And at those Feet

A good few years ago now I sat at the feet of the Dalai Lama in the Town Hall during what I think must have been his first visit to Dunedin. Like most of the other people who virtually filled the hall, I don't think I followed His Holiness' line of thought as closely as I perhaps should have done, but one thing was as clear as a bell. According to the Dharma, all sentient beings would eventual reach eternal bliss.

I couldn't help contrasting this with the Gospel (as commonly received) according to which only human sentient beings would be putting in an appearance beyond the grave, and most of them would immediately find themselves in a place of unbearable and unending torment for reasons of which they were entirely unaware before their arrival. It made me wonder just which is the Good News, the Dharma or the Gospel? According to the latter only cats and dogs, it seems, can face the future with confidence. At least their sufferings will be ending rather than just beginning.

Ah yes, but what about freewill? Surely God is just respecting our freedom. Well, I'm not so sure. Were any of us asked whether we wanted to come into existence in the first place, and thus run the appalling risk of eternal damnation? Speaking personally, I don't remember receiving a questionnaire on the subject myself. And nor do I expect to have any say as to whether I survive my death or not. I'm just going to have to carry on whether I like it or not, in whatever state I find myself, and that state might be rather on the hot side for my eternal comfort.

I would have thought that if God has already made the fundamental choices about my existence for me, then he should be responsible for seeing me right in the end as well. I certainly hope so.

The Remnant

I have just been listening to the wonderful New Zealand pianist Richard Farrell playing the music of Chopin and Brahms on CDs recently remastered from old Pye records. Farrell was killed on the roads of Sussex in 1958 at the age of 31. I don't remember hearing of his death (I was only eleven at the time, and anyway I thought the pipe organ the only instrument worth listening to) but I certainly feel a sense of loss now. And I can imagine the cries of anguish and despair when the news reached his native land.

And no doubt there would have been the inevitable question, "Why?" Farrell came from a good Catholic family and was educated in good Catholic schools. Given his affiliations (not to mention his talents) why was God careless to the point of criminal negligence? Why didn't he give Farrell a reasonable, indeed normal, span of life like everyone else?

These are very understandable questions, of course, but do they really accord with the evidence of our experience? What exactly is a normal life-span? I take normal here to mean usual. And in this matter usual can mean vanishingly short. Consider all those miscarriages, abortions, and infant deaths since recorded history began, then add all the young lives cut short by disease, famine, war and violence of every kind. I wouldn't be surprised if only a minority survived to celebrate their first quarter-century - if that.

So what are we to make of it all? I rather imagine that our more fundamentalist brethren would explain matters by blaming the devil. And of course, the Letter to the Hebrews describes the latter as the one having the power of death. But in Christ, God has defeated death - so what sense can we make of the continuing mayhem? How can God's purposes still be achieved despite the death and destruction which always surrounds us in this world?

Well, I have A Little Theory. So sorry. But here we go. When I was about fifteen I had a remarkable experience. All I remember of it is the way it ended: the Light (note the capital letter) which filled the room moved away through the ceiling and the ceiling itself, together with the walls, the floor and the contents of the room reappeared to view. And I was filled with the most absolute feelings of love, joy, peace and all the other good things for the next half-hour or so, after which matters slowly returned to normal.

This was during the summer holidays and I was working in the Otago University Library when it was still in the Tower Block. I remember a day or two later standing beside a stack of books (including, if I remember rightly) that all-time best-seller, 'Homing Tendencies in Migrating Turtles') and surprising myself by thinking that if Christ and this Light were one and the same, well and good. If not, I would stick with the Light.

Somewhat unusually for me, I told no one of my experience. It needed no confirmation. It didn't even need an explanation. Whatever the Light was, it was the final reality, and the final authority. It was totally self-authenticating. It had no face, it said nothing, and it gave itself no name - none of which mattered in the slightest. I had (and have) no doubt that this Light was what life was for, including  all life of whatever kind. It was obvious to me that we came into existence by the will and power of the Light and that it was the purpose of our existence to return the Light. And I knew that death was an essential part of that process, and therefore not to be feared.

I also knew immediately that the Old Gentleman on top of Mt Sinai with a long beard and a short fuse simply didn't exist - and never had. No wrath, no rage, no thunderbolts, no plagues, nothing but love, mercy and forgiveness. And truth, of course. I'm not suggesting that the Light is filtered through rose-tinted lenses, but I am saying that Master Calvin of Geneva should have read Mother Julian of Norwich before rushing into print.

It wasn't until I was ordained and in my first parish that I came across 'Life after Life' by Dr Raymond Moody, with its accounts of many Near Death Experiences, and recognised their extraordinary similarity to my own experience. And it wasn't until many years after that that I encountered the Eastern Orthodox teaching generally known as Palamism, according to which God can be (and often is) seen as light, as by St Paul on the Damascus Road. Since then I have come across many people (some of them here in Dunedin) who have had the same experience as I did, likewise without being anywhere near death. And just as it permanently transformed my life, and my understanding of the meaning and purpose of life, so it did the same for them.

Now, one of the distinguishing characteristics of this kind of thing is the way in which people find, firstly, that while it is happening, their consciousness is somehow expanded and enlarged, and secondly, they appear to enter into a kind of telepathic communication between themselves and others, based not so much on words and language but on simple shared awareness.
  
Thus we come (at long last!) to My Little Theory, which works like this. It seems likely to me that beyond the grave we shall all participate in a kind of shared consciousness to which we shall each contribute our own individual awareness, our memories and our experiences. This would mean that those who died before they could acquire such memories and experiences would not be deprived of their reality, and it would also mean that what appears now to us to be the pointless and useless suffering of (say) the inmates of Auschwitz might well be a most profound gift to the rest of us, after the model of the passion of Christ when it is seen from the Garden of the Resurrection. But it all depends on the reality of human destiny. And on a remnant (very biblical, you will note) which has undergone the experience of life in this world long enough to be able to take it into the world to come.

So that's it - at least for the moment. Outraged responses on a postcard, please. Or not.

Culture Wars

Last Saturday Kelvin Wright was ordained and installed (i.e. consecrated and enthroned) as the ninth Bishop of Dunedin of the Anglican Persuasion. It was a wonderful occasion if only because it achieved the right result, and because the new bishop's splendid new gear (made by his sister who should do this kind of thing for a living) didn't make him look like the Imperial Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

But I wish I could say the same for his fellow bishops. They were all clad in something called a chole. Yes, a chole. And what do you suppose that is? Why, it's a combination chasuble cum stole of course. Except that it isn't. It's actually a sandwich-board designed to encourage racial harmony and cultural diversity (and to help us rather insecure New Zealanders feel a bit more confident about our identity). You can tell that by the fact that it has flax crosses prominently displayed front and back.

You don't have to be a member of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia for long to realise that the significance of the flax cross is cultural rather than Christian. Thus we seem to have made the good the enemy of the best, and I'm not sure that that would appeal to the One whose kingdom is not of this world.

Having it both ways

Today is the anniversary of the papal bull Regnans in excelsis published in 1570 announcing Pope St Pius V's deposition of Queen Elizabeth I from her royal throne and his call to her subjects to abandon both their sovereign and the spiritual leadership of the 'lewd preachers and ministers of impiety' whom she had planted in the Lord's Vineyard.

You might therefore have thought that Pius was no friend of the Anglican Church in any shape or form. But apparently not, if the following endorsement by an American Episcopalian culled from the internet is anything to go by.

Today is a very special day, the Feast of St Pius V. As one of my patrons (I took Pius as my confirmation name) I'll be serving at the Holy Sacrifice today from his Missal (but in English, alas). If you are able, do join us today at noon at Grace and St Peter's to celebrate this illustrious Pope and Confessor and great friend of the Church of England.

With friends like this . . .

Crown and Mitre

On 30th January we Anglicans observed the feast of the blessed St Charles, King and Martyr. And we did so with hearts overflowing with gratitude for his courageous defence of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith - even unto death. We did, didn't we? Well I certainly did, but some of you might have been just a little too squeamish to do the same, I fear.

Perhaps you were put off by Professor J.P. Kenyon's remarks on the matter, 'His [Charles the First's] was never a masculine character, and his femine delicacy of feature, his tristesse, that Pre-Raphaelite droop so attractive to the old ladies of Anglo-Catholicism, had a limited appeal to contemporaries.' As a put-down (two put-downs, in fact) this is simply superb, but is it true? And is it enough to account for the reality of the king's part in the life of the church, or the reality of the church's life following his death?

Here's the opinion of another distinguished historian of the period, C.V. Wedgewood, 'His church policy was the outcome not of calculation but of conviction; he was ready to die for it.' And what in the end was the church policy Charles was prepared to die for? According to Mandell Creighton, bishop of London at the turn of the twentieth century and a noted ecclesiastical historian, 'Had Charles been willing to abandon the church and give up episcopacy, he might have saved his throne and his life. But on this point Charles stood firm: for this he died, and by dying saved it for the future.'

And these are some of the Royal Martyr's own words on the matter, 'I conceive that episcopal government is most consonant with the Word of God, and of apostolical institution, as it appears by the Scripture to have been practised by the apostles themselves, and by them committed and derived to particular persons as their substitutes or successors therein, and have ever since to these last times been exercised by bishops, and therefore I cannot in conscience consent to abolish the said government.'

But perhaps your sympathies lie with a later (and somewhat Presbyterian) sovereign. At a garden party for Anglican bishops Oueen Victoria remarked to her lady in waiting, "A very ugly party. I do not like bishops." When Lady Lyttelton expressed some disquiet at this pronouncement from the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the queen said, "I like the man - not the bishop." I'm sorry to say that a good many Anglo-Catholics since then would have happily reversed her reply, and may even have had good reason to do so.

No doubt there have been (and will continue to be) objections to episcopacy from our more protestant brethren, but I'm afraid I find them entirely unconvincing. Perhaps there was a period of uncertainty about the ministry in the early Church (though you might like to take a cursory look at From Synagogue to Church by James Tunstead Burtchaell, CUP 1992, before you make up your mind). For myself I find the universal practice of the churches which have any claim to antiquity (some of which, like the Assyrian Church of the East, have been in a world of their own from very early on) to be most persuasive. Despite enormous differences in their histories, liturgies, and even in their canons of scripture, these churches have all held fast to the doctrine of apostolic succession and to the consequent three-fold ministry as being essential to the Catholic Church.

I mention the scriptural canon because even where the New Testament is concerned, there have been notable differences. The Syriac churches, for example, did not accept 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John, and the Book of Revelation until very late in the day, and even now the latter is not read at the public services of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Only tradition tells me that there are four Gospels and not three or thirty. Likewise tradition tells me that in some vital sense bishops have succeeded the apostles in the governance of the People of God. Perhaps some bishops have been no good. But then, the gospel of John has been used to promote antisemitism, and I have yet to hear of a plan to remove it from the bible as a result. Episcopacy was established in the church before the canon, and has ever since been a foundation of the church's life. No doubt the church could get by without St John's gospel, just as some denominations get by without bishops - but it would be an impoverishment, and a statement that Christianity was on the wrong path for fifteen hundred years, which (in this instance, at least) makes very little sense to me.

However, there is an exception. There is always an exception! And the exception in this case (you will be surprised to learn) is the Roman Catholic Church. Should you consult Principles of Sacramental Theology by Father Bernard Leeming SJ (published in London by Longmans Green in 1956) you will be interested to discover that bishops are largely surplus to requirements, since the Roman Pontiff can give permission (and presumably power) to simple priests to ordain to the priesthood and the diaconate, and perhaps even to the episcopate. At least three popes have done so, and Father Leeming rather reluctantly acknowledges the fact.

But we shouldn't be too surprised. Remember those missals which we all had (well, some of us) before the Second Vatican Council, with an imprimatur from none other than one L. Suenens, working his way up to the archbishopric of Malines and a galero (a cardinal's red hat)? In the helpful introduction to these missals we are told that 'There are three major Orders or consecrations,' and that they are those of subdeacon, deacon, and priest. And just in case a bishop should feel left out, he is assured that he possesses 'the fulness of the priesthood.' Furthermore there are (or at least have been) reputable dogmatic manuals (so-called) used in seminaries which maintain that ordination to the episcopate is not a sacramental act.

Since Vatican Two, of course, all is changed. But let's not forget that until the pope says sorry, the Roman Church is officially Presbyterian. So, given a rather obvious 'defect of intention' where the episcopate is concerned, do they really have valid orders like us?

To be or not to be

Ever since I was a small boy I have been fascinated by matters which I have not had the slightest possibility of understanding. Although I have found this particularly helpful in forming my opinions, and essential in expressing them, it has been a drawback all the same. But please note that modern science backs me up. Take, for example, Werner Heisenberg and his uncertainty principle. Even the name has a certain quality of reassurance for those of us who would like to understand such things as mathematics and physics, but who have always had difficulty in being entirely certain that two and two make four. (When I was at primary school the headmaster informed me that if I couldn't do arithmetic I would never amount to anything. He was quite right - I couldn't and I haven't.)

The uncertainty principle tells us that at the quantum level of reality it is just not possible to be sure about the behaviour of atoms, let alone their constituent parts such as electrons and quarks. And given the fact that atoms are themselves more than ninety-nine per cent empty space, and that the tiny fraction which is something rather than nothing can be described as 'a blur' I can't say I feel too bad about my ignorance.

This is especially so as Heisenberg's successors seem to be approaching the great Somers-Edgar principle which is simply this - the universe doesn't actually exist. Even as a eleven or twelve-year old I had my doubts. I can remember standing at the bottom of Pitt Street at the time when I was still attending Arthur Street School and wondering whether the scene before me was actually the way I percieved it, or if it was even there at all. (I might say that at this point in my life I was drinking nothing stronger than milk.) Perhaps the presence of Knox Church to my left unhinged me somewhat, but I had the same doubts even when I was standing inside St Patrick's Basilica. Nowadays, I must confess, inside all too many churches this is not so much a doubt as a hope.

Clearly something exists in some way or other, but it is not at all clear just what that way might happen to be - especially, it seems, to physicists. Which makes the pious (or impious) certainties of Richard Dawkins and his friends hard to credit. With empty atoms, string theory, the possibility of eleven dimensions (at the last count), imaginary time, quantum mechanics and other scientific propositions, not to mention the theory that the universe divides into millions of complete and separate versions of itself in order to accomodate all possible outcomes - by comparison with all this, believing in God is mere child's play.

Doubting Thomas

Today we have been observing the feast of St Thomas Aquinas, for whom I have a somewhat ill-informed liking, if only for two particular reasons. The first is that as a small child he would apparently ask his elders "What is God?" Not who?, you will note, but what? I entirely realise that he should actually have been asking whether anyone had found his teddy bear, and I thus have some sympathy with his poor elders - but I do think he was on the right track. God has got to be more than a little old man on the top of a middle eastern mountain with a long beard and a short fuse.

I also like Aquinas for his reported answer to his own question at the end of his life, namely, that having actually experienced the Real Thing (please note the capital letters) he understood that there could be no answers, except for the ones that make sense. And where God is concerned, sensible answers often make no sense at all. Thus the Angelic Doctor is said to have refused to finish his great Summa with the statement that what he had already written (and that was an awful lot) was only so much straw.

The contrast between St Thomas and a good many of the Doubting Thomases of our own time (often fully paid-up clergy and theological professors, alas) could hardly be greater.