Author: leanderharding

Cathedral of All Saints, Albany

Being A Priest In A Difficult Time: A Response

This essay was originally published as part of a SEAD series which included Christ Seitz and Phillip Turner on “Being A Priest In A Difficult Time” Some of the essays are published on the ACI site here. [Editor’s note: this link is broken. We apologize for the inconvience.]

A Response By Leander Harding, To Reflections On Being A Priest In A Difficult Time by Philip Turner and Christopher Seitz

In my neck of the ecclesiastical woods there is a standard format for sermons at ordinations, celebrations of new ministry and Holy Week meditations on the renewal of priestly vows. The speaker is obliged to give a passing nod to the event at hand and then devote the rest of the agenda to a discussion of the preeminence of baptismal ministry. The hoary bogie man of clericalism is trotted out and denounced to the satisfaction of all present. Patriarchalism, hierarchalism are said to be bad and collaboration and mutuality are said to be good. Something is often said about the ministry belonging to the people and not the priest and about looking to the members of the congregation who are the “real” ministers.

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Been There

Mediation Or Adjudication– Notes On Parish Conflict
A Report For The Bishops Of Connecticut
by The Rev. Leander S. Harding, Ph.D.
November 28, 2000

1. My experience with parish conflict. I have been ordained for 20 years and have led 4 parishes of which three have had a history of conflict. I was a diocesan consultant in Maine and Massachusetts and spent over a year working in one highly conflicted parish in which fist fights had been a feature of previous parish meetings. I was an early advocate of applying Family Systems Theory to parish life before this perspective was made famous by Edwin Friedman’s great book. As an adjunct professor I taught Family Theory and Therapy at Andover Newton Theological School and was a supervisor of field education supervisors at Episcopal Divinity School. My most profound experience of parish conflict was the first three years of my tenure at St. John’s in Stamford which culminated in the vestry asking for my resignation and my request for a Godly judgment under the canons from the Bishop. I participated in an ongoing group for survivors of extreme parish conflict held at E.D.S. in 1992-1993. Of the dozen or so members at the time I attended, including a bishop who was forced to resign his see, I was the only person who ultimately stayed in place and continued in office. During my eleven year tenure at St. John’s I have had three of the most difficult years in the priesthood and eight of the best.

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Quote of the Day: Dr. Bill Witt

There is a danger that discussions about the authority of Scripture may turn into exercises in exegetical casuistry. We can use Scripture the way lawyers use case precedents either to vindicate or convict a defendant. The focus of concern can become: What can I get away with? What meaning will the text bear? Can it be read to further my cause? A “minimalist” interpretation of Scripture can be as guilty of this as is a Puritan tendency toward “maximalism.” There is a danger of focusing on the texts as documents, and for-getting that the Scriptures are not self-referential. They speak of a reality beyond them-selves—namely God’s creation and redemption of the world and humanity in Jesus Christ. The purpose of exegesis is not only to decipher the grammatical meaning of the text or to find precedents for permissible or impermissible behavior, but to allow oneself to be formed and transformed by the reality to which the Scriptures refer so that one can find oneself within the Bible’s story of creation and redemption. But in order to do this, one must be willing to hand oneself over to the world of the text, to allow oneself to be challenged and even changed by it.

From an important exchange by Dr. Bill Witt. Read the whole thing here. [Editor’s note: this link is broken. We are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.]

Theodicy

The Christian understanding of evil has always been more radical and fantastic than that of any theodicist; for it denies from the outset that suffering, death and evil have any ultimate meaning at all. Perhaps no doctrine is more insufferably fabulous to non-Christians than the claim that we exist in the long melancholy aftermath of a primordial catastrophe, that this is a broken and wounded world, that cosmic time is the shadow of true time, and that the universe languishes in bondage to “powers” and “principalities”–spiritual and terrestrial–alien to God. In the Gospel of John, especially, the incarnate God enters a world at once his own and yet hostile to him–”He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not”–and his appearance within “this cosmos” is both an act of judgment and a rescue of the beauties of creation from the torments of fallen nature.

David B Hart, Tremors of Doubt
Thanks to Titsusonenine.

A Call For An Extensive Poll Of Episcopalians

Titusonenine has a good story about research Bill Sachs of ECF has done on reaction to GC 2003.

I have suggested repeatedly in various settings that the Episcopal Church Foundation, because it is an independent foundation with a research arm, conduct a carefully composed and extensive poll aimed at finding out what the sentiment in the pews really is on the issue. The point is not to vote on the truth but to give leaders on all sides of the question an accurate reading on where the people actually are. My ancedotal experience is that in my parish both strong proponents and strong opponents consistently overestimate the strength of their party in the parish, underestimate the size of what is inadequately described as the undecided party and routinely misidentify where other people in the parish are on the topic. One of the most hilarious experiences I have had is a forum where two different parishioners were irate with me, one for being an opponent of GC 2003 and one for not being a strong enough opponent of GC2003. They each interspersed their remarks with expressions of total agreement with each other and each to this day operates with the illusion that the other is on her “side.” It would sober up everyone and positively affect the debate to have an accurate take on where the people in the pews really are.

Leave a comment if you think this is a good idea.

Christ And Nothing By Orthodox Theologian David B. Hart

As modern men and women—to the degree that we are modern—we believe in nothing. This is not to say, I hasten to add, that we do not believe in anything; I mean, rather, that we hold an unshakable, if often unconscious, faith in the nothing, or in nothingness as such. It is this in which we place our trust, upon which we venture our souls, and onto which we project the values by which we measure the meaningfulness of our lives. Or, to phrase the matter more simply and starkly, our religion is one of very comfortable nihilism.

David B. Hart, Christ and Nothing

Thanks to titusonenine for reminding me about this profound and poignant article.

Seal Island

Seal Island is about twelve miles off the southwest coast of Nova Scotia. It has a lighthouse, a bird sanctuary and two hundred fifty sheep. I worked for the man who owned the sheep and we would go out to the island to round up the sheep, shear them and take off the lambs. He liked me to go with him because I could shear sheep reasonably well and because I had a Border Collie Sheep Dog that could swim.

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Should We Support Gay Marriage? NO

by Wolfhart Pannenberg
from Good News Magazine
Thanks To Pastor Eric Swenson

Can love ever be sinful? The entire tradition of Christian doctrine teaches that there is such a thing as inverted, perverted love. Human beings are created for love, as creatures of the God who is Love. And yet that divine appointment is corrupted whenever people turn away from God or love other things more than God.

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