01:00.002-05:00

Over at the Creedal Christian, Fr. Owen is having a discussion on the difference between "Living the Question" and "Living the Answers."

I suggested that we use the "tried and true" method of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason (correctly defined) to investigate whether God blesses homosexual unions.

Unfortunately, TEC doesn't seem to be willing to to that. I first became "politically aware" within TEC during the debate on ordaining women. After looking at how the reappraisers (those who wish to change our theology and practice on a number of fronts) do things, I offer the following synopsis of the Reappraiser Method:

Pick a topic where society (or "our" society) and the Church are at odds (women in leadership, gender neutral language, homosexual sex).
Start to question the long held practice and faith of the Church
Since there are now those who question this aspect of the practice (minimize questioning the faith) of the Church, we are no longer of one mind on the issue.
Since we are no longer of one mind on the issue, we should be free to explore alternative views (minimize practice here)
We've explored many alternative views and believe that we should be free to, provisionally, allow for the practice of "x" (ordaining women, using inclusive language, blessing same sex unions). If the Church objects, do it anyway and dare the Church to discipline you.
If the Church fails to discipline you, continue to do what you are doing.
Point out that we, as Anglicans, believe that how we pray influences how we believe.
Since we (or a large number of us) are now praying "X" it is an authentic expression of the Faith of the Church.
Call those who will not go along with the innovation you propose "bigots" and point out that they are "old fashion" and not "keeping up with current thought." Minimize them and their influence.
Legalize the desired change in the canons.
Make the old practice (male only ordination) illegal in the Church.
Go back to step 1

Right now, womens' ordination has completed all eleven cycles. "Inclusive language" is somewhere in step 10. Blessing same sex unions (and ordaining those involved in such) is somewhere in step 9 and will probably reach 10 at the next General Convention.

This is NOT reflecting on scripture. tradition, and reason before acting. This is acting first and then getting political support for your actions prior to doing the required reflection and getting the Church to buy into what you are selling.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Sacramental Marriage

2009-05-20T15:14:00.004-05:00

In my last post I discussed civil marriage and how it has fallen in the eyes of society. I left off discssion of the religious aspects of marriage or the Sacrament of Marriage so as not to confuse the two issues.

Marriage is "the union of husband and wife in body, mind, and spirit." (BCP p. 423) It is not a partnership where each contributes 50% to the outcome. It is a union where each person surrenders to the other person completely (or as much as possible). As Holy Scripture says, the two become "one flesh." There are no longer two distinct people in a marriage - there is "one flesh."

I've heard some rather terrible marriage sermons in my time. The worst talk about a "partnership of equals" where "both need to work to make the marriage work." This makes marriage sound like a business plan, not a "union in body, mind, and spirit."

In the Church Catholic, Marriage is a "Sacrament" - "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as a sure and certain means by which we receive that grace." (BCP p. 857) In marriage, the minister of the sacrament is not the priest or clergy person officiating at the wedding ceremony. The ministers of the sacrament are husband and wife. The grace given is the grace to surrender your will to the combined will of the marriage - to seek your spouse's good above your own.

The Church blesses marriages, not because we like marriage or we like married people or because we want society ordered but because of these four reasons (BCP 423):

God Ordained marriage in Creation
Jesus adorned marriage by his presence and first miracle at the Wedding feast in Cana
Paul stated that marriage symbolizes the union between Christ and the Church
Holy Scripture commends marriage to be honored among all people.

Sacramental marriages work to conform to the images of marriage given in Holy Scripture. When it comes to blessing same sex unions, we have no biblical warrant for doing so. I have challenged many people who support the blessing of same sex unions (including our Presiding Bishop) and no one has been able to show me where any of the four reasons is true for same sex unions.

Until we can show, objectively, where God condones and blesses same sex unions, the Church lacks the authority to bless them, let alone call them "marriages."

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

Marriage - what is it?

2009-05-19T16:09:00.005-05:00

The comments on my previous post didn't really deal with the difference between fact (what we perceive to be) and truth (what does that mean). They dealt with marriage and what constitutes marriage.

For Christians living in the United States, there are two different kinds of "marriage." The first is legal marriage - marriage recognized by the state. This is where the state recognizes that the two (for now) people have entered into a special relationship where they share power of attorney and rights of survivorship. Spouses inherit without paying inheritance taxes (again, for now) and there are many legal benefits that a spouse enjoys (such as joint ownership of property aquired during the marriage, etc.)

There is also the religious marriage - or for you catholic types out there, the Sacrament of Marriage. I will discuss the religious aspects of marriage in another post. This post will be concerned simply with the secular institution of marriage.

Right now, both forms of marriage are under attack - primarily by heterosexuals who desire sexual freedom, but still want society's sanction for their lives.

So, what is marriage and why should the State give special priveleges to married couples
Marriage is supposed to be the life long union of husband and wife. Even civil marriages assume (or they used to assume) that the union was going to be life long. It was never designed to be "two people who love each other" or a temporary ("starter") union.

So why do I say that marriage is under attack? It is not under attack because of "gay marriage." Gay marriage is the result of downfall and failure of our culture to understand marriage, not the cause of the downfall of marriage.

Today almost 40% of all births occur outside of marriage and approx 50% of marriages end in divorce (this includes 2nd and 3rd marriages that have a much higher failure rate than 1st marriages).

We have changed marriage from a lifelong commitment to live together in sickness and health, till death do us part into a temporary commitment that we keep until a better offer comes along. We have changed the definition of "love" from caring for the other in good times and in bad times to an fleeting emotion of affection that affirms our personhood and contributes to our self-perceived psychological health. Anything that causes us to think less of ourselves can be (and should be) jetisoned from our lives like so much garbage.

We have turned marriage into a temporary partnership - much like a limited liability corporation where any party can leave the partnership at will - and, if you have a good enough lawyer - take the majority of the assets of the partnership with you!

I believe that it has been the unintended consequence of "no fault divorce" that led to the downfall of marriage as an institution. Our society now sees marriage as just another disposable item that can be discarded the moment it no longer meets our needs.

The natural consequence of marriage being disposable is that it is no longer really held in high regard. Too many in society simply don't care.

Into this culture comes the request of homosexual men and women to also have marriages where the state grants all the rights that they grant heterosexuals in marriage. With how our society now views "marriage" this is not unreasonable. In fact, it is perfectly reasonable.
So, why does the State give benefits to marriage? The State gives special privileges to married couples for two reasons. First, the family that starts out with husband and wife is (generally) the best place to raise children. Put in biological terms, the institution of marriage evolved as a trade off. The husband and wife promised mutual sexual fidelity to each other as a way of caring for the children and for the husband to insure that the children he provided for were his. This arrangement goes far back into time. The second reason is that stable partnerships are of great benefit to society. Health and wealth and happiness are all higher among married couples (especially long term married couples) than they are among similarly aged single or divorced persons. Society functions better when its members are happier, wealthier, and healthier. This alone should be a good reason for society to encourage (e.g. provide benefits for) marriage.

What I would like to see is for marriage to regain its place as a life long union - where it is difficult to get a divorce and where no-fault divorce is not allowed. Apart from this, the state could offer a "civil partnership" where any number (why should partners be restricted to two?) of adults can join in this partnership and gain some limited benefits - such as power of attorney, the right to inherit without taxes, the right to be covered by employer health insurance, etc. It should be rather easy to join into a CP and rather easy to get out of one.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Science and Religion and Blessing Same Sex Unions

2009-05-15T08:20:00.005-05:00

Augustine is quoted as saying of God "our hearts are resltess until they rest in Thee." I believe that is true. Every person is created by God and searches for ultimate meaning in their lives. This is basically a good thing because ultimate meaning can only find its fulfillment in the Ultimate Truth - God.

As a Christian, and as an ordained deacon Christ's one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church; I find ultimate truth to be the Holy and Undivided Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I know this Trinity because of God's self-revelation through Holy Scripture and because of the Second Person of the Trnity's incarnation in Jesus Christ - who described himself as "the way, the truth, and the life." (John 14:6)

Also, in my academic training, I have concentrations in science and math with a degree in Information Systems. In mathematics, I was trained to "prove" postulates and theorems. I was also trained in logical thinking and algorithm development (an algorithm is a step by step process to solve a problem in a finite number of unambiguous steps).

One of the reasons given for offering blessings of same sex unions (and ordaining men or women involved in same sex unions) is that science has "proven" that sexual orientation (at least for men) is not something that is chosen by the person. It is something that is, often, determined prior to birth. Now, I don't know that science has conclusively proven that sexual orientation is something determined prior to birth or shortly there after or if sexual orientation is deterministic at all. However, let's assume it is for the sake of argument.

The argument runs thus: Since people do not seem to have a choice in their sexual orientation, it must follow that they are created this way by God and, since God does not create sin, sexual orientation must not be sinful. Since the orientation is not sinful, then the physical expression of that orientation (within perscribed limits such as mutual monogamy and life long) must not be sinful. Since heterosexual expression is not sinful within marriage, homosexual expression must not be sinful within its marriage analog (or within marriage).

There are at least two problems with that statement. First is the definition of marriage, but that is another post. The second, and the one I want to tackle here, is that the reappraisers confuse "fact" with "truth." Facts are things that are. Human beings have two ears and one mouth. That is a fact. The Truth, on the other hand, describes the meaning behind the facts. We were designed to listen twice as much as we speak. That is a truth statement.

The problem here is that science and religion ask and answer very different questions. Science asks "what" and "how." Religion asks "who" and "why." When it comes to sexual orientation, science can speak to what and it is beginning to explain the how of orientation. But it still cannot proclaim the expression of that sexual orientation to be "good" or even morally neutral. That is the job for faith and religion.

Too many of our clergy and leaders in TEC today have made the enlightenment error of confusing "fact" and "truth." They seem to believe that because something "is" it is "good." They forget that all of creation is fallen and almost all of the things that are, are twisted out of their original design - sexuality included.

So, how do we know the "truth" rather than just the facts? The truth is known through the One who is the Truth - Jesus Christ. We look at God's self revelation in Holy Scripture and in Holy Tradition and we look at the reasoning of the whole Church on an issue. On this issue, Scripture, Tradtion, and reason are all in agreement that sexual expression is to be limited to the insitution of marriage - which is one man and one woman for life.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Another Update on Leila and Andrew

2009-05-09T15:11:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry that it has been a while since I updated you all on Leila and Andrew.

Leila is still in the hospital. It seems that the diagnosis of brain death was premature and she has started taking breaths on her own. This is a very traumatic time for the family. Please keep Leila in your prayers that God's will will be made known to the family and to the doctors and medical team that care for her. Also pray for the family (Jesus, Elaine, John, and Andrew, specifically) that they be given the grace to come through this nightmare and be brought closer to God and to each other.

On Friday, May 8th, we buried Melissa. She is a wonderful woman who loved Jesus and we know that she is now with her Lord. While the Communion of Saints is not part of her tradition, I know that Melissa is praying for her family while she is with our Lord in Heaven.

Please continue to pray for this situation. I admit that I am torn between praying for a complete and miraculous healing and for God to bring Leila home so that the family can have closure to this situation. Since I cannot choose between them, I pray for both outcomes and, above all, that I will know how to pray and that my will will be made one with God's will.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

What can you not do without

2009-05-05T21:25:00.002-05:00

Over at his blog, The Creedal Christian, Fr. Bryan Owen submits that the only thing that is certain in this life is the Love of Jesus Christ. As a person who loves to quibble, I would say that it is the Love of God, made known by Jesus Christ - the incarnate Word of God.

That got me to thinking about an exercise I did as part of a Cursillo team a number of years ago. I don't remember the priest's name, but that is probably a good thing. Good priests (like good deacons) are memorable for what they teach and how they live, not for their name or fame.

I would ask that you try this at home as you read this post.

First mentally draw a circle around yourself. Put everything you like to have inside the circle and then everything you don't like about yourself or your life outside the circle.

Next, draw a smaller circle and included only the things you feel necessary to life and love - exclude everything else.

Finally, draw a still smaller circle and put into it the one thing you cannot do without.

My brothers and sisters. If that one thing in the smallest circle with you is your family or your spouse or your job or your home or your children or anything other than Jesus Christ (or the Holy Trinity), then you are guilty of idolatry. That may sound harsh, but it is the truth.

God does not want part of us and will not be satisified with 10% of our lives. God wants all of us. God wants us to surrender ourselves to Him completely and totally. This surrender takes time and effort. At times it is very joyous as we are relieved of a burden we didn't know we were carrying. At times it can seem like a little death as we surrender something that we love about ourselves. As Thomas Merton said, we tend to surrender to God last those things we love about ourselves most.

Ask yourself - what have you not yet surrendered to God?

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Is it True vs Does it Work?

2009-05-04T21:20:00.003-05:00

As Americans, we are often accused of "materialism." I believe that is a false accusation. Our art and architecture is simply too ugly to be materialist. Most of our large buildings are glass boxes with variations on a utilitarian shape and function. Our consumer goods are generally not ornate. Functional utilitarianism is the norm in our designs.

No, we are not materialists. Americans are functionalists consumers. We are concerned with what something does for or to us. We are generally very self focused.

Our approach to religion and faith is the same as our approach to consumer goods. We are always looking for "the better deal." Just as we want maximum reward for minimum input when purchasing a car or computer, we also want the maximum spiritual reward for minimum input. It seems that too many people want to be "spiritual" but are looking for the shortest path to spirituality.

The result of this functionalism and consumerism is that those who want to find a spiritual home often move from congregation to congregation or denomination to denomination looking for a church family that suits them. They look for a good music program or nice preaching or beautiful or simple liturgy. The look for a vibrant and fun youth group with "cool" youth ministers.

And, just as we have no problem owing both a Toyota and a GM at the same time, we also don't have a real problem with mixing and matching our religious doctrines to suit ourselves. It sounds so nice to say that everyone goes to heaven. It sounds so good to say that God wants us to be happy and rich. As a consumer, I can pick this part of Christianity and that part of Buddhism and this other part from society to form a "unified" whole that fits me. The question that we ask is not "is it true?" The question we ask all too often is "Does it work for me?"

One of Satan's greatest victories is to get us to stop focusing on eternal truth. This occurred because of the Eternal Truth that we each understand the Truth a little differently. So, there is a certain element of "my truth" and "your truth." Earlier people also believed that each person understood the Truth a little differently. But they still agreed that there was objective Truth and that the measure of a good argument was how close it came or how much better it showed the Truth.

Today, too many people don't believe in Objective Truth. They are only concerned with "how's that working for you?" Instead of Bishop Fulton Sheen or the Rev. Billy Graham speaking to us about sin and redemption and eternal life, we now have Dr. Phil and Oprah asking us to see how this works.

So, we devise our own religions that "work" for us. We don't ask anyone else to follow our religion or our spirituality. We even have religious leaders willing to tell us that we can do this because to do otherwise would be "inauthentic" to our "true selves."

This is American Religion. We no longer are concerned with Truth because functionality is so much easier to measure. It doesn't require a lot of skull sweat to determine if something works for us (defined as makes us feel better about ourselves). It doesn't require changing a lot in our lives and it certainly doesn't require that we die to self. In fact, consumerists spirituality is the ultimate celebration of the self!

Jesus did not come to make us feel better about ourselves. He did not come to increase our self-esteem or to bring us to self-actualization. Jesus Christ came to help us die to ourselves so that we can be raised to new life.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Update on Leila and Andrew

2009-04-29T12:53:00.005-05:00

I received word that it looks like Leila will not live. Her head injury was just too great.
The cup we are give is very bitter, but God will help us to drink it and will use it to nourish us in the long run.

Sometimes there is no "why." Why her? I don't know. Why Melissa? I don't know. Why does Jesus (Leila's father) have to endure this? I don't know. Why does Elaine have to lose both her children to tragic accidents? I don't know.

I do know that God did not cause this accident to teach us something. I do know that neither Jesus, Melissa, Elaine, nor Leila did anything special to deserve this. God does not cause tragedy to teach us.

But God can teach us in tragedy. There is nothing that God cannot redeem. I believe that the greatest jewels in our heavenly crown will be made out of the tragedies of our lives - if we turn them over to God.

Into thy hands, O merciful Savior, we commend thy child, Leila. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech thee, a sheep of thine own fold, a lamb of thine own flock, a sinner of thine own redeeming. Receive her into the arms of thy mercy. Amen.

May Leila's soul rest in peace and may it rise in Glory!

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Please pray for Jesus, Elaine, John, and their entire families (including me and my wife).

On Prayer

2009-04-28T19:35:00.002-05:00

Given my last post, prayer has taken on a greater focus in my life. Especially praying for unlikely outcomes. I believe (I faith) that God can perform a miracle and bring to full health even the dead.

I pray as I am able and I pray for what I want. In Leila's example, I want a complete healing for her and for her family.

But, following the example of our Lord, I also pray that God's will be done. What I deem may be best for the family (Leila's health) may not be what God knows is best or what is God's will. I do not belive that God will's our deaths or our pains. But God does will us joy and presence with Him.

So, how then should I pray? Should I pray for the miracle? Should I pray for God's will to be done? Should I pray that I come to understand God's will in any given matter?

As an Anglican, my answer to those questions is yes! I pray that God grant us a miracle. that God will intervene and bring Leila to full health and wholeness. I pray that no one will be able to deny the healing that only God can give and that others are brought to deeper faith in God through His power working on Leila and her brother. This is my intercession and my petition. In this prayer, I ask for God to work in and through us. Here is where I make my will known to God. I ask that this cup pass us by - the cup we are drinking is already sufficiently bitter.

I also pray that God will do what He knows is best for us - that His perfect will be known to us and be effected in our lives. This is the prayer of submission. Here I humbly accept that God knows better for me than I do and that He knows better for Leila and her family than I do. I submit myself to God's will. This is where I say that I will drink the cup and drain it to the dregs if that is what God wants me to do.

I also pray that I may understand God's will in this matter. I pray that, no matter what God does, that I can see where it is best for Leila, her family, my family, and me. This where where I ask God to help me drink the cup and help others drink it too (as necessary).

The cup our Lord drank on those Three Days was bitter and terrible. It was filled with pain, sin, anger, and hatred. But, out of the dregs of that cup came salvation for all who believe.

I don't know what the cup before me contains - let alone what the cup before my family contains. I don't know if it will be sweet or bitter. But I do know that God can and will use this cup before me to bring me closer to Him.

Pray that I will have the grace to minister to my extended family and help them to see that the cup will be nourishing to their souls if they ask God to help them drink it.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

2009-04-27T22:34:00.005-05:00

This afternoon, my family was hit with a tragedy.

Elaine, my sister-in-law (my wife's brother's wife) lost her daughter, Melissa, in a tragic car accident. Three years and two weeks ago, Elaine lost her son in another car accident.

On top of losing her two children to tragic accidents, her grand daughter, Leila (age 2), was seriously injured in the accident. She has massive head trauma and her brain is swelling. Also, the neurologist said that Leila's CT Scan showed a brain suffering from oxygen deprivation, so it is likely that Leila will not recover fully even if she survives the brain trauma. That way that the doctor talked, it seems likely that Leila will also die as a result of the accident.

Please pray for Leila - that God would work a miracle and bring healing and health to her.
Please pray for Jesus, Leila's father who just lost his wife and is looking at losing is baby girl.
Please pray for Andrew (age 5), Leila's brother, who was also injured in the accident but is not facing life threatening injuries - just broken bones and those heal.
Please pray for Elaine and John (Elaine's husband) as they face this tragedy together.
Please keep the entire Snyder, Poindexter, and Juarez families in your prayer for the next several days. I will send an update when I have more information.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Update - 4/28/2009 - I spoke with the family earlier today. Leila's prognosis is unchanged, but she is showing some responsiveness and they've reduced the pressure inside her skull. Andrew had a bit of a rough night as the pain meds wore off. They are trying to get him scheduled for surgery to set his bones today, but that my not work out. Please continue your prayers. - pls.

Update #2 - 4/28/2009 - I just spoke with my wife who is at the hospital with her family. Andrew had surgery today to set his legs and (I assume) his pelvis. The surgery went well and they are managing his pain. Please continue to pray for Andrew's recovery along with a miracle for Leila. - pls

Forrester and the Ordination Process

2009-04-25T07:39:00.002-05:00

A blog post by Greg Griffith at Stand Firm shows that Bishop elect Forrester re-wrote the liturgy for Baptism and for the Eucharist for Easter, 2008. I am not going to do a point by point reffutation of what Forrester has written. Others have done that much better than I (see here for a great example).

I think he is trying to be true to the faith as he understands it and THAT IS THE MAJOR PROBLEM IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH TODAY.

For the past several decades, we have stopped doing the hard work of discernment in our ordination process for deacons and priests. The majority of dioceses no longer concern themselves with trying to verify that the Aspirant has any formation as a Christian - that (s)he understands and can articulate the faith in a way that shows they can form other Christians - before sending the aspirant off to seminary.

During the years at seminary, too many postulants and candidates are not interviewed to verify that they still hold, understand, and can articulate the faith. Too many are sent to seminary because they can successfully negotiate The Process (queue dramatic chord), not because they have a valid call to be priests and have received sufficient formation in the lay order before moving on to academic formation for the clerical order. Not having a good grounding in the faith, they are unprepared to discern between wheat and chaff in what they learn academically. In order to make good grades in seminary, they start writing papers that get good grades and they start to believe what they write.

My dad was ordained in the 1980s and he told me "If you can get out of seminary with your faith intact, you should be ordained because seminary will test your faith like nothing else." I believe there is a lot of truth to that, but too many bishops, COMs, and standing committees don't seem to check that last part - that the person believes the Faith, understands the Faith, and can teach the Faith.

What we have substituted instead is Process. Step 1, meet with the Bishop (or representative). Step 2, jump through the hoops put out by the COM etc. We have substituted process for discernment. We have substituted subjective "I sense a call" for objective "John understands the faith and can articulate and teach it."

Now, I have nothing against the Ordination Process per se. I learned an great deal about ministry and about the faith during my discernment process and my ordination process. I had a lot of my assumptions challenged and I am very glad that I went through the process. But (and this is a huge) the COM and the Standing Committee both asked me questions concerning my understanding of the faith and challenged me on several issues. They did their jobs.

One problem I see now in TEC is that too many priests and deacons lack the basic formation as Christians, let alone priests and deacons. And it is from the Priests that we take our Bishops. We have too many people in positions of authority and influence that are not willing to tell a nice person "no" if they don't understand the Faith, can't explain it, and can't teach it.

Jesus Christ did not defeat death to make us nice. Jesus Christ defeated death so that we could die with him and be raised to new life. I wish more priests and deacons (and bishops) would understand and teach that.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Prayer Request

2009-04-23T09:45:00.003-05:00

My life has been more full than normal.

I am in the midst of a major project at work that is consuming my nights and weekends. The last several weeks have been spent thusly:

1. March 29 - 2 mock go-lives run. Kairos team meeting all day Saturday, another mock go live over the weekend.

2. April 5 - Holy week. I spent the afternoon at work. We had a Mass of Colegiality and Renewal of Vows on Tuesday, a Seder at Church on Wednesday, Maundy Thursday (I preached), Good Friday, and the Great Vigil. Saturday was spent catching up on all the work I could not get done on the Wednesday or Thursday evening or when I was preparing my Thursday Sermon and my Kairos Talk.

3. April 12 - Easter Week. I went straight from Holy Week/Easter Day to Kairos on Wednesday afternoon thru the following Sunday. I had to solve a work problem via the phone on Thursday.

4. April 19 - This is go-live week. I've spent every night in front of the computer trying to solve last minute problems. I will miss the Kairos followup this weekend because of go-live.

5. Next week will be post go-live support.

When this project is over, I am going to have a nervous breakdown. I've worked for it. I've earned it. And no one will deprive me of it. :)

Please pray that I will be given the strength and wisdom to complete the tasks assigned to me.

Please pray that my team and customer have a successful upgrade and conversion and that their new system provides what they need to effectively and efficiently run their business.

Also, please pray for the Kairos family of St. John at Coffield as they meet this weekend. Pray that they will continue to be overwhelmed by God's agape love and that those who did not make a decision to follow Jesus will do so.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Serving God

2009-04-20T08:59:00.002-05:00

As I just returned from a Kairos prison ministry weekend, I was struck by the great amount of service that many volunteers give.

I am faithful in my Kairos ministry. I go to the reunions (making about 9-10 a year) and serving 1-2 Kairos weekends a year (depending on the date of the fall weekend - they often schedule the fall weekend for Coffield on the same weekend as Diocesan Convention). But I am not as faithful a servant as many others in Kairos. Duncan (my table leader this weekend) serves two units and is active in AA and other ministries. Jim and Gary serve as volunteer chaplains and spend many weekends and weekday evenings at the unit.

One problem with too many in the Church today is that they want Jesus as savior, but not as Lord. They want to worship, but not to serve. Or, as a friend of mine once put it, a lot of people want to serve God - they just want to serve Him as advisors.

When you look at your life, ask yourselve how Jesus is manifested as Lord in your life. Where is your obedience to your Lord? Where is your service to your Lord? Having Jesus as Savior is rather easy. Having Jesus as Lord is much more difficult. During the Great 50 Days, has yourself how Jesus is Lord is manifest in your life and how you can show it forth.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Kairos - Thank You For Your Prayers

2009-04-20T08:40:00.004-05:00

I am very tired - but it is a good tired. I got home from Kairos #27 at Coffield at about 8:30 last night. I was so stoked that I didn't get to sleep until about 11:00 - although I went to bed at 9:30pm.

I hosted two participants. A host's job in Kairos is to be a friend and contact for the weekend. I met my participants for cookies, fruit, and coffee each morning and checked on them during the day.

Thursday started slow (as is normal).

Friday, my participants opened up a little bit. One described himself as one with one foot in the Church and one in the world. The other one was very reserved and said he didn't really need other people.

I gave the "Friendship with God" talk on Friday in which we showed the men that God isn't looking for them to sin, but is reaching out to them for a relationship with them. I also gave a quick homily on Isaiah 49 - where God says that He has inscribed us on His hands.

Saturday, I had the joy of hearing an inmate's confession of faith in Jesus Christ as he said he was tired of fighting and being defeated. He accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

Sunday, one of the two participants I was hosting also made a confession of faith and accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The other participant I was hosting also made a confession of faith to his family leader.

Please continue to pray for the men. Particularly the men who I heard either commit for the first time or recommit. Pray for Robert, Jessie A., Jessie T, Albert, Beck, Steven, and Juan.

There is one man who pointedly did not commit to Jesus, but said he would think about it. "Joe" is a rather intellectual person who is well read and philosophy and theology. I didn't get a chance to talk with him too much, but his father was an Odinist (Norse Pagan) and both his father and grand father spent significant time in prison. Pray that God would enlighten Joe's heart and mind to understand the His truth.

Again, thank you for the prayers and support for the weekend. While the struggles of TEC are many (and one of the Coffield Chaplains joked with me about TEC and its struggles), they pale in comparison to the work of reaching the lost and forgotten with the reconciling love of God and His power to make all things new. If only TEC's leadership knew the love of God and submitted to His will. But it is infinitely harder to convince those that think they are saved that they need salvation. Those who know they are lost already know their need.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Which Jesus will you follow?

2009-04-01T10:40:00.003-05:00

There has been a lot written and read and said about The Rev. Forrester's elevation to the Episcopate. Many are concerned that He is a "Buddhist Christian" because he practices Zen Buddhist meditation techniques. Many are concerned that his (s)election process was uncanonical and some are concerned about his Christology and Theology.

Also in the news is the impending deposition of Ann Holmes Reading for trying to be both a practicing Muslim and an Episcopal Priest.

The problem is not just with them. While both are responsible for their beliefs and actions, they are also the results of formation gone very wrong.

Too many clergy that I've read about or corresponded with and too many "liberal" or reappraising books I've read speak Jesus as a person who is just like us, but knows God's love for him much more than we do. In their theology, Jesus is simply a person with hightened spiritual awareness.

This Jesus is very attractive to many people. He shows that we, too, can aspire to special divinity by becoming mor aware of our natural divinity as children of God.

The problem is that this Jesus doesn't require our death. This Jesus doesn't require a whole lot from us. This Jesus doesn't judge us or himself. If we are divine, then there is no judgement.

This Jesus has the power of a warm fuzzy. Something that makes us feel good about ourselves and about our lives, but doesn't change us.

You have a choice in which Jesus you will follow. Will you follow the Jesus - the Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father - the Second Person of the Trinity complete both in human nature and in divine nature - the unique Incarnation who suffered and died for us to reconcile us to God and then rose victorious from the grave after defeating death and sin? Will you come and die with Jesus so you can be raised in New Life and participate in his victory over sin and death?

Or will you follow Jesus the warm fuzzy. Will you let this Jesus make you nice and a warm fuzzy yourself?

Warm fuzzies are not stronger than death.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

It's Kairos Time Again!

2009-03-24T16:16:00.002-05:00

Once again, I will be part of a team that will be visiting Jesus in Prison. From April 16th through April 19t, I will be in the Coffield Unit in Texas visiting our Lord and spreading His message of love, reconciliation, and the call to be made new among 42 inmates.

For the people that may read this, I have a request. I know many of you are interested in things concerning the Episcopal Church. There are those who disagree with me and those who agree with me on what should happen in TEC and the Anglican Communion. I am asking that we set these things aside and commit to pray for the 42 inmates at Coffield that will be participating in the Kairos weekend.

If you will pray for the weekend, please leave a comment here with your actual name (first name is suffiient) and the city and country in which you will be praying.

We write the names on strips of paper and then form those strips into a "prayer chain." We wrap that chain around the place where we are holding the weekend as a visible reminder to the team that Prayer is what sustains and upholds us in ministry and to the inmates as a visible reminder that thousands of people from around the world are praying for them.

Please add your name to those who will pray for the men at Coffield.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

A Break - with music

2009-03-11T21:03:00.002-05:00

The last week and a half has been busier than most - thus the lack of blog posts. I had to prepare a Lay Eucharistic Minister (actually a Lay Eucharistic Visitor) retreat, prepare a sermon, do my normal work, get my son prepared for a Weblos Woods campout, gather charitas (letters of encouragement and evidence of prayer) for my Daughter as she went to her first Happening (like Cursillo or Walk to Emmaus, but for High School students).

So, I let the blog posting on the Seven Deadly sins subside for a bit.

In between time (and as a good Lenten break that reminds us that God's Grace is what saves us), I offer this rendition of Amazing Grace.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Deadly Sins - Pride (Part 1)

2009-03-03T18:58:00.002-06:00

Perhaps the root of all sin is the sin of Pride. Pride is putting one's self in the place of God. It is making decisions as if you were God or acting as if God's plan and your plan are the same. When I am honest with myself, I will admit that all too often God's voice sounds like my own; God's plan is to make my happy now and God's will is just what I want.

Being the root of all sin; pride is, perhaps, the most deadly of sins. Like all sin, pride brings darkness to our lives and our souls so that we are no longer even aware of the extent of our sins. We may intellectually know of our sins, but we do not know them. We do not own them. We don't really feel that the "memory of them is grevious to us. The burden of them is intollerable."

Following St. Augustine's Prayer Book, Pride is putting yourself in the place of God as the center of our lives (or some part of our lives) or the object of our love. Pride refuses to recognize our status as creatures who are dependent on God for our lives and everything around us. Pride shows itself in several, often subtle, ways

Irreverence - Neglect of woship of God every Sunday in His Church or being content with a perfunctory participation in worship. Disregard of Holy Days or additional opportunities for giving God honor. Failure to thank God or to express our gratitude adequately. Disrespect for God or for holy things by deliberatly treating them (in thought, word, or deed) in profane, contemptous or an overly-familiar manner. Use of holy things for personal advantage or the attempt to bribe or placate God by religious practices or promises.

Sentimentality - Being satisfied with pious feelings and beautiful ceremonies withouth striving to obey God's will.

Presumption - Dependence on self rather than on God. Neglecting the means of Grace - sacraments, prayer, and study. Dispensation of ourselves from ordinary duties on the grounds that we are "above that." Satisfaction or complacency over our spiritual achievements (or even taking credit for our spiritual achievements). Refusal to avoid, when possible, immediate occasions of temptation. Preference for our own will, ideas, or plans. Foolish optimism. Failure to recognize our work as a divine vocation or to offer our work to God. Unwillingness to surrender to Jesus or to abide in him. Failur to offer to intercede for others - especially those who have asked our prayers.

Distrust - Refusal to accept God's wisdome, providence, and love. Worry, anxiety, misgivings, overly scrupulousness or perfectionism. Attempts to discern or control the future through any means. Supersticion is a form of distrust.
Over-sensitiveness. Expectation that otherswill dislike, reject, or mistreat us. Being too quick to take offense at others actions or words.
Timidity in accepting responsibility or cowardice in facing difficulty. Surrendering to feelings of gloom, depression, pessimism, discouragement, self-pity instead of fighting and praying for courage and hope.

When I look at this (partial list), I tremble at my own sin. I see myself far too often in this list. I plead with Paul "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" And, I rejoice with him in the answer: "Thanks be to God in Jesus Christ!"

The whole point of an examination of conscience is not to run ourselves down or to feel bad about ourselves, but to know our own sinfulness and then offer that to God and ask for forgivness and amendment of life.

Pride hide our sins from us. Pride leads to the dark and damp place in our souls in which sin grows like mold and mildew. Confession is the God's ultraviolate light shining on the mold and bringing it to nothingness. I urge you to make a private confession at least once during this Lent.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Deadly Sins - Anger

2009-03-02T18:39:00.003-06:00

For the next few days, I plan to discuss each of the Seven Deadly Sins. Because it is first in the list below, I will start with Anger. Note, for each of these sins, I will use, as a base, the Examination of Conscience found in Saint Augustine's Prayer Book (revised edition, 1967). That is the best resource I've found for an examination of conscience.

Many people confuse the sin of Anger with emotional anger and they make two mistakes. The first (and probably the most common) is to dismiss the sin of Anger by saying that you are simply experiencing the emotion and, after all, Jesus got angry and drove the money changers out of the temple. The second mistake is to refuse the emotion of anger and not deal with the causes - whether they are external or internal. This can cause significant emotional harm if done for some length of time. A person will often hide or swallow or ignore the anger and let it build until he lashes out at something rather minor - say getting cut off in traffic or having someone else take the parking spot you were waiting for first.

The sin of Anger is self-focused. It is open rebellion against God or other persons in order to remove obstacles (real or imagined) that come between our selves and our wills. It retaliates to any threat to our security, avenges insults and seeks redress of wrongs - normally in our favor.

There are different types of anger. Resentment is the refusal to discern, accept, or fulfill God's vocation for you. Resentment leads to dissatisfaction with your God-given talents, opportunities, or abilities. It can lead to unwillingness to face up to difficulties or sacrifices required by God to fulfill your vocation. Resentment leads to transferring blame to God, our parents, or families, our bosses or anyone else for the reasons behind our failures. Resentment shows itself in cynicism, profanity, grumbling and a desire to escape from reality.

Pugnacity is an attack upon another in anger. It can be physical, emotional, or spiritual. Murder by desire (and remember, that saying "you fool" or "raca" is murder by desire) or deed. Striking another, cursing another, insulting another, or damaging an other's reputation by words and deeds. Arguing, bickering, contradicting others to get your own point across, being rude or snubbing others are all forms of pugnacity. It is more than just hitting another, it is the desire or will to cause harm to others. It can be shown in praying for the ill of another person - even when in the form of praying to help others. One of Satan's favorite tricks with pugnacity is to rub the salt of injuries into your wounds even when you are on your knees. Does this sound familiar to anyone but me? "Dear God, please help XXX see the error of his ways. Let him know how much he hurt me by betraying me and lying to me. Let him seek your forgiveness for his sins."

Another form of Anger is Retaliation. It is vengeance (actual or planned) for wrongs real or imagined. It is giving excessive punishment out of a desire to hurt, not discipline. Hostility, sullenness, and rash judgment. Refusal to forgive or to offer or accept reconciliation. Unwillingness to love your enemies, to seek their good or to pray for them. Retaliation shows itself in ostracising others and getting others to join you in cutting someone off from the group to make you feel better. Putting others down so you can feel better about yourself. Refusing to join in the groups activities simply because you did not get your way. Feeling superior to others.

Now, how can we tell if we are experiencing the emotion of anger or the sin of anger. Close and honest examination is required. Normally if you are angry at a slight you have experienced, you are moving into the sin area. If you are angry at the plight of others, they you are probably not sinning as much.

Anger is a natural (fallen nature, of course, but still natural) emotion. We experience it all the time. What do we do about it? How can we stop at the emotion and not move into the sin?

The key to diminishing our anger is forgiveness. Refusal to take offense at the slights (real or imagined) and forgiving others when they do offend us is the best defense. When I am working in prison and discussing forgiveness with the inmates (and even team members) I always say that forgiveness is the easiest and hardest thing we will ever do. We often don't want to forgive. But God commands us to forgive and we ask to be forgiven in the same way we forgive others. Can you imagine how much trouble we would be in if God answered the Lord's Prayer "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" with "Yes, in the same way your forgive others, I will forgive you."

Forgiveness does not come naturally. It takes work and prayer. But it is also easy. All that God really requires us to do is say: "God, I am very angry at this person. I don't want to forgive him. But You ask me to and I want to be obedient to You. Please, Lord, help be to forgive. Help me to see XXX the same way you see him. Help me to love him as you love me."

During this period of Lent, make a list of all the people who make you angry. Write down their names. Then, pray the prayer above for each of them and offer them to God. Every day, ask for help in forgiving them. Ask God to take your anger and substitute His forgiveness and agape love.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The next sin - Pride (part 1)

Deadly Sins

2009-02-27T09:54:00.005-06:00

In Catholic theology, we talk about the Seven Deadly Sins. Human's love to catorigize and lable so that things are easire to deal with. Anyway, the seven deadly sins can easily be remember by a wonderful acronmyn (and being a computer programmer by trade and the son of an Air Force Officer by birth, I love acronyms). Fr. Doug Travis taught me this acronym: APESLAG.

Anger
Pride
Envy
Sloth
Lust
Avarice
Gluttony

I had often wondered what it is about sin that leads to death. We all know that the wages of sin is death. We all know that Sin do not coexist. So, why does God hate sin so much? What is it about sin that causes God to cast us away from Himself?

When I was in college, I often wondered about death and hell. What was just about God condemning a man to eternity of punishment for 70 or 80 or even 100 years of sins - no matter how heinous the sins were? How could I reconcile God's justice and love with this rather imbalanced equation (100 years of sin = eternity of punishment).

I prayed and asked questions. Perhaps the most important work for me on this subject was C. S. Lewis' book The Great Divorce. In it, Lewis sees people making the same choices that keep the from heaven and he sees a few leave hell. It is a wonderful book on the nature of time and eternity.

Another book that was instrumental to my image of sin and hell was Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Inferno. It is a "rewrite" of Dante's Inferno, but updated for the 20th Century. (As an aside, they have a sequel out, Escape From Hell, which is wonderful as well.) There is one scene that showed me a possible reason for hell. The protagonist of the story (Allen Carpenter, a science fiction author), sees a psychiatrist in the pit of Falsifiers and Counterfiters. The psychiatrist tells the story of putting a catatonic in a hot box until the catatonic reacted and when they got to box up to 130 degrees, the catatonic said his first worsd in sixteen years: "Get me the f$%# out of here!" The story continues:

The mad eyes found me, and his face seemed to cae in. The cherubic
smile vanished. Urgently he said, "Get me the f$%# out of here!"

I reasoned the same as Niven and Pournelle - that Hell was Heaven's insane asylum. Like Lewis, I thought it possible to leave Hell (at which point it becomes purgatory). Now I don't know if that is true or not and I have no real desire to find out personally, but I like the idea.

Now, what is it about Sin that causes us to enter Hell? What causes us to be judged?
When I think of sin as part of our nature - our ontology or our being rather than specific acts, I get a better idea. Sin is living or thinking as if God does not exist. Sin takes us away from God, not because God sends us away, but because It is virtually impossible to reach your destination by stearing away from it. Sin is not just rebellion against God, it is acting as if you are God yourself and God Himself does not exist. Sin is unreality. Sin is death because it takes us away from the Author of Life Himself - God. The Seven Deadly Sins are so labled because they cause us to deviate from the Path that God set for us to reach Him.

There are two correctives for sin. First, of course, is confession. Naming your sin and confessing it and taking responsibility for it and receiving God's forgiveness is a wonderful and freeing exercise. The second, and more permanent is to be made new. To be filled with God's grace and to have our new life operate within us so that we sin less and less.

Over the next several days, we will discuss each of the Seven Deadly Sins in more detail.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The First "A" - Anger

What a Difference a Comma Makes

2009-02-26T11:18:00.002-06:00

I remember a story by John Neuhouse that I read in "First Things" several years ago. He walked into a Church and saw a banner that read

GOD IS OTHER PEOPLE!

Now, I affirm that we often serve God by serving other people. I am a deacon and find that the most fulfilling ministry I do is not at the Altar (although I love the Altar). The most fulfilling ministry I do is in the prison or at the Sunday School class. I find that I serve God best by serving His people - even if those people deny that they belong to God (especially if they deny they belong to God!). If you want to serve God, go among His people and serve them in God's name. Go to a homeless shelter, a prison, a soup kitchen, a resale shop. Teach Sunday School, help clean up after a church dinner. Join a yard team to keep the church grounds neat. Join a mobile yard team that cuts the grass of elderly or disabled people who cannot afford to pay someone to cut their grass. By looking in the face of the poor, the oppressed, the sick, prisoners, and the like, we see the face of God. To know God, know His people.

Fr. Neuhouse wanted to change the banner slightly. He wanted to put a comma in it.

GOD IS OTHER, PEOPLE!

This shows us that God is not like us. God is utterly Other. We are not God. To know God, know that you are not Him and neither is anyone else. To know God, know that you know nothing yourself. To know God, you must seek Him to reveal Himself to you. To know God, we must hear the "still small voice" the Elijah heard. To know God, we must wait for Him.

Now, as an Anglican, I affirm both statements. I know that serving other people is serving God. And I know that other people are not God. I am called to serve them. But they are not God. Only God is God. I cannot put their needs ahead of God's needs because they often don't know their need. They "need" power, drugs, money, affirmation, food, shelter. What they really need is Jesus (along with food, shelter, and God's love). This Lent I call you to seek God's face in the face of the poor around us. I also call you to seek God's face in prayer and meditation. Know God in other people and Know God as other, people!

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

What does God want?

2009-02-26T08:29:00.005-06:00

In Moral Theology classes (and in college bs sessions) we often asked ourselves what God was more interested in. Was God more interested in what we do or in why we do it? In other words, is it better to do the wrong thing for the right reason or the right thing for the wrong reason? Let's take these one at a time and see if we can some how solve this dilema.

It is it better to behave righteously because of selfish motives.
This thought says that God is more interested in what we do than why we do it. It acknowledges that our motives are almost never pure.

Let's take a specific case that is rather easy to resolved - one with both pure and selfish motives. When I go to prison, I often get my own needs met in addition to meeting the needs of others. I feel good about myself and the work I do. I feel pride in it and I get a boost of "self-esteem" when others say what a great or good man I am because of my prison work. I confess that part of the reason I am involved in prison ministry is because of the feelings and accolades I receive. I also am involved because I believe that God wants me there and because I see a great need to help the lost find what they are looking for in Jesus Christ. But my motives are not pure. Would God rather me wait until my motives are pure? I doubt it. I believe that God wants me to do the work and to offer my selfish motives to Him so that He can make them pure.

Now, let's take a slightly different case. I am a glutton. I love food and use food as a drug far too often. Now, I often will say "no" to dessert or seconds when I am with others - not because I believe that the excess food is bad for me but because I want the others to think I am trying to work on my weight. Is God pleased with my "no" when I say it only to look better to others? I do not believe so. I believe that God is not please with my relationship with food - even when I refuse.

I don't think we can always say that God is please when we do the right thing for the wrong reasons.

It is better to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
This statement says that God is more concerned with motives than with actions. It states that God would rather we sin if that sin is what we were convinced was the right thing to do. The problem is that we never know the right thing to do. Our consciences are twisted by sin so that what seems right at the time can be very sinful. This leads to "he made me do it" actions. People have killed others or physically and emotionally abused other in the name of helping them. It leads to the idea "we had to destroy the village to save it."

Between these two ideas, I (if you hadn't guessed) come down to doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. But. I don't think that God is as interested in what we do or in why we do it so much as in who we are.

God did not become incarnate, live, die on the cross, and rise to new life in order to change either our motives or our behaviors. God lived and died as one of use to change our nature. God came, not to make us nice, but to make us new.

Sinful behavior and sinful motives both flow from sinful being. God does not want to change our behavior so much as to change our being so that we are no longer sinful creatures. So to the original question - what does God want? God wants us to be new men and women. He wants us to have new life and to live from that live. The old life is one that is filled with sin and darkness. The new one is filled with God and animated by the Holy Spirit.

The sins we commit and the reasons we commit them are signs of how strong the old life is with us. So, next we will discuss the famous "7 Deadly Sins"

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Update - The Seven Deadly Sins

Sin - what we do or who we are?

2009-02-25T14:05:00.003-06:00

Today is Ash Wednesday in the Western Calendar. It is the beginning of the season of Lent. During Lent, we are to examine our selves and to practice fasting and self-denial to let God better prepare us for the Joy that is Easter. So, I thought a small series on Sin would be appropriate.

First, what is sin? In the West, we tend to focus on sins as things we do. I remember a t-shirt I saw in College:

When we drink we get drunk
When we get drunk we fall asleep
When we fall asleep we commit no sin
When we commit no sin, we go to Heaven
So, let's all get drunk and go to Heaven!

Aside from the gluttony involved in getting drunk, the basic idea "when we sleep, we commit no sin" shows how "action" focused we are when it comes to sin. Further, we tend to think of "sin" as those actions that are socially unacceptable. Both of these are, like all good lies, partially true, but not the whole truth.

We tend to think thought like "Well, I didn't worship at the Temple of Zeus today, so I guess I'm not guilty of idolatry." or "Well, I didn't have sex with someone who is not my wife (or husband) today, so I guess I'm not guilty of adultery." The fact that we decided it was more important to sleep in than to say our morning prayers (thus worshipping our selves and our needs rather than God) or the fact we ignored our spouse and spent time in "harmless flirtation" with the attractive neightbor seems immaterial to us. We narrowly define specific sins and then, since we didn't to that, we didn't sin.

The truth is much worse than that. The fact that we spend any time at all justifying our selves or trying to minimize our sins shows how far we are from God's righteousness.

Sin isn't just what we do. Sin is a part of who we are. Sin is part of our DNA if you will. Sin shows itself in the baby's cries when she is not getting enough attention. It shows itself in the young boy who picks on others to make himself feel more important.

Over the next few days, I intend to spend some time looking at sin, not just in what we do but in who we are. Perhaps when we better understand the pervasive nature of sin in our lives we will be more ready to repent of this and ask our Lord to come and make us new.

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

Update - What does God want from us?

Tax Time - A Simple Lesson

2009-02-19T09:36:00.008-06:00

THE..........IRS

THE........IRS

THE......IRS

THE....IRS

THE..IRS

THEIRS

Inside and Outside Strategy

2009-02-17T15:54:00.002-06:00

The Episcopal Church is broken. It may not realize its brokenness and I doubt that it realizes the harm it has done to Anglicanism specifically and Christianity in general. In the name of "Justice" it has begun to bless sins and to pursue a "schorched earth" policy against clergy, congregations, and dioceses that cannot, in conscience, remain within TEC.

This both saddens and angers me. I love TEC. I was raised in this Church. I learned to serve God in this Church. I received New Life in this Church. I was fed with the Sacraments by holy and unholy men and women in this Church. I have served (as lay-chaplain and as a Deacon) nine different bishops in four different dioceses. I received ordination as a Deacon in Christ's one, holy, catholic and Apostolic Church in TEC.

TEC is sick and refuses to go to the doctor. She refuses to take the medicine that will make her well.

Since the 60s and 70s, there has been a steady left-ward march from TEC's leadership. The problems today are not new. They did not drop out of thin air. They are the direct result of the problems of decades ago. If I were to pick a starting point, I would pick the lack of discipline for Bishop Pike. Bishop Pike became apostate by denying essential doctrines such as the Trinity and the House of Bishops refused to discipline him. This led to more heresy and apostacy being practiced without consequences within the life of the Church. The culmination was not the consecration of Bishop Robinson. The culmination was the acquital of +Walter Righter in the famous trial where the bishops sitting in judgment of +Righter (many of whom had committed the same offense) made up the concept of "Core Doctrine" (something new to Anglicanism) and declared sexual morality outside of "Core Doctrine."

The whilwind we are reaping today is a direct result of the seeds we planted in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Along with each of the milestones along the way, there were people who left the Church to form their own Anglican body. The largest of these Exoduses was after the Ordination of Women and the approval of the new Book of Common Prayer in 1976. Each time people left, it made the orthodox groups politically more vulnerable. These "Continuing Anglicans" were not part of the Anglican Communion and they fractured into many different bodies - each with its own special take on Anglicanism.

It is this history which I fear is repeating itself with today's "Outside Strategy." The only difference (and this is a huge difference) is that today's version of the "Contuing Anglican" movement strongly desires to remain part of the Anglican Communion. That is the outside strategy's saving grace. But there are still way too many different bodies within the outside strategy group for my comfort. As I understand the Anglican Church in North America, ACNA, proposed constitution, each "group" (or "network" such as AMiA, CANA, etc.) will continue to have its own ecclesial and political structures - each being part of ACNA. So, there is an AMiA bishop in charge of the AMiA congregations around Dallas. There is a Southern Cone bishop in charge of the Southern Cone congregations around Dallas. There is a Kenyan Bishop and a CANA bishop with similar responsibilities. This is madness and not workable in the long run. Until there is a return to one bishop in an area for churches in communion with each other, I cannot support the Outside Strategy. If the persons and personalities involved in the outside strategies cannot empty themselves to the point that they submit to another authority, then I cannot submit to them.

But the inside strategy cannot work! The inside strategy will not reform the Episcopal Church.
As I said in an earlier post, reforming TEC is not my responsibility. It is God's. I am called to witness to the power of God to make all things new. I am called to show the joy of following Jesus Christ in my own life and I am called to witness to the Truth. If I am to fight, God will provide the weapons and armor. If I am to die, I will die willingly. I am not called to success, but faithfulness.

I long for a faithful Church. My heart desires to abandon TEC and be joined to a more faithful expression of Anglican Christianity. But, I cannot abandon my Bishop, my Rector, nor my congregation to follow my heart. If I have learned one thing as a Christian it is that my heart (like all human hearts) is faithless. My heart is not God's heart. So, I must trust that God will let me know what He wants me to do.

My prayer is that those pursuing the Inside Strategy and those pursuing the Outside Strategy will work together, pray together, worship together (when possible). Witness to God's strength inside and outside. Do not depend on political expediency alone. Do not trust to committees. Do not trust in courts. Trust in God. Trust in Him Alone. Let the inside strategy be the anvil and the outside strategy be the hammer that God uses to reform TEC.

One thing that both we one the Inside and and those on the outside need to do is to let go of anger. The insider feel anger at being abandoned in the fight by the outsiders and the outsiders feel anger at the insiders who are collaborating. Both feel abandoned in their time of need. Both are right. But both need to move past the need to be right. We need to empty ourselves of our agendas and desires and be filled with God's faithfulness. Only then can either of us be fit instruments for reforming Anglicanism in North America.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The "New Thing" and the Fruits of the Spirit

2009-02-09T15:26:00.002-06:00

One thing we keep hearing regarding the issues of authority and sexuality is "The Spirit is doing a new thing."

Now this references Isaiah 43:19.

This chapter is rather interesting. The first part of the chapter (verses 1-21) talk about God loving Israel and bringing her in "from afar" and "from the end of the earth." They talk about the power and majesty of YWHW.

But, starting in chapter 22, God says:

Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel! You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings, or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, or wearied you with frankincense.
You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities.

I believe this is a wonderful passage to talk about sexual morality in the Church. The chapter ends:

I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Put me in remembrance, let us argue together; set forth your case, that you may be proved right. Your first father sinned, and your mediators transgressed against me.
Therefore I profaned the princes of the sanctuary, I delivered Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling.

Now, I consider myself a "classic liberal." By that I mean I will be willing to discuss any topic and will change my mind when shown a better case than the one I hold. I am willing to admit that the Holy Spirit is leading us to bless same sex unions. I am willing to agree that homosexual relationships can be sacramental and that the life long union between two men and two women is blessed like the life long union of one man and one woman. But, I need evidence. Show me in Holy Scripture where this is true. Show me, out of the Apostles' Teaching where this is true. Show me the Fruits of the Spirit in this.

I am referencing Galatians 5:19-25

Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

In the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion, I see too many of the "works of the flesh." I see impurity, enmity, strife, anger, selfishness, dissension, and party spirit and I see them on all sides of this issue. I see this "new thing" bringing about schism and pain. I see it causing brothers and sisters to hate each other. I see too much name calling and personal attacks. I see the devil at work here, not the Holy Spirit of God. All of this was predicted when TECUSA started out on this course of action. We were warned of what would happen if we proceeded and we did it any way.

I ask my brothers and sisters on both sides of this issue: "Where is the gentleness in our lawsuits? Where is the patience in ACNA? Where is the self-control and the faithfulness?

John asks us to "test the spirits." In my testing of this spirit, I find it to be of the anti-christ for it breaks and tears the Body of Christ - the Church. If this "new thing" were of the Holy Spirit, I would expect to see more evidence of the fruit of the spirit rather than the works of the flesh.

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

If

2009-02-09T11:22:00.002-06:00

"IF" is a big word. I have often said: "If is the largest two letter word in the English language."

One thing I have struggled with my entire life is feeling loved and accepted by others - especially my peers. I know that others struggle with this as well. I believe that our society is so "self esteem" focused because, subconsciously, we recognize that we are fallen creatures and not "worthy" of love. So, we proclaim (loudly) that we are good and that we are worthy of all sorts of honors. I believe that we do this because we (secretly) suspect that we are not lovable. We work hard to earn the love and respect and acceptance of others because we need that affirmation that comes from love and respect.

The problem is that the world (and most of us if we are honest) say: "I will love you if...." "I will love you if you are strong enough, good enough, smart enough, good looking enough, rich enough, work hard enough, etc."

We waste a lot of our resources trying to get past "if." As a society, we spend untold millions on cosmetics and surgery trying to get "good looking enough." We spend more time at the office trying to get "rich/successful enough." We all spend too much on "stuff" trying to win the approval of either ourselves or of others. We hope the stuff will fill the void left by "I will love you if."

The problem is that we are trying to fill a hole that only God can fill.

So, what is the solution? The solution is staring us in the heart. It is to surrender to God and not seek affirmation elsewhere. We need to learn and trust (=faith) that God loves us. God does not love us "if." He simply loves us. God does not love use because of what we are or what we do or have done or will do. He simply loves us.

If the Creator of the Universe (who knows us better than we know ourselves) loves us and believes that we are worth dying for, then what does it matter what others think of us? If we know, both in our hearts and in our heads, that we are loved, then "if" becomes meaningless.

The path to knowing yourself and loving yourself is knowing God and being loved by God. The path to loving others without "if" is to know that God loves them (and you) without "if" and to ask God to help you get past "if" in your life.

Now, God loves us as we are. But the Love of God is not unconditional. Accepting God's love means accepting the New Life that comes with God's love. It means being transformed and changed. It means surrendering to God. It means that we will be killed and raised to new life.

Knowing and accepting Gods Love is the most challenging and frightening prospect I can think of.

It is also the only choice we can make if we want peace in our lives. If we want to be free of "if" and free to love ourselves and others in a way that doesn't depend on "if," then we need to respond to God's love in faith and ask to be changed - ask to be transformed - ask for help surrendering and ask to be killed so that we can be raised in New Life.

Are you ready to leave “If” behind?

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Bits of Broken Glass

2009-01-25T14:43:00.002-06:00

One image or metaphor about the transformation that is to occur in the Christian life that has always stayed with me, is C. S. Lewis' image of a lead soldier becoming flesh and bone. How would the lead soldier, if given voice, react to the hard metal becoming soft flesh? Like that mythical soldier, we, too, complain about being changed by God.

Yesterday, I spent most of the afternoon at the Coffield maximum security prison. It was a Kairos reunion weekend. When I go, I normally make myself available for Spiritual Counselling and confession (I know I can't grant absolution, but these guys are often in extremis about their sins and need to hear that Jesus Christ forgives them.) Yesterday was no different.

Now, our reunions take place in the Chapel at Coffield. This chapel has a beautiful stained glass window with swirlling colors.

I've often used the image of broken glass and stained glass windows. A stained glass window is a beautiful work of art that is made with broken glass. Just as the artist in the window selects glass based in the artist's needs and not the glasses preference, so God selects us and the ministry He gives us based on His needs, not on our desires.

What if the glass could feel? What if the glass had a say in where it was placed or if it was placed in the window?

Brothers and Sisters, we are the bits of glass in God's stained glass window. God scores us and breaks us to fit where we are in the window. If we rebel, we are often broken more than if we hadn't rebelled. If we put ourselves in the hands of another artist, we may be malformed and need to be broken even more.

As pieces of glass, we have two functions. First we let the light shine through us. We are not the source of the light, but we do color the light by the shading given to us by God. Second, we fit into a pattern. We can't see the pattern from where we are, so we have to trust God - we have to faith - that God will place us where He wants and needs us.

While I can't see the pattern myself, I have the witness of others who have seen parts of the pattern. I faith that the Artist knows His mind and is creating something of utmost beauty.

Are you willing to be scored and broken? Are you willing to be heated and melted? Are you willing to let God prepare you for your place in the Great Stained Glass Window that is His Kingdom?

Pray that we will all have the grace to be scored, broken, melted, colored, and fitted into our place in God's designs.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

What does being a "Fundamentalist" mean?

2009-01-22T13:41:00.003-06:00

In my earlier post, I talked about what a "fundamentalist" is. While the connotation of "fundamentalist" is generally an unthinking reflexive believer that doesn't consider anything other than what is written in his scriptures. However, the denotation of a fundamentalist is someone who believes the following five fundamentals:

Holy Scriptures are inspired by the Holy Spirit and are inerrant because of this inspiration

The Virgin Birth - such that Mary had no sexual relations prior to the conception of Jesus

Christ's death on the cross atoned for our sins

The physical resurrection of the dead for Jesus - the tomb is empty and Jesus' bones are not lying in a ditch somewhere.

The miracles that Christ is recorded to have performed in Gospels are true and actually happened

In a comment, Andy asked what are the implications of being a fundamentalist (per the denotation).

Now libraries have been written about the implications of any one of the four and the topic is too large for the blogging format, but here is a high level crack at it.

1. If the scriptures are inspired by God, then we need to spend a lot of time in study of them and to pattern our lives after their timeless truths. That means that our definition of moral living should not contradict Holy Scripture's definition of moral living. It also means that our authority should not be internal, but external - the Holy Scriptures. Now the study of Holy Scripture is not just an individual affair, but it is something that should take place in community and, ideally, in multiple communities. There should be the community of the family, a group of friends, a Sunday school class, a congregation, a diocese, a province, the Anglican Communion and the Church Catholic.

2. If Jesus is born of a virgin, then it means that God, not man, is the ultimate source of life. We, who are grafted into the Body of Christ through our baptism, are not ourselves. We have a new birth - by the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, our new lives were also conceived by the Holy Spirit.

3. If Jesus death on the cross atoned for our sins, then they have been atoned for. Now, there are several metaphors used to describe the atonement. One is penal substitution where Jesus paid the penalty for our sins. One is called "Christus Victor" where Jesus defeated the power of death. Some are objective (something actually happened) and some are subjective (Jesus gave us a great example in his death). As an Anglican, I say "Yes" to all the above. Different metaphors will reach different people and may be more true at different times in our lives than at others. Regardless of the metaphor used, I accept that Jesus's death on the cross atoned for my sins and the sins of the whole world. If our sins have been atoned for, then we need only to repent and confess to receive the benefit of that atonement. We also need to realize that the price paid for our freedom is the death of Jesus.

4. If Jesus did rise from the dead, then the battle between life and death is over and live wins. All of our death focused living (sin) has been defeated. The implications of this are enormous. We are no longer captive to our sins. Sin and death have been defeated in the Cross. The powers of death did their worst to Jesus and he came out the other side. Because of this, we can confront the powers of death in our day and in our lives - but not with our own power, but with the power of Jesus - Risen from the dead and victorious over evil and sin and death. Will we choose to remain imprisoned by our death focused culture and lives or will we choose to live in the Victory that Jesus has won for us and wants to share with us?

5. If the miracles of Jesus actually occurred, then that implies that the creator has power over the creation and is not part of the creation. I would also say that the "miracles" such as healings and bring others back from the dead and the feeding of the multitudes are the undoing of the effects of sin in creation. By sin (whether Adam's or Lucifer's), death entered the world. Disease entered the world. Pain and suffering entered the world. Because of sin, man needs to work for his food and knows hunger. Because of sin, there is not always enough food. But because God entered creation, death itself dies. Sin is defeated. Hunger and suffering are alleviated. The Kingdom of God is proclaimed and we need to determine if we are going to be subjects of the King of Kings or the subjects of ourselves.

These are just some outlines on what I think the implications of being a "fundamentalist" are. Do the few people who read this blog have other ideas?

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

What is a Fundamentalist?

2009-01-20T09:32:00.002-06:00

When I was in the beginning of the Ordination Process in the Diocese of Dallas, I was being interviewed to participate in the "Ministry Discernment Program" - where I would be posted to a congregation (not my home congregation) and a committee there would help me and the Church discern if I had a call to ordained ministry.

The interviews took half a day, but one interview stands out in my memory. It concerned our theology. The primary interviewer was a seminary professor. After the pleasentries were out of the way, the first question he asked me was "Are you a fundamentalist?"

To which I replied: "What do you mean by fundamentalist?"

The Professor responded: "I am asking the questions here."

So I anwsered: "Well if by 'fundamentalist' you mean someone who believes every work of Holy Scripture to be true such that God created the world in six 24 hour periods known as 'days,' then no. I am not a fundamentalist. However, if you mean someone who believes the fundamentals of the faith as contained in the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds and expounded in the Book of Common Prayer, then yes. I am a fundamentalist."

Everytime I hear someone call me (or another conservative Christian) a "fundamentalist," I think back to this story. To progressive Christians, there is no worse perjorative than "fundamentalist," but they very rarely define this term other than to say it is a term of disrespect and means someone who hold traditional Christian doctrine that they do not hold. To progressive Christians, a "fundamentalist" is someone who is not "progressive" or even not as progressive as the speaker. "Fundamentalist" has become a relative term, not an absolute.

Today, it seems to mean someone who takes the truth of Holy Scripture more literally and as more historically accurate than the speaker or person using the term does.

We need to recover the original meaning for the term "fundamentalist."

It came from the fight against modernity and originally meant someone who believed the following five items:

Holy Scriptures are inspired by the Holy Spirit and are inerrant because of this inspiration
The Virgin Birth - such that Mary had no sexual relations prior to the conception of Jesus
Christ's death on the cross atoned for our sins
The physical resurrection of the dead for Jesus - the tomb is empty and Jesus' bones are not lying in a ditch somewhere.
The miracles that Christ is recorded to have performed in Gospels are true and actually happened.

Now, if you want to quibble, I can affirm all five of these items. I believe Holy Scripture to contain no error - when you read it according to the proper sense of the text. History for history, myth for myth, poetry for poetry, etc. I believe that Mary conceived Jesus without the help or assistance of any man, but by the power of the Holy spirit. I believe that Jesus' death on the cross atoned for our sins, but why that works is up to discussion. I believe that Jesus physically rose from the grave - that his physical body was transformed into the resurrection body we read about at the end of the Gospels and which we glimpse in the Transfiguration. I believe that Jesus healed the sick, raised Lazarus from the dead, fed the hungry, caused the blind to see, and changed people's hearts so that they could see God.

I guess according to that definition, I am a fundamentalist. How about you?

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The Word of God?

2009-01-13T07:40:00.002-06:00

A recent post on Stand Firm quotes the English Bishop of Leicester, Tim Stephens as saying:

"For Christians ‘the word of God’ is the life of Jesus. The Bible is the product
of those who sought to understand the life of Jesus."

This is a terrible heresy. When I was ordained, I took an oath that I believed the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God.

One thing that occurred to me when reading Validmir Losky's The Mystical Theology of the Easter Church, is that Jesus is the Word of God, incarnate and Holy Scripture is the Word of God, written.

Just as Jesus is fully human and fully divine, so is Holy Scripture. It was written by men and inspired by God. It is not partially human and partially divine.

So, if both are the Word of God, the heresies that apply to one could be applied to the other. The Christological Heresies that apply to the person of Jesus could also apply to the Holy Scriptures.
Just as there are those who see Jesus as more human than divine (if not all human and not divine)- the adoptionists, there are also those who see Holy Scripture as more human than divine (or all human and no divine).

Too many people are willing to split Holy Scripture into divine and human - this command is human; that command is divine. This story is human; that one is of divine nature. I find it odd that the stories and commands that people consider to be of divine origin are the ones they like and the stories and commands of human origin are the ones they don't like.

There is a heresy in the opposite direction too - the docetic heresy. This heresy states that Jesus only seemed to be human. He was divine and not really human. When applied to Holy Scripture, this brings about the wooden literalist translation and application of Holy Scripture. It does not take into account the person writing the book, his reasons for writing it or the culture in which it was written and received. I had one person tell me that Jesus was not making up stories when telling the parables - he was relating actual facts known to him.

All too often, we want to rule over scripture (the adoptionist heresy) or not wrestle with scripture (the docetic one). Holy Scripture is the Written Word of God. It contains all things necessary for salvation and it is our best record of the life and work of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Kudos to a Company

2009-01-08T10:30:00.004-06:00

As part of our Christmas this year, my wife and I purchased a new computer for the family (primarily her and me). We are now going to let the kids use our four year old computer for their school and play. As part of this, we needed to get a new computer desk. We found this computer tower at Frys Electronics

(my favorite "toy" store. Well, during assembly, the bottom shelf broke. So I went to the company's website and ordered another part, expecting to pay shipping and for the part.

I called the company today to check on the status of my order and found that they shipped Monday (after taking off between Christmas and New Year) and that there is no charge for either the part of the shipping. If you need a computer desk or other "put it together yourself" furniture, I recommend Sauder (the parent company) or Studio RTA.

We like to complain about bad service and companies taking advantage of their customers. Once in a while, someone gets it right and I think they should be rewarded when they do!

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

Healthcare and Health Insurance II

2009-01-06T15:11:00.002-06:00

First, let me state why I am writing on this topic. I normally write about the Episcopal Church or about faith in general. As a Deacon in the Episcopal Church, I am charged with making known to the Church "the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world." In the United States, health care is a big concern and as I stated earlier, I am employed in the healthcare IT world.

In the part I, I discussed Health Care as a scarese resource, the purpose of insurance to indemnify against unexpected and catastrophic loss, and the modern use of health insurance to pay for routine care. In this post, I will discuss some possible solutions for health insurance and some ways we can increase the efficiency of delivering health care in the United States.

First, we should not be using insurance to pay for routine medical care. Doctor's visits, well baby care, eye exams, and the like should not be covered by health insurance. To reduce transaction costs, these should not even be submitted to the insurance company, but should be paid out of pocket by the patients. We should reserve insurance for things like surgery, cancer, true emergency room visits and other unplanned events where the cost is prohibitive for most people. We can do this be limiting the procedures and services covered by insurance.

Next, we need a way to make insurance more portable. HIPAA (the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) went a long way towards doing this. One of the problems with changing health insurance is the coverage of "pre-existing conditions." If we chance health insurance to cover only catastrophic items, it would bring down the cost of insurance (as well as the cost of delivering care) and people would be more able and willing to carry personal insurance. Because insurance covers so much today bridging the gap between jobs is very expensive. Five years ago, I took a leave of absence for 7 weeks to take a unit of CPE. My cost for insurance duing that 7 weeks was over $2400. I believe that we can get a catastrophic policy for significantly less.

Finally, we need to find ways to cover the uninsured for and to pay for those who cannot afford healthcare. That will be the subject of part III.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Healthcare and Health Insurance

2009-01-05T13:15:00.007-06:00

I work in Healthcare IT. I see my job as a ministry. My job helps to lower the cost of delivering health care to people. I've worked both in private insurance and in the Medicaid/Medicare fields for various clients.
As health care become more and more expensive we are approaching a crisis (some would say that we are already in a crisis) where "normal" healthcare is too expensive to afford without insurance. A large part of the problem is the use of insurance and the different models of how to best pay for health care.

Healthcare as a Scarce Resource
Let's start out with some basics. Healthcare is a scarce resource. There is a limited amount of healthcare to go around. So, it has to be rationed. In a "relatively" free market, scare resources are rationed based on the ability to pay. For example, automobile ownership is determined by who will pay what price for which car. People with more money generally drive nicer cars. Likewise food (particularly premium foods such as beef and fresh vegetables) is rationed based on ability to pay. The government does not give out free prime rib to its citizens.
So, we have to ration healthcare. There is not enough healthcare to meet the demand for it - particularly if the payment of services is divorced from the delivery of the service. But healthcare is a different form of commodity than premium foods. There are several cases where withholding of healthcare would result in death or permanent injury. No one ever died because he didn't get a medium rare prime ribeye steak. So, some basic services should be available to those who cannot pay.

The Purpose of Insurance
Second, insurance is designed to help people pay for unexpected catrastophic loss. We insure our homes (and our mortgage holders demand we do this) because no one (or very few people) can afford to purchase a new house if the current one burns down. In the healthcare arena, insurance started out paying for catastrophic loss.

Today's Health Insurance
Today, we have health insurance that pays for known and planned (or plannable) and routine expenses. Health Insurance pays for check ups, well baby care, routine doctor visits for sickness (such as colds and flu) and other knowable and plannable events. Today's market is moving towards a high deductible plan where the insurance starts to pay after a $1000 per person per year deductible. The problem is that, in order to reach this deductible, even routine doctor visits are still filed with the insurance. This increases transaction costs for the doctor's office and for the insurance carrier. Like all business expenses, these costs are borne by the customers - the patients.

The Genesis of Employer Provided Insurance
One problem in our society is that health insurance is normally acquired from your employer. This really started in WWII when the federal government imposed wage limits to help industries and reduce inflation during an inflationary period (war almost always brings inflation). To attract the best talent, companies could no longer compete on price (skilled labor is also a scarce resource), it had to find other ways to compete, so they started offering "perqs" like health insurance. Everyone who wanted talented labor had to offer health insurance and the health insurance industry was rather new, so this distribution method (employers providing insurance) became the de facto standard.

A Thought Experiment
Using insurance like this divorces payment for services from the delivery of services. Thus, there is no incentive to minimize or self-ration health care services. As an anology, imagine if your employer offered "Lunch Insurance." Your employer will pay 50-80% of the cost of your Lunch Insurance (LI). LI has an annual deductible of $200 per person and will pay 80% of the cost of your lunch after you reach that deductible. Now, what do you think will happen to the price of lunch in general? How would your own lunch eating habits change? Would you continue to bring your lunch to work or would you go out more often? Eventually, the cost of lunch would increase such that you had to have insurance to pay for lunch at all - unless your were independently wealthy.

What Should We Do?
I'll address that tomorrow or Wednesday. In the mean time, leave your own recommendations in the comments.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

God's Only Exam

2009-01-02T07:26:00.003-06:00

On Monday, January 5th, candidates for ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church will begin to sit down to take the General Ordination Examination (GOEs) also known as "God's Only Exam."

This is a very stressful time for them. I remember when I took the GOEs almost five years ago and I am glad that I do not have to do that again!

The exams are a series of seven tests - six half day and one full day essay exams covering the "Seven Canonical Areas" - Systematic Theology, Litury & Worship, Holy Scripture, Ethics and Moral Theology, Contemporary Society, Church History, and the Theory and Practice of Ministry.

Please take some time this weekend and during next week, for those students who are writing their exams. Please pray for calm and for clarity of expression. Also pray that they may be guided by the Holy Spirit as they take the exams.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Who is Distracting Whom?

2008-12-26T17:44:00.003-06:00

One of the arguments leveled against reasserters (those who hold traditional teaching on sexual morality among other things) is that our focus on who is sleeping with whom detracts from the work of the Church.

First, we have to ask what the work of the Church is? Basically, the work of the Church is to make disciples - students - apprentices - of Jesus Christ and to prepare those souls for eternity with God. The Eastern Orthodox refer to this as "theosis" and it is growing in the new life that the Holy Spirit gives us in Baptism and which we receive in Holy Eucharist.

Whether this work is done within the Church by building up those who already follow Jesus Christ or if the work is done outside the Church by bringing those who do not follow Jesus Christ into a relationship with Him, both are important and part of the Work of the Church. And, just as an aside, every Christian should be involved in some way both in work within the Church and work outside the Church.

Works of corporal mercy - caring for the poor, the sick, the homeless, visiting those in prison, empowering people in society through things like ESL (English as a Second Language) or GED courses or other charitable works are important and are part of the work of the Church, but they, themselves and by themselves, are not the work of the Church.

After we have determined the work of the Church, we need to determine if the fight about sexual morality is distracting from that work or not and then who is distracting whom.

I would say that fighting in the Church today is distracting from the work of the Church and reasserters play a part in this. But the majority of the guilt from distracting from the work of the Church can be laid at the feet of the reappraisers.

My reasoning is two fold. Before General Convention 2000, the Church had discussed and debated blessing same sex unions and awlays said that it was not appropriate or that we would not move forward on this until the communion as a whole changed its mind. In 1998, all the bishops of the Lambeth Conference said that blessing same sex unions and ordaining those involved in same sex unions were outside of the teaching of the Church. The 1998 resolution was not a new teaching - it simply affirmed and codified the existing teaching.

So, it is not the reasserters who kept bringing this issue forward for debate. It is the reappraisers. So after two or three General Conventions, we who think this "new thing" violates the teaching of the Church should simply fall into line?

Second, the debate is not about sex or who sleeps with whom or about homosexuality vs hetersexuality. The debate is about the nature and place of authority in the Church. Does a single person have the authority to change teaching on something that the bible and the universal church so roundly condemned? How about a diocese? A province? Does even the Anglican Communion as a whole have that authority and still be considered a church based on "Scripture, Tradition, and Reason?"

Now, I am a reasserter. I believe that God does not bless homosexual sex and further I believe that He considers it sinful. I base this belief on what I read in Holy Scripture. So, if you want to convince me (and other reasserters) that God does bless homosexual sex, then you have to make your argument out of what our Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts-Schori, as said to be our primary source of authority - Holy Scripture. Show me where God blesses homosexual sex within the Holy Scriptures.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Brevity Break

2008-12-26T08:21:00.005-06:00

One thing I am known for is bad jokes. I love bad jokes - shaggy dog stories if you will. My favorite came to me from my father who got it from his father and I still love it.

The Spirit with the Purple Tail
There was a family of ghosts - Pappa Ghost, Mama Ghost and little Johnny Ghost. Each ghost has somethin unique about him or her that sets him apart from all other ghosts.

Johnny's unique feature was his purple tail. It was long and scintillating and would flow behind him as he ran through the house he loved to haunt. He would often take his head off and put it on backwards just so he could see his tail flow behind him.

Now all good ghosts have to be in by 6:00 in the morning or something terrible would happen to them. And, like all young ghosts, Johnny kept pushing the time. One night, he was having so much fun haunting this one house - he would run in the front door, through all the rooms and walls and then out the back door - that he lost track of time. As he passed the back door, the first stroke of six struck and he said: "I've got time for one more run!" and proceeded through the house again.
Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! As the last stroke of six struck, he flew out the back door which shut on him and cut off his purple tail!

Johnny was inconsolable. He did nothing with his friends and just mopped around the attic all night.

Finally, his mother said to her husband: "Dear, you have to do something about Johnny! That kid's going to be the life of me yet. Please, do something.

So the dad gives his son 20 dollars and sends him to the liquor store.

Why?

wait for it

Because

That's where they "re-tail" spirits!

Feel free to add your suggestions for penance, you own shaggy dog stories, or your own bad jokes in the comments.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Into the Barn

2008-12-25T07:41:00.002-06:00

I heard this story from Paul Harvey several years ago. It is a wonderful Christmas illustration.

John was a man who lived on a farm with his family. While his wife was religious and attended church faithfully, he never went.

"I don't believe all that religious stuff." he said. "I mean that stuff about virgins conceiving or dead men coming back to life or God becoming man. It just doesn't make any sense."

One Christmas eve, the wife had take the children to church while John stayed home. Later, it began to snow heavily.

Thud.

John looked out the window and found bird had hit his living room window in the snow storm.

Thud. Thud.

A whole flock of birds were landing in his yard.

"They'll die if they don't get under some shelter" John thought. So he put on his boots and coat and went and opened the barn door and turned on the light in the barn.

"There. They can go into the barn and that will save them" he thought. But the birds kept landing in his yard. So he put on his boots and coat again and tried to shoo the birds into the barn. But everywhere we went among the birds, they just fluttered up out of his way and landed back on the yard.

"Stupid Birds" he thought. "I'm just so big that all I do is scare them. They're too frightened of me to follow me into the barn. If only I could become a bird - for just a moment, then I could lead them into the barn and they would live."

At that moment, the church bells rang to announce the birth of the Savior. John was overcome with emotion and fell to his knees and said: "Lord, I now know why you had to become a man. You had to lead us into the barn."

May you all have a blessed feast of the Incarnation.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Mary, Did You Know

2008-12-23T21:35:00.006-06:00

We love Christmas. I love Christmas.

But Christmas is nothing without Good Friday and Easter.

The only reason that the Incarnation makes any difference - let alone any sense - is because of the work of Jesus on the Cross and in the Resurrection.

Mary, it is said, kept all these things in her heart. I wonder if, during the Three Days, she remembered the shepherds and the Magi - Simeon and Anna. I wonder if Simeon's words to her: "and a sord will pierce through your own soul also." ever came back to her during Jesus' arrest, trial, and crucifixion.

Sometimes we make too much of Mary - there are those who treat Mary as some form of co-redemptorix or as some minor diety. Sometimes we ignore Mary too much. In reaction to giving Mary a place beside Jesus we over react by not giving her enough honor. There is no saint or other person (outside of Jesus) that has done as much for us and our salvation as Mary did. Her "yes" to God was the mirror image of Eve's "Yes" to herself. Mary's willingness to "let it be to me according to your word" is what gave the world God incarnate and what continued the plan of salvation. For this, she should be remembered and honored.

If you have time before you celebrate the Incarnation, please view the video below. It brought me to tears as I pondered what Mary did for us - how she allowed us to be freed from sin and death by delivering her son so that He could deliver us.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace! The Lord is with thee!
Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me - a sinner.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Let it be to me according to your word

2008-12-22T07:57:00.002-06:00

We've said that advent is a time of waiting and a time of preparation. We are waiting for the coming of Jesus - God made man. We are preparing to receive our Lord in the manger, in our hearts, and when He comes in glory to judge the world.

I think one of the greatest sentences ever said to God comes from Mary: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word."

Now most of us like to think we would respond like Mary if faced with an archangel's request. But I don't believe that is the case. As evidence for my belief, I simply point to all of history.

We spend too much of our lives saying (or living as if we had said), "Behold, I am no one's slave. Let it be to me according to my word." By the way, the Greek for "handmaid" is the feminine form of "doulos" - slave.

We want to think of ourselves as the captains of our own ship. The master of our own destiny. We want to sing, with Frank Sinatra, "I did it my way!" That is very self-satisfying. But it is also self-defeating. "My way" is not the same as God's way.

My way focuses on getting my needs met and my desires fulfilled. God's way is the way of self-emptying and the turning of desires into desire for God.

So, how can we ever say "Behold, I am God's slave. Let it be to me according to your word." I believe that is the purpose of Advent.

Being a slave, in Jesus time, meant one of three things. Either you were born a slave, your people were defeated in war, or you had too many debts so you (and your family) were sold into slavery. In all three cases, it was possible to purchase your freedom.

Let's look at those three ways of being a slave. The first is easy - being born a slave. We don't mind this metaphor too much - after all, no one is responsible for his or her birth. We are all born as slaves to sin. We don't really mind being part of a race of people enslaved to sin.

The second, however, is more complicated. Being defeated in a war. We don't like defeat and we hate to admit that we have been defeated. We are in a spiritual war and, without God, we are fighting on the wrong side. Are you ready to admit that you can't win the battle on your own? Are you willing to admit that you are in rebellion against God and need to surrender? Are you ready to accept defeat at God's hands and become his slave?

The third path to slavery is also not pleasant - being sold to pay debts. Our sins are like debts that need to be repaid and we cannot pay them. We don't have the capital or income to pay the debts we owe. Are you ready to accept that you cannot pay your debts? Are you ready to accept slavery as the just reward for your debts?

Now, here is one of the greatest paradoxes of the Christian faith. Slavery leads to freedom. The first path to freedom with God is to recognize your poverty of self. It is to realize that you have nothing that is not given to you from God and that you have mis-used and abused what God has given for your. By accepting slavery with God - by surrendering to Him, we become people who have been freed.

See, God wants free men and women, but they only way they can be free is to stop being slaves to themselves or to their desires or to their sins. So we must first become slaves to God. Then God gives us our freedom. We are given spiritual wealth beyond our imagination when we surrender to God. We are given victory in our battles when we let God fight for us. We are freed from self and from sin and from death when we allow God to guide us.

As we approach the Feast of the Incarnation, let us practice saying "Behold, I am God's slave. Let it be to me according to His word."

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Update on Elizabeth

2008-12-19T12:50:00.002-06:00

The Doctor just came out and said that this surgery was just like the last one. There were not complications and he expects a full recovery.

Thank you all for your prayers and please continue to keep Elizabeth in your prayers as she faces recovery and rehabilitation.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Waiting

2008-12-16T16:59:00.003-06:00

Advent is a time of waiting - waiting in expectation, but waiting none the less. Americans don't like to way. We think that microwave ovens are too slow and that we should not have to wait for movies to download on our PCs. We are all about faster. We want it. We want it all and we want it now. We can't even wait patiently in line at a store. There are stores that will open another register when there are more than three people in line - just so we won't have to wait.

This lack of waiting has infected the Episcopal Church on both sides of the issue. On the reappraising side, they were not willing to wait for the communion to change its mind on blessing same sex unions or on ordaining men or women active outside of marriage. Even when General Convention said that we wouldn't proceed until the communion changed its mind, we didn't listen to ourselves. We got tired of waiting and moved forward. "Justice delayed is Justice denied" is the watch word of the reappraisers and they framed this as a justice issue rather than a righteousness issue.

On the reasserting side, they were not willing to wait on the communion for discipline. They saw that the reappraisers were "winning" and moved forward to create multiple overlapping jurisdictions - some from Uganda, some from Kenya, some from Nigeria, some from South America, some from Rwanda and some just cut off from TEC. They talked of the need for life boats. I've heard laymen and women complain that the souls of their children were in danger because of the confirmation classes and sermons preached by clergy in TEC.

The inability to wait on the reappraising side triggered the inability to wait on the reasserter side. Let me be clear. The troubles confronting TEC and the Anglican Communion can be laid at the feet of the reappraisers.

What we need to recover - and not just for Advent - is the ability to wait. Israel waited several hundred years as slaves in Egypt. They waited 40 years in the desert before they reaced the promised land. They waited for 400 years between the return from exhile and the coming of the Messiah. Christians have waited for 2000 years (so far) for the return of Jesus.

Can't we wait a bit longer before we insist on our own ways? Can't we wait upon God and His solutions? Have we lost the ability to wait in silence before God?

For God alone my soul in silence waits
from him comes my salvation.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold, so that I shall not be greatly shaken.

...

For God alone my soul in silence waits
truly, my hope is in him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold, so that I shall not be greatly shaken.

In God is my safety and my honor;
God is my strong rock and my refuge

Put your trus in him always, O People,
Pour out your hearts before Him, for God is our refuge.

In this last 8 days of Advent, let's us wait up on the Lord and look to Him (and not to political wrangling) for our salvation.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Prayer Request

2008-12-15T15:07:00.002-06:00

Many of you will remember this past summer when my daughter, Elizabeth, had surgery on her right foot and ankle to align them. Well, this Friday, she will have the other foot operated on for the same reason.

I ask your prayers for her healing. She is nervous about the upcoming operation. I ask that you pray for a full and complete recovery - for peace of mind and for courage to face the upcoming pain and rehabilitation. Also, this is finals week at her school. I would ask that you pray that she would not be distracted by her fear and be able to focus on her tests.

I also ask that you pray for the doctors and medical team that will be treating her.

Finally, I ask that you pray for my wife, Beverly, and I (especially Beverly) as we care for Elizabeth.

For the last operation, Elizabeth had several months to heal before she went back to school. This time, she has two weeks.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Who is Jesus?

2008-12-15T09:01:00.002-06:00

We are in the middle of the third week of Advent. It is a time of waiting and preperation for the coming of Jesus - the promised Messiah - the Deliverer - God made flesh.

As part of our reflection for Advent, we need to consider just whom is coming. For whom are we waiting? Why are we waiting for him?

These questions can be answered by looking at what Jesus asked Peter - "Who do you say that I am?" There is no more important question that we can answer than "Who is Jesus."

There are two answers to this question that sound really good to us and that we like to hear. The first answer is that Jesus is like a guru that helps us to get in touch with the divine in our lives. We learn to look for the "christ consciousness" in our selves. This affirms the original good in us - our "Original Blessing" if you will. This sounds good and affirming. We all want to think that we are basically good people who have just gone a little off. This version of Jesus serves our need for transcendence in our lives. "The Kingdom of God is within you." We need the sence of the Holy and this brings us there - by looking in a mirror and marveling at the wonderful work of God manifest in our selves.

The second answer is that Jesus is a wonderful teacher of moral truths. However, his followers could not see what he was teaching and got his teaching wrong. This is Jesus as "life coach" who comes to us to help us be better people. This affirms the need to serve the poor, to be work for social justice. This version of Jesus calls us outside of ourselves to serve others. This Jesus helps us to understand that freedom is found in service.

Both of these Jesuses have some basis in scripture. Both are true - they just are (like all heresies) not true enough. Both of these Jesuses are like chocolate. They taste good going down, but there is very little nourishment there and the consequences of a steady diet of this Jesus is deadly to your long term well being.

There are two words to discribe Jesus and both are necessary. The first is "Savior." We don't really like the word "savior" - it implies that we need to be saved. Being saved means that we have to admit that we are going to die without our savior - we are not going to live. Having a savior means that we have to admit to the world and to God and to ourselves that we are not nice people after all. We are not "basically good" and we are not divine by nature. We are utterly lost without our savior. Who is Jesus? He is my savior. Without Him I will die eternally. He heals me from myself and calls me out of my self and selfishess.

If we don't like "savior," then we really won't like the second word, "Lord." Jesus is our Lord and we don't like that. It implies that we need a Lord - a person to rule over us. Having a Lord implies surrender.

During this Advent ask yourself - for whom are you waiting? Are you waiting for a person to awaken the divine within you? Are you waiting for someone to teach you the same moral truths that you already know?

Or, are you waiting for a Savior and Lord - someone to whom you can surrender and admit that you can't do it alone. Are you waiting for someone to make you new or just make you better? Are you waiting for Jesus - the Son of God - the Messiah - the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? He is the only one worth waiting for. The other Jesus - the guru or the life coach or the moral teacher are a dime a dozen and can be found in any self help book. There is no need to wait for him.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and ransome our captive souls. Free us from the prison we have built for ourselves. Help us to die to self and die to sin so that we can be raised in new Life and live in the resurrection.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Property Disputes - Common sense is not all that common

2008-12-15T08:36:00.002-06:00

This post by Fr. Dan Martins got me thinking again about what to do with the Episcopal Church in the property disputes. It seems that eveyone is throwing around the title of "thief" and accusing each other of starting the lawsuits. It reminds me of my days in elementary school where crys of "he started it!" were all too common and the lazy teachers were the ones who wanted to know who threw the first punch (or kick or whatever).

The disputes on property are being handled just like a very acrimonious and messy divorce. Neither side may have a full claim to the property, but neither want the other to have any benefit from it. It's like a wife who cannot afford the house after the husband moves out but doesn't want to sell it and split the money with the ex-husband let alone let the ex-husband have the house. Likewise, the ex-husband "will be damned" if he'll let this woman have the house he worked so hard to pay for.

On all sides of this issue, we claim the title of Christian. When a congregation cannot see a way to remain within TEC, then we should be able to reach some form of compromise that honors the contributions of all involved and in both directions. The congregation did derive some benefit from being in TEC and in the diocese. Likewise, both TEC and the diocese derived benefit from the people in the congregation.

I propose that we let congregations share the property. Many congregations have multiple services on Sunday mornings. Let the congregation that has the most people attending pick their time and then let the smaller congregation have an alternate time. For major feast days that don't have multiple services (such as Maundy Thursday or the Great Vigil), develop some plan to share the space and have one service. Plan to do things such as mission or outreach work with both congregations.

Rather that buring the earth and sowing salt there, let's let Charity and forebearance rule our hearts.

Anger and hatred make great defenses against God's transforming love.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Dec 25th - Consumermass

2008-12-12T10:24:00.006-06:00

We are a society of consumers. We are not materialists, but functionalists. We really don't care care about material things but we care about what they can do for us. This has two major impacts on our spiritual lives.

First, it gets us to spend a lot of time and money aquiring stuff in the hopes that they can make us happy. This is money that we cannot save and time we cannot be in ministry. The truth is that only God can make us happy.

Second, we spend a lot of time with our stuff trying to get it to make us happy. Again, only God alone is our source of true happiness.

It seems that Christmas has become more and more about stuff and less and less about Jesus. It seems that every year, "Christmas" (or, more accurately "Consumermass") starts earlier and earlier. We saw Consumermass items in Sams around Labor day this year!

Now, I am as guilty of running after the latest gadget and buying stuff as the next person. So, what is the antidote? I believe the best antidote is prayer and meditation. "For God alone, my soul in silence waits (Pslam 62:1)"

Advent is a time of waiting. It is a time of preparation. To aid the handful of people who read this blog in their preparation, I offer the following link:

O Come, O Come

YBIC,

Phil Snyder

Evangelism within the Church

2008-12-10T07:55:00.002-06:00

The dismissal at my home parish of St. James is a bit different.

We process to the back of the church and then I peel off and return to just before the chancel steps. After the final hymn, I then walk up the aisle reciting the Great Commission:

And Jesus came and said to them: "All authority in heave and on earth has
been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always,
to the close of the age."

Oddly enough, one of the hardest places to make disciples is in the Church. We have a lot of people who are interested in becoming members but not too many are interested in being disciples. I find it odd that it is actually easier to make disciples in prison than it is among may church members.

One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that too many people in the "free world" (as the Kairos inmates call it) don't recognize their need for Jesus. They think they have it pretty good. They are like Job who guaged his relationship with God by his wealth, family, and friends. As Job said in his final statement to God: "I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee; therefore I dispise myself and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:6).

Too many people in our churches know God only through the "hearing of the ear." They love God and want to know that God loves them. But they don' t need God. They don't need to be changed - only improved a bit. They don't need a savior; they need a "life coach" who will help them to become their true selves.

How do we combat this attitude? I believe it is at the heart of the problem with the Episcopal Church. Too many people see themselves as good people who just need to do a little work to improve themselves. They need to 12 step out of their destructive behaviors.

As C. S. Lewis said, the reality is that we are not good people who need to improve. We are rebels who need to lay down our arms.

In prison, I meet many men who are ready to surrender. Their "true selves" have betrayed them and they are defeated. Like any defeated army, they have two choices - surrender or death. Is it any wonder they chose surrender?

So, do any of you have any suggestions on how we can move people from membership to discipleship?

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The Inside "Strategy"

2008-12-08T08:55:00.002-06:00

I have been fighting a battle within myself regarding the Episcopal Church and the fact that the majority of its leaders - Bishops and General Convention delegates - support unchristian acts such as blessing sins, sueing (other) Christians, and redefining the faith. I believe that the majority of the HoB ranges from heterodox, to heretical to actually apostate.

So, what should I do about it? I long for a Church where the Gospel is unashamedly proclaimed and where the faith is lived out courageously and where others are brought to faith in Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

But I won't find such a Church on earth. Every congregation and diocese and province has its problems. While the Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ (as we hear in that wonderful hymn) we also know that the Church has been "by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed." Our great heroes of th efaith, from Anthony through Athanasius, the Capodicians, Ratramnus and Radburtus, Benedict, Anselm, Dominic, Francis, Aquinas, Luther, Cramner, Latimer, Ridley, Hooker, Jewel, Wesley, Pusey, and a host of others have all found the problem of heresies in the Church. The problem is not that the Church is beset by heresy. It has always been beset by heresy. The problem is that we lack the discipline to do anything about it in TEC. And because we lacked that discipline in the past, we are in a place where "discipline" is being taken against the orthodox believers.

The conservatives' fight for the soul of TEC has been lost.

So, part of me wants to depart of a place where this is not the case. To a place where conservatives win the day and where I don't have to say "I am an Episcopalian... but a different kind of one."

But, I am convince that God wants me to stay in TEC. I know that I cannot win the battle. Banding together with other conservatives will not even win the battle. But God has shown me that winning the battle is not my job! My job is not success. It is faithfulness. The battle is not mine. It is the Lord's.

The inside "strategy" is not a political one where we hope to overthrow the liberal/revisionist/reappraiser hierarchy. It is a strategy where we band together for mutual support in our faithfulness to the faith delivered to us. My strategy is to be emptied (=kenosis)
of my desire to win and to accept that God has other plans for me rather than victory in this life. The strategy is to be faithful to God and be a faithful witness to God's power to make new. Even when we lose politically and even when we suffer for the Gospel, we are to be faithful. Even in the midst of a people of unclean lips, we are to be faithful. Even when the whole house of TEC plays the harlot and worships at the altar of society, we are to be faithful. Even when God calls TEC "not my people," we are to be faithful.

My strategy is faithfulness in the face of opposition and faithlessness. I am not called to win. I am called to witness.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Buying a Sports Car

2008-12-01T16:57:00.002-06:00

I read this post by Fr. Nathan Humphrey about remaining in relationship even when we think the other person is wrong. This post is in repsonse to that idea. If it were just that the reappraisers/liberals/progressives had wrong ideas, we would not be in this situation today. If all there were happening were listening and dialogue, then there would be problems, yes, but I doubt if the schism we are seeing today would be as big an issue.

Consider, if you will, the case of a husband and wife discussing the purchase of a new sports-car. The wife is dead set against it for several reasons, but is willing to be persuaded by the husband. She has several reasons, but the major reason is that they cannot afford the car. Still, they have been talking about a new car (and the husband suggesting a new sports car) for a long time.

One evening, while the wife is out doing something else, the husband purchases the sports car he wants. He tells his wife that he has been "in discernment" about this car for a while and doesn't undertstand the wife's anger.

Can you imagine the wife's reaction when the husband wants to continue to discuss the purchase of a new sports car?

Finally, if the husband has a habit of spending money that the family cannot afford, then the wife may have to divorce him to save the children - especially if the husband will not curb his spending and refuses to acknowledge that he is putting the family in danger.

I am not advocating schism, but a return to the status quo ante. If we are going to continue to discern whether God blesses homosexual sex or if the Church should ordain people who are engage in homosexual relationships, then we should first discuss it and then act when we have consensus. Don't buy the sports car and then ask for continued dialogue on the subject.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Inside Looking Out - Outside Looking In

2008-11-24T14:46:00.002-06:00

Recently, The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner published an essay entitled "A New “Province” in North America: Neither the Only Nor the Right Answer for the Communion" in which he states that the new province is not the best way forward because it doesn't meet all its aims and the solution is not a communion wide solution.

Dean Robert Munday of Nashotah House wrote a response the core of which argument I find here:

While some may argue that the best way to preserve the unity of the Anglican
Communion is to preserve the unity of the American Church (or, failing that, not
to recognize any group that splits off from the American Church), I would argue
the exact opposite. The best way to preserve the unity of the Anglican Communion
is to allow the American church to divide (which is happening anyway, whether
anyone likes it or not) and to recognize two North American provinces. Some
overseas provinces will relate to one of the North American provinces more than
the other. But there will not be the present level of vigorous advocacy (and
border crossing) that now threatens to divide the Communion.

Now for my own feable attempt at reconciliation. I believe that the majority of the leadership of TEC is heretical and becoming apostate. I also believe that TEC is, itself, not apostate. The official positions of the church are, for now, Christian (with a few exceptions, such as membership in the Religious Council for Reproductive Choice). However, I live and worship and work in an orthodox diocese under orthodox bishops and an orthodox priest. It is easy to remain in TEC here in Dallas.

What I am more interested in, for this post, is the reasons than people pursuing an inside strategy (by remaining in TEC and working for reform within the structures of the Anglican Communion) and those purusing and outside strategy (by breaking from TEC and forming partnerships - particularly this new province) have so much animosity towards each other.

Those who are "outside looking in" seem to think that we who are on the inside are cowards who want only to keep our pensions and our pretty buildings and our jobs. Likewise, those on the "inside looking out" also have called those on the outside "cowards" because they have left the fight for TEC. The insiders point to the leftward shift of TEC since the 1970s when the Anglican Continuum left (and fractured even more).

Here is my take on the subject. Many of the outsiders and insiders are correct that the church in which they were raised and that they love and that nurtured and uplifted them through many bad times is gone. The majority of the leaders in the church have become unfaithful to the faith that was given to them. They have subsituted the god within for the God that created the universe. They have searched for self-fulfillment rather than self-death.

One of the images that God uses for Israel and the Church in Holy Scripture is that of marriage. Read Hosea or Paul's letter to the Ephesians or the Revelation to St. John if you doubt me. So, with an unfaithful wife we have two alternatives. One is to live with the unfaithfulness and the other is divorce. What we are witnessing right now is the emotional baggage that come with a divorce or from a marriage that has been destroyed by an unfaithful spouse.

We have two groups of people who agree with each other on what has happened. We don't agree on what to do about it. So, with our hearts wounded by our Church leaders, we often act out of anger and injured pride.

So, then, what should we do? I believe that we should recognize that we are fighting a common enemy - the spirit of the age - and we should work together where we can and we should not condemn each other nor should we hinder each other's efforts. I believe that TEC will not be a full member of the Anglican Communion for long (say 10 years). I also believe that God is in charge and that He will act when He deems it best, not when we deem it best. For those of us fighting the inside strategy, we should continue that fight and be ready to move when God gives us a clear sign. We need to consider that we might be wrong and the outside strategy is what God calls us to. For those of us fighting an outside strategy, we should be faithful and consider that we might be wrong and the inside strategy might be best and what God desires.

When it comes to discerning the will of God, we are all still clouded by sin. All too often, the voice of God sounds like our own voice and urges us to do things we want to do anyway. We need to guard against that.

In the end, we should look towards the whole communion for a solution. As Americans, we are all to often ready to serve God and the Chruch as adivsors only, not as servants.

To the Bishops and priests who lead the orthodox Anglicans, I call on you to remember that you are first, and foremost, deacons - servants. Lead as servants, not as masters.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Back to Prison for me and an assignment for you all!

2008-11-21T15:29:00.003-06:00

Tomorrow I return to prison for the first time since the statewide lockdown back in early October. The "Brothers in White" (inmates) haven't been able to group or have chapel since then and they will be very hungry for spiritual nourishment. Please pray that the team will show up in force and let them know that God has not forgotten them. Also, please pray that the Brothers will show up in force and share God's unbounded love with us. Every time I go to prison, I always come out having received much more than I ever gave.

Now - for your assignment. The statewide lockdown came about because a correctional officer (guard) smuggled a cell phone into Death Row and one of the inmates used it to call and threaten a State Senator. In other states (and probably in Texas) cell phones have been used in the unit to order hits or conduct illegal business. This could be solved by installing a cell phone interrupter device. But, since cell phones use public airways, the FCC regulates this and has not allowed states to put them on Correctional Insitutions (such as prisons).

Please write or email or call your Congressman and Senators and ask them to either urge the FCC to allow for Cell Phone interruption within Correctional Institutions or to sponser and support legislation to do this.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Discipline

2008-11-21T08:20:00.003-06:00

Last post I talked about hiding in plain sight. Using religion to hide from God or, more accurately, to tame God and keep Him from changing you. I asked what, then, is the purpose of the outward disciplines of Christianity if they can be used to hide from God.

First, we must ask what the goal of the Christian life is. The goal of the Christian life is union with God - as the Eastern Orthodox call it, theosis. Athanasius said that God became man so that men might become gods. In baptism, God gives us a life qualitatively like His own. We are to grow in this new life and nurture it. This is what the disciplines of the Church are for. Centuries of Christians have found that we grow more in God's life when we discipline ourselves like athletes or soldiers (two images the Paul uses to describe the Christian life).

So, the disciplines are useful for growing as Christians. Cursillo taught me that the Christian life is based on three things - Piety, Study, and Apostolic Action. All three are necessary to life a Christian life.

So, if we are maintaining our discipline, how can we know when we are doing so to be closer to God or so that we can feel better about ourselve and resist God changing us?

I don't know that we can. As fallen creatures, our motovation is often (always?) mixed.

I remember about 8 years ago, I had just entered the discernment process. I had been very active in the Kairos prison ministry (and I still am). Each weekend, I got such a spiritual high that I couldn't wait till the next weekend. I was worried that I was becoming a "spiritual high junkie" and was involved in the ministry because of the great feelings I received and because of the praise of others when they found out I was involved in prison ministry. I brought this to the attention of my Spiritual Director and he ordered me to serve on a team, but ask the Rector (leader) of the team to assign me to a position where I was not that involved with the inmates or with the team. I did so and,while I enjoyed the weekend, I did not get that great spiritual high. When I came back my Spiritual Director asked me about the weekend and I told him it was OK, but a lot of work with little consolation. He asked me if I was planning on serving on other teams and I said that absoultely I would serve on other teams. He then told me to shut up about my motovations and leave that to God, but to continue to serve and to the work to which I had been called.

So, If you are concerned about your motovations for obeying the Christian disciplines, then my advice to you is to put that concern before God in prayer, meditation and contemplation. Let God worry about your motovation and continue in the discipline. But be aware. Opening your motovation to God and asking Him to purify you and your motovations can be very dangerous. You will end up changed and made new.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Hiding in Plain Sight

2008-11-18T13:46:00.002-06:00

Over at StandFirm, I read an excerpt from Bishop Skip Adams sermon on morality being a barrier to God (if you are interested in the sermon, here is the link.

This got me thinking on one of my favorite topics. Using religion to hide from God. I'm familiar with this topic because I've used religion (and still have a tendency to do so) to hide from God.

The Church can be a wonderful place where we can use our religion and our religious busy-ness to keep God at arm's length. So long as we are involved in Church - so long as we can perceive ourselves to be "good" people who love God and we can point to our religious activities as proof of our love of God, we can keep God away from interefering too much in our daily lives.

I remember when I was in high school and my early adult years. I thought being a good Christian was about being involved in Church. I was an acolyte (and had been since I was 9 years old). I was a lay reader, a chalice bearer, a Sunday School teacher, even a Lay Eucharistic Minister (now Lay Eucharistic Visitor). I felt that being a good Christian was about getting my ticket punched for different destinations - kind of like moving my "Jesus" piece around a board until I passed "Go."

I see many people who live like that in the Church. They are so busy with being religious that they don't take time for faith. Christianity is far more about a relationship with God - about participating in the perichoresis of the Holy Trinity through trusting in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ than it is about obeying the rules and saying the right formulas.

What do you get when you read all the right books and say all the right prayers and live an outwardly upright and moral life? What do you get when you are at Church every time the doors are open and you can take pride in your tithe, your participation, and your level of commitment to the Church?

You don't get a good Christian. You get a good pharisee. What does it take, then, to make a good Christian? It takes faith - trust in God and the Grace of God actualized in our lives.

So, why do we have the rules and the morality and the outward activities of the Faith?

I'll ruminate on that tomorrow (hopefully).

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The Mission of the Church and the MDGs

2008-07-25T12:53:00.002-05:00

There is a lot of people who say that our diversity can be united in mission. But that begs the question - what is the mission of the Church?

The mission of the Church can be summed up in the Great Commission:

And Jesus came to them and said: "All authority in heaven and on earth has
been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you
always, to the close of the age."

Another way to say this is that the mission of the Church is to reconcile all people with God and each other thru Jesus Christ. Any thing that detracts from this mission is bad. That which furthers the mission is good.

The MDGs are good works. They can be ways of furthering the mission of the Church, but they are not the mission of the Church. I will work with non-Christians in relieving poverty, bringing good news to prisoners, working for justice and peace and other "good works" but only if I can do them in the name of Jesus Christ and only if I can, in some way, further the mission of the Church. The Church is only the Church when she is evangelizing.

Now that does not necessarily mean that we start grabbing people by the shirt and asking if they know Jesus. It does not mean that we need to be overt in our evangelism. A great deal of evangelism is what I call "covert." Evangelism can begin with justice issues. It can begin by working the the MDGs. But at some point it needs to be plain that we are doing this because of what Jesus has done for us and what He can do for them.

The MDGs cannot be a goal of the Church. They are a byproduct of living the Great Commission. The MDGs and any other social justice work are works done because of what Jesus has first done for us. If we make them the goal, we cease to be the Church. If we put them ahead of the Great Commission, we start to worship a false god.

I fear that this is what TECUSA is doing - particularly at Lambeth now. Our church leadership is trying to convince others that theology doesn't matter and that soteriology doesn't matter and that moral living doesn't matter. Only "mission" matters. This is a lie and leads to death because it leads to a false god (see the previous post).

I can support most of the MDGs because they can be great means of brining God's word and the new life that Jesus brings to those who do not know Jesus or need to know him better (which is all of us!).

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The Importance of Scripture and Theology

2008-07-21T09:24:00.000-05:00

We’ve heard a lot about how what we believe really doesn’t matter – at least as it regards our moral behavior – so long as we can gather around the table in fellowship.

To that, I respectfully, but firmly disagree. What we believe and how we behave have great impact on our relationship with God.

As human beings, we were designed to worship. Worship is built into the human psyche. We will always find something to worship. What we worship is critically important. When we worship false gods, they lead to death because they lead us from the author of life. Worshipping a false God leads us from life into the darkness and loneliness of hell.

Now, here is the great joke and great secret. We all worship a false god. I don’t mean that we do this intentionally, but that we all have false ideas of God and we worship the God we know. Our prayer should be to know God as He truly Is, not as we perceive Him to be. But this is impossible because we lack the capacity to know God as He truly Is. We cannot comprehend God. We can only apprehend God.

Now, each of us understands God a little differently. That is why we need the community of the Church. That is why I need you and you need me. As +Rowan Williams said, only the whole Church knows the whole truth (or as much of it as can be known).

Our inability to know God as He Is is another reason why dogmatic theology or systematic theology or the study of theology is important as well as the study of Holy Scripture . The Creeds and the teaching of the Church give us a much better frame work to know God. They are record by which we know which God we are worshipping and serve as signposts that tell us to turn around (repent) and return to the God made known in Holy Scripture and in the theology of the Church – particularly the theological statements that are the Creeds.

In Holy Scripture, God’s relationship with Israel is often described in terms of a husband/wife relationship. The church is called the Bride of Christ and has been referred to by the term “Holy Mother Church.”

I have been married to my wife for over 20 years. I will never understand or fully know her. She is a mystery to me and I anticipate continued joy as I spend the rest of my life trying to understand the mystery that is my wife. But that does not give me leave to sleep with another woman based on “mistaken identity.” If I crawl into bed and there is a 5’2” blonde with blue eyes, then that is not my wife and I had better get out of bed immediately!

If we find that the God we worship is no the same as the God revealed in Holy Scripture or discovered in the creeds, then we better return to the God of Scripture immediately. If we find that our idea of God conflicts with what the Church says (and has always said) about God, then we had better reform our ideas rather than try to reform the Church.

If we worship “the ground of being” rather that God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; then we are worshipping a false God and that worship will (unless we repent) lead to our spiritual death.

So, the study of theology is not “academic;” it is very important. It further makes known God as He Is. But the theology we study and learn needs to be grounded in Holy Scripture first and foremost. We need to worship, not the god we know of, but God as He has revealed Himself in Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Church.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

I Live in the Worst Country on Earth

2008-07-04T08:19:00.002-05:00

Except for all the others.

Today in the Fourth of July. I would like to reflect on the things I love and the things I hate about my country. Let's start with the things I love

Freedom - We have the freedom to worship and believe and act on those beliefs. While this is messy, we probably have the most diverse views of faith and religion and religious practice in the world. We also have considerable economic freedom and in the USA almost anyone with a good idea can make it big. Finally, we have political freedom. Our Constitution does not grant rights to the people, it recognizes the rights granted by God.

Political System - while I don't like the new 24/7 political wrangling and constant campain whre every word or sentence or action of every member of the political classes is scrutanized for its impact on the next election, our electoral system is probably the best in the world. While I wish we had better people in office (vote for me, Phil Snyder, for Benevolent Dictator, 2008!), we probably have as good as any other country.

Inventiveness - The USA is responsible for the internet, for many advances in the fields of computers, physics, chemestry, etc. Since we were the place where people who didn't get along with their current governments went for so long, we got a lot of people who like to think differently. This gave us a great pool of inventors. I owe my job to the Apollo moon missions because it was the shrinking of components that was necessary to support Apollo that gave us the desktop and laptop computers.

Now, the things I don't like
Individualism - we have moved from a country where we supported each other to a country were we fight each other over small stuff. As a trivial example, consider traffic where there is a lane closure. We all hate this and we hate even more, the people who zoom along in the empty lane, waiting until the last minute to merge. This increases the bottle neck at the merge point and slows down everyone else. A couple of years ago, my wife and I went to the opening of WalMart for it's after Christmas sale. The majority of people joined the line but a handful (about 50) stood at the door and rushed it when it opened so they could get the best deals. We have forgotten our sense of community. This leads to abortion on demand (I want what's best for me and I don't care about anyone else), pornography, drug use and abuse, worship of self, and a lot of our social woes.

Consumerism - we are a nation of consumers. We are being sold to constantly and we look to things to make us happy. God created us to love people and use things, but we love things and use people (see individualism above). We spend too much time and too much money to buy too much stuff that can't fulfill us. We overspend because we want it all and we want it now. Stuff is not evil in itself, but our attraction to stuff gets in the way of our relationships with others and with God. Just about everything in life - from toothpaste to our political candidates are branded and sold to us, not offered to us to consider.

Even when I think our country can be greatly improved, I still think it is the best country on earth. May God bless us and recall us to Himself.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The Inclusive Church's statement on GAFCON - another fisking

2008-07-02T17:05:00.003-05:00

This is such a target rich environment that it's too easy.

The "Inclusive Church" has a statement about the recent steatement from GAFCON. You can read it at the link, but here is my fisking of the statement:

The "Statement on the Global Anglican Future” released after the
GAFCON conference in Jerusalem shows once again how deeply many people
misunderstand the nature and spirit of Anglicanism. It misrepresents
loyal, orthodox, traditional Anglicans across the world who are
working and praying, in the spirit of the Gospel, to bring about the reign of
God on earth.

That GAFCON was necessary is evidence of how "deeply many people misunderstand the nature and spirit of Anglicanism." But the problem is that the GAFCON delegates are the ones who do understand the nature and spirit of Anglicanism. It is the groups who are trying to change the Church from the Body of those who are being made new in Jesus Christ to a body of those who are affirmed in their deepest selves. GAFCON represents (not mis-represents) "loyal, orthodox, traditional Anglicans across the world."

Anglicanism is is a dynamic, changing, growing and living faith which takes its
authority from scripture, reason and tradition. It is unafraid to
learn and receive anew the lessons of God's unconditional love. The last
century has taught us how we must make sure that there are no barriers to the
welcome we offer to God's house. Anglican Christians in the United
States, Britain and across the world have applied those lessons and, in
accordance with scripture, opened their doors to those previously shut
out.

This is a pretty true statement. But Inclusive Church has rejected Scripture, Tradition, and reason. (Note that "scripture" is not capitalized). The Church does need to be more open and call all people into relationship with the Holy Trinity. But that call is not a call to affirm yourself. It is a call to die to self to be raised with Jesus Christ. The only barriers to welcome in God's hourse should be within ourselves and include those sins of which we will not repent.

We welcome the response of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the GAFCON
statement. The arbitrary creation of a "Primates' Council” without
legitimacy or authority cuts directly across the Anglican Instruments of
Communion - the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference,
the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates Meeting. The Statement
represents, in sum and despite its denials, a schismatic document which
seeks to re-form Anglicanism in a way which is without justification
historically and ecclesiologically.

The audacity of this statement is almost beyond belief. Having rejected the authority of the Primates Council, Lambeth, the ACC, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, how can they question anyone who works both inside and outside these structures. GAFCON is not attempting to replace either Lambeth, the ACC, the Primates Council or the ABC. GAFCON is asking for a primates group to steer the GAFCON church within a church. This is actually better than the Inclusive Church or the Integrity way of acting schimatically by telling the rest of the Church that they are wrong and shouldn't be listened to.

We regret the stumbling blocks which are created by the insistence on a
narrow understanding of scriptural authority, especially for members of Anglican
Churches in provinces whose leaders support the ideas of GAFCON. And
those who break away from the Anglican Communion will still have the challenge
of celebrating the diversity in God's universe, and acknowledging the divine
gifts bestowed on people who may be marginalised in some provinces - especially
women and lesbian and gay people.

Chesterton once said "The purpose of an open mind is the same as an open mouth - to close it upon something." It seems that Inclusive Church wants to have scripture (for them it has no capital) to be so open as to avoid all meaning. There are many ways to interpret scripture in its plain sense. The problem comes when you interpret Holy Scripture to say what it manifestly does not say. When you insist on ways of interpreting Scripture that the Church has never used or has used and found wanting. No one is denying that God gives gifts to homosexuals or to women. We do deny that God blesses homosexual sex in any fashion.

We are reminded of Matthew 11.16 - "To what shall I compare this
generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling
to one another, "We played the flute for you and you did not dance; we
wailed and you did not mourn.”

I am reminded of Gal 1:8 "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed." No one is asking people not to dance nor not to mourn. What we are asking for is simple compliance with the united voice of the Anglican Communion in recognizing sin as sin and refusing to bless it.

Above all we give thanks that the Spirit which leads us into all truth continues
to inspire and refresh the Anglican Communion. We all have much to learn
from each other, and we look forward to the Lambeth Conference. We pray
that in humility and openness those who attend will grow in their understanding
of the Gospel, of the Communion and of one another so that we can all be
newly equipped to serve the God who calls each of us into God's immeasurable
love.

I share this prayer and I pray that the Holy Spirit comes with great power upon the bishops assembled at Lambeth. I pray that the stiff necked people who will not submit to the will of God as it is made plain in Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Church will bend their necks, lower their hearts and bend their knews and surrender to God's grace and love.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

A Logical Fallacy

2008-07-01T20:16:00.003-05:00

Many on the progressive Church will claim that we cannot with certainty know God's mind. And they are right. We lack the ability to know God as He is in His essence. We have the same ability to understand God that a single cell organism has to understand a person. This lack of ability to understand is one of the reasons that God reveals Himself to us. Without God's self-revelation, we would be utterly fallen and utterly without recourse.

But what the progressives follow the truth (we can't understand God and can't know Him with certainty) with is very false. They propose that, because we can't be certain about God because we can't fully understand and know God, we should allow that God desires us to do new things or to try new directions contrary to what the Church has said that God revealed in Holy Scripture.

This is a way to void the authority of Holy Scripture and replace it with the authority of the individual. Since we can't be certain of what God wants, we can't know that God doesn't want me to (get divorced, eat too much, cheat on my taxes, spend more than I make, waste resources, have sex outside of marriage, redefine marriage, take your pick). If we can't be certain of what God wants and doesn't want, then isn't almost everything adiaphora - non-essential?

The Truth (with a Capital "T") is this. We can't know God. We can't understand God. Therefore, we are bound by what God has choosen to reveal about Himself. The record of God's Self-revelation is found in Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Tradition of the Church.

Since we can't know God we must restrict ourselves to what God has shown us.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Update on Elizabeth - the Power of Prayer

2008-06-30T19:52:00.002-05:00

This will probably be my last update on my daughter, Elizabeth for a while. She's been back to the doctor twice and is making good progress. She is doing more for herself than I anticipated and wants to push her own wheel chair around.

My biggest news is that my biggest fear (that she would get addicted to the pain medication) was completely unfounded! God answered our prayers in that Elizabeth didn't experience more pain than she could bear. In fact, she was completely off the pain medication within 10 days!

Thank you all for your prayers for Elizabeth. They have been a blessing to us and to her.

It'll be a few more weeks before she can put any weight on the foot and I'll try to remember to update you all then.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The Presiding Bishop's "Emission" - My first "Fisking."

2008-06-30T18:50:00.008-05:00

The Most Rev. Katherine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA has issued a statement about the GAFCON statement. My intent in this post is to point out the errors in her statement and not to be as dismissive of her as a person as she is to the people who developed the GAFCON statement.

(edited to add the whole statement) - First is the statement and then I will "fisk" it line by line or section by section.

Much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission from GAFCON.
Anglicanism has always been broader than some find comfortable. This statement
does not represent the end of Anglicanism, merely another chapter in a
centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves the only
true believers. Anglicans will continue to worship God in their churches, serve
the hungry and needy in their communities, and build missional relationships
with others across the globe, despite the desire of a few leaders to narrow the
influence of the gospel. We look forward to the opportunities of the Lambeth
Conference for constructive conversation, inspired prayer, and relational
encounters.

Now the section by section response (end of addition to new post):

Much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission from
GAFCON.

On the face of it, this is a true statement or at least not a demonstrably false one. I would guess about 5% of the Anglican Communion "laments" the GAFCON Statement. I also wonder about the title "emission." Why not talk about the "statement" from GAFCON or the GAFCON Declaration. ISTM that +Schori is belittling the statement from the beginning.

Anglicanism has always been broader than some find comfortable.

While it is true that Anglicanism is "broader than some find comfortable," it is also true that it has boundries. Traditionally, those boundries were found in the Book of Common Prayer and in the 39 Articles. Also, the boundries were found in the Creeds, Holy Scripture, and the first 4 (or 7) Ecumenical councils of the Church. while TECUSA has not yet officially crossed these boundries, many of the Clergy (including +KJS) have crossed them and no discipline has been forthcomming.

This statement does not represent the end of Anglicanism, merely another
chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider
themselves the only true believers.

First, the statement does not pretend to represent the "end of Anglicanism." That is a rather nasty red herring. Second, the delegates at GAFCON do not think themselves the only "true" believers. They are not struggling for dominance. They are witnessing to the historical and universal teaching of the Church, catholic. It seems odd that +KJS would say that others "consider themselves the only true believers" when she is quite willing to depose bishops without following the canons, replace standing committees without canonical authority and call for diocesan special conventions that don't follow the canons or constitution of either TECUSA or the diocese in question. +KJS seems to be willing to risk a large portion of the wealth of TECUSA on lawsuits and does not seem alarmed at the drastic fall in TECUSA's ASA or the crisis in the Anglican Communion - so long as she and those that agree with her are allowed to continue on their path. These are the actions of someone who is assured of her own rightness and righteousness and that everyone who disagrees with her is wrong. These are the actions of a person who things she (and those like her) are "the only true believers."

Anglicans will continue to worship God in their churches, serve the hungry
and needy in their communities, and build missional relationships with others
across the globe, despite the desire of a few leaders to narrow the influence of
the gospel.

I notice no mention of making disciples for Jesus Christ. There is nothing about being made new in Jesus Christ. There is nothing about submitting to God's will or trying to learn God's will. From what I can see, the GAFCON leaders are broadening the influence of the Gospel because they are changing their societies with its message and power. TECUSA is the one narrowing the "influence of the gospel (sic)." They are narrowing their influence to a small and shrinking subset of society. They are presenting a gospel of self acceptance and self actualization, not one of dying to self to be raised to New Life. Bishop Schori - to see who is narrowing the Gospel's influence, look in the mirror.

We look forward to the opportunities of the Lambeth Conference for constructive
conversation, inspired prayer, and relational encounters.

I too look forward to Lambeth and pray that God's Holy Spirit will come with great power on the Bishops assembled. C.S. Lewis once said that it is harder to convert those who think they know the truth than those who recognize that they do not. It is harder to convert a Sunday only Christian who thinks he's got a pretty good life than it is to convert a person who realized that he is in a bad way and needs help. I pray that God will work to convert those who don't recognize their need of Him at Lambeth.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Reorganizing the Anglican Consutative Council

2008-06-30T17:30:00.002-05:00

The Episcopal Church, USA claims to have a unique polity being, at the same time, democratic and hierarchical. They claim that the laity as well as bishops, priests, and deacons should have a say in the governance of the Church and I agree that the laity should have a voice in the governance of the Church. I do not believe that the voice of the laity should be as strong when it comes to the teaching of the Church (other than to object when the clergy go astray) but that's another post.

Anyway, TECUSA claims that the only really authoritative voice in the Anglican Communion is the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) because it is composed of laity as well as clergy.

The problem is that the ACC is not representative of the Anglican Communion as a whole. It's membership was determined in the 60s based on wealth and on perceived influence. Today, the whole picture of membership in the Anglican Communion has changed. Whereas in the 60s, the average Anglican was a white european person living in either England, Australia, or North America, today the average Anglican is a poor black woman living in Africa. We need to update the structure of the ACC to account for this.

Therefore I propose the following. First, we split the ACC into two houses (like the USA's General Convention). The first house will be composed of bishops, priests, deacons, and laity appointed by their provinces by what ever means the province chooses. That is the way it is done today, but that we change the apportionment of delegates from a constitutionally fixed number to a number based on Average Sunday Attendance (ASA). Thus, the largest provinces in terms of ASA will get the largest voice in matters that pertain to communion governance. To start with, I suggest that you get one member for every 800,000 ASA or portion thereof. Thus, TECUSA will have two members. Nigeria (with 18 million members and, with the assumption of 30% ASA, 5.4 million ASA) will get 7 or 8 members. Uganda (8 million members, 2.4 million ASA) will get 3 or 4 members.

The second house will be composed of the Primates of the Anglican Communion and will serve to either ratify or veto the resolutions of the ACC delegates. For matters that pertain purely to governance (budgets, province membership, etc) it will take 2/3 majority of the primates to veto a proposal of the delegates. For matters pertaining to the faith or practice of the Church (e.g. can homosexual unions be blessed), it will take only a simple majority of the Primates to veto the delegates.

Surely TECUSA cannot object to this proposal as it makes the ACC a much more democratic institution and mirrors our own General Convention and our the republican structure of our own government.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

The Baptismal Covnent – Proclaim by Example

2008-06-29T21:23:00.000-05:00

In my last post on the Baptismal Covenant I discussed the promise to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ” with particular emphasis on proclaiming by word.

Today I would like to discuss the need to proclaim our faith by our deeds. St. Francis of Assisi said something like “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” As a person who likes words (and particularly my own words J) this is something I struggle with. But God is good and faithful and He keeps putting me into situations where I have to use my actions.

Yesterday was a Kairos weekend reunion. There were about 7 “Brothers in Color” that met with about 100 “Brothers in White.” During these weekends, I spend a lot of time proclaiming the Good News of God in Christ by doing something that doesn’t happen much in prison – listening. I listen to the brothers and pray with them and demonstrate God’s love to them by being there for them.

Every Christian should have a minimum of two ministries that build up the Body of Christ. One should be a ministry within the Church. This can take the form of teaching Sunday School, serving as an Acolyte or in the choir or as a Lay Reader or Lay Eucharistic Minister. The service in the Church proclaims the Good News by serving others within the Church. It builds up the Body of Christ by helping others worship or learn about what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.

The second ministry is a ministry from the Church. This is a ministry to those who are not yet members of the Church. Prison ministry can take this form (although many profess Jesus Christ in the prison, there are those who don’t yet know Him). Ministry to the homeless, to hospitals, to the poor, mission trips to other countries all take this second form of proclamation by example. I like to think of this proclamation as “covert evangelism” where we are spreading the good news but not doing it overtly.

This brings me to an important point. We don’t “save” anyone and we don’t “convert” anyone. We don’t even bring people to faith or get them to make a commitment or to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. All those tasks belong to the Holy Spirit, not to us. We may have the joy of being there when someone is moved by the Holy Spirit to make a commitment to Jesus Christ. We may be there when God acts on that persons heart and we may be an instrument of God’s action, but we are not the actor – God is. A friend of mine once said: “Conversion is a Management responsibility. I work in sales.” We all work in sales and a large part of sales is building a relationship. Proclamation by work and example are part of the sales process.

Another part of proclamation by example is how we live our lives. Are we filled with God’s joy or are we depressed and cynical? Do we overcome obstacles and endure suffering well or are we complainers who whine that the world is not fair? How we live will say a lot about our example.

My father was an Air Force officer. When I was in college, I was in Air Force ROTC with the goal of becoming an Air Force Officer myself. My dad asked me if I wanted to lead by example and I said: “Of course I do!” My dad said: "Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is that you will lead by example. The bad news is that you have no choice. The men and women you lead will follow your example - not what you say."

Like many things my father told me, I find this to be true. We all lead by example. What does your example say about the Good News of God in Christ?

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

GAFCON - My Take

2008-06-29T21:21:00.000-05:00

Well, it seems that, despite the prewritten and preconceived notions of the progressives and the mainstream press, the GAFCON conference did not split from Canterbury. The statement from GAFCON was very straight forward and correctly diagnosed the issue – not as one of lax or differing morality, but as one of authority: “

This false gospel undermines the authority of God’s Word written and the
uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of salvation from sin, death and
judgement.”

This problem of authority in doctrine and the teaching of doctrine contrary to the source of authority has led to a problem of authority in the political organization of the Church. This is seen with the congregations and dioceses that have left TEC and asked for Episcopal oversight from Africa, Asia, or South America.

Those of you who know me know that I am what is termed a “communion conservative.” I believe that the best solution to this crisis of authority is for the Anglican Communion as a whole to exercise its authority to discipline those provinces and bishops who are acting against the expressed teachings of the Communion. But, it seems that there is no agreed on way for this to occur. I was deeply disappointed when Archbishop Williams invited the American bishops who have defied the Communion by ordaining +Robinson or by allowing same sex blessings in their dioceses. I have less hope for Lambeth, but there is some hope there. I was saddened when Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda refused to go to Lambeth. I am heartened that +Jensen, +Venables, and others are going to Lambeth and will stand for the Faith that has been entrusted to us by the Church triumphant and by the Triune God.

If the Common Cause Partners are acknowledged as a legitimate province of the Anglican Communion (and I pray that they will be), that would be an excellent solution to the problem. How TECUSA will deal with that reality is a different issue (and another blog post).

I believe that GAFCON offers us a way forward – perhaps the best way forward.

In my next post, I plan to propose a new organization for the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC).

Please pray for the Anglican Communion and for its leadership. Pray for +Williams, +Schori, and all the Bishops who meet at Lambeth. Pray that the Holy Spirit will break stone hearts and free minds trapped by their own ideas and our secular society.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Sin, Inclusion, and Distraction

2008-06-25T19:44:00.003-05:00

Many progressives are asking for "full inclusion" in the Church for persons with homosexual orientation.

I ask, what excludes you now? I don't know of any Episcopal Church that excludes homosexuals simply because they are homosexual.

What we are seeing now is a distraction. It is one of the oldest tricks - both rhetorically and by magicians.

We start out with a true premise. "All people, by virtue of their baptism, are full members of the Church and should not be excluded from the sacraments." That is true. I affirm that and so does every other reasserter I know.

The next statement, those, is false. "Therefore, we should bless homosexual unions." This false because homosexual sex is sinful. The Church has maintained this stance for all of its history and it is still the official teaching of the Anglican Communion and the Church catholic. TECUSA lacks the authority to bless homosexual unions. It lacks the authority to recognize homosexual "marriages" as sacramental and it shows poor judgement in ordaining men or women who disagree with the teaching of the Church into positions of leadership in the Church.

The problem is that the Church cannot bless anything on its own authority. Priests do not bless or absolve or consecrate on their own authority. Priests are conduits of God's grace and authority, not arbiters of it or originators of it.

So, I affirm the full inclusion of homosexual men and women into the life of the Church. I welcome them to join us in the struggle against sin and the fight for a right relationship with God.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Who are the Schismatics?

2008-06-24T20:11:00.003-05:00

In my previous post on GafCon, I speak of the necessity of avoiding schism. This leads us to a big question: Who are the schismatics?

In TECUSA, those who have placed themselves under the leadership of bishops answerable to Africa or South America are labled the schismatics and, from TECUSA's point of view, this is true.

But lets consider the whole Church - or at least the whole Anglican Communion. I doubt very much if we will attain sacramental union with Rome or Contstantinople any time soon (particularly on our current theological trajectory). Anyway, when we consider the whole communion, the ones who are walking apart from the rest of the communion are the ones who have changed the faith and practice of the Church.

Consider this anology. In the US Civil War, the state of Virginia voted to leave the union. It was a slave state and didn't like the Federal Government telling it what to do. However, several counties in Virginia voted to remain in the union. They formed the new state of West Virginia. This state remained separate even after Virginia rejoined the union. So, who were the "schismatics?" From the unions standpoint, the schismatics are the people of Virinia who insisted on their own autonomy and the people who formed West Virginia were loyal American citizens who desired to stay in the union. For the people of Virginia, those in West Virginia were the schismatics who would not support their fellow Virginians and wanted outside intereference in their daily lives.

The majority of bishops and clergy in TECUSA want to bless same sex unions and call homosexual sex "holy" in certain cases. This is against the teaching of the Communion. To act on this teaching against expressed will of the communion and against the knowledge that the actions will tear the fabric of the communion (and "schism" means to tear the fabric) is not to act prophetically. It is to act schismatically. The true schismatics in the Anglican Communion are those bishops and priests (and deacons and laity who support them) who bless same sex unions or participate in the ordination of men and women involved in same sex unions.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

GafCon

2008-06-24T19:44:00.002-05:00

I haven't written much on GafCon or on the inside v outside strategy for the crisis in the Anglican Communion and TECUSA's part in that crisis.

First, I support the "inside" strategy. This strategy says that we should reform the Episcopal Church from within. I have the luxury of that strategy for a few reasons.

Neither my living nor my pension depend on TECUSA. I receive no pay and very little in the way of expenses to serve as a deacon.
My parish (St. James, Dallas) is a very orthodox place with biblically based preaching and teaching. There is no confusion where we stand on the issue of authority.
My diocese (The Diocese of Dallas) is a very orthodox diocese with a wonderful Bishop and diocesan staff. As a diocese, we send no money to the national church. Individual parishes do that, (but mine doesn't) but the diocese does not and has not for several years.
I am in no way persecuted for my beliefs. It is not hard to be an orthodox Anglican in this parish or diocese.

However, I can understand the need for an "outside" strategy where people in theologically progressive dioceses or parishes may need to break out to combat the heresy. These people need clergy to support and lead them and the clergy should be well trained and understand the issue.

If we take the Global Anglican Future CONference at its word, they are not working to create a separate Anglican Communion. They are working to reform the communion from within. I can support that. I can also support the Common Cause partnership that includes both TECUSA as well as "Continuing Anglican" congregations. The goal is the same - a theologically orthodox, unified Anglican witness in North America that is part of the global Anglican Communion.

But there is a large problem with the "outside" strategy. Those that leave have not left for a unified outside strategy. There are congregations and dioceses associated with Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, South East Asia, and South America. That does not even include the "Continuing Anglicans" that formed several different churches during the 70s and 80s in response to Women's Ordination. Those who engage in the outside strategy need to make it clear that these congregations and dioceses will reform into one witness by a date certain and that any parishes or dioceses that refuse to from into one witness with one house of bishops and a single primate will no longer be supported by their current bishop or primate. There needs to be a plan for the lifeboats to get back together and either build their own ship as part of the Anglican Fleet (ideally) or rejoin the effort to rescue or raise the good ship TECUSA.

As I said before, I believe that one of the largest problems with the outside strategy is that it arises from our individualism and lack of patience.

Anthony didn't start a new church when he found the church too corrupted by society.
Athanasius didn't start a new church when he found the church's theology to bring death and not life.
The Capadocians didn't start a new church when the church declared itself Arian.
Ratramnus didn't start a new church over sacramental theology
Dominic didn't start a new church when the people and clergy grew to lax
Francis didn't start a new church when the people and the clergy grew to rich and indolent
Luther didn't set out to start a new church, but to reform the existing one (and it took a long time, but he was basically successful).

We need to be very careful to be sure to create a way forward for all those who wish to continue in the Apostles' teaching and fellowship. Breaking fellowship is a very serious step. Almost all heresies have been successfully fought off (over time). To the best of my knowledge, no schism has.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Freudian Slip

2008-06-23T12:41:00.004-05:00

I'm in the middle of writing some specifications for a program that I need to write for my customer in Tampa Florida.

There is a database word, "schema" which can indicate many things (normally, it indicates the overall layout of the tables in the database). In this case, it indicates the owner of the database tables. The customer is unsure in which schema I will be creating the tables I need for the program.

So, in the specs, I'm writing "SCHEMA.TABLE_NAME" (e.g "SCHEMA.RUN_CONTROL") so I have a place holder for when the customer determines in which schema the table will be created.

However, when I looked at the document, I noticed that I wrote "SHEMA.RUN_CONTROL." "Schema" is the Jewish word for "hear" and it is used of the phrase "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is One."

I guess this is one of the hazards of writing technical specs with a religious education.

:)

YBIC,
Phil Snyder