See Ben Stein’s Expelled

See Ben Stein’s Movie Expelled

 

I didn’t see this movie when it was in the theaters but I ordered it from Netflix. I only know Ben Stein as a TV personality. I knew he was witty, thoughtful and funny but I didn’t expect such a powerful and provocative presentation of the debate around Intelligent Design. By all means see this movie if you haven’t seen it. It would make an excellent discussion piece for a youth group or an adult education event in a parish. Stein does a wonderful job of bringing out the prejudice of scientism masquerading as science. The most poignant and disturbing aspect of this brilliantly edited piece is the way in which Stein brings out the subtext of anti-Semitism lurking beneath the surface of the atheism of Richard Dawkins. There is an especially chilling scene in which Richard Dawkins is reading from his book, The God Delusion, and describing his take on the God of the Old Testament. This scene of vitriol, and it is the crudest vitriol, being read out by the urbane but contemptuous Dawkins literally in the face of a Jewish man who just a few moments ago in the film had been exploring with German scholars the connection between social Darwinism and the racial theories of the Nazis provides the most eloquent and damning commentary without a word of protest being said by Stein in the interview. One of the most appealing aspects of this documentary is the way in which it trusts the intelligence of the audience. It is a must see.

My Book on Theology and Psychology of Childhood Now Available Thru YTC Press

My book on the theology and psychology of childhood has just been published by YTC press in England.

Reverence for the Heart of the Child

and here in the us

US source

Below is the back cover blurb and a longer description of the work.

Reverence for the Heart of the Child

By

The Rev. Leander S. Harding, Ph.D.

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Are children little angels or little devils, or are they like their parents a little of each? Must they go through a definite moment of conversion or can they grow up always knowing themselves to be Christian? How do theological ideas about human nature, sin and salvation affect how parents see and treat children? Starting with Horace Bushnell’s classic and controversial 19th century study, Christian Nurture, Leander Harding brings the discussion up to date with the help of insights from contemporary psychoanalytic thought and Family Systems Theory. Included are practical suggestions for parents and parishes.

In the middle of the nineteenth century Christianity in New England was polarized between Unitarians and Calvinists. At the heart of the controversy was an argument over the nature of childhood. Unitarians objected vigorously to the doctrine of Original Sin and saw children as innocents who needed only to have their inherent goodness brought out. Calvinists under the influence of a very severe reading of the doctrine of utter depravity saw the pre-converted child as inherently wicked and thought that the only thing they could do for their children prior to a revival type experience of conversion was to convince them of their wickedness and their need for a new heart. In the midst of this controversy a Congregationalist minister, Horace Bushnell published in 1849, Christian Nurture. This book based on sermons given in his parish church in Hartford, Connecticut became quickly a classic in the field of Christian Education and the theology of childhood.

Bushnell criticized both Unitarians for their “ostrich nurture” referring to the myth of the ostrich sticking its head in the sand and hoping for the best. Bushnell criticized the Calvinists for an approach to child-rearing which damaged both “the personality and piety of your children.” He proposed that children should grow up never knowing themselves to have been otherwise than a Christian as a result of the Christian nurture of their parents and local church. Bushnell saw children neither as little angels or as little demons but as human beings made good in the image of God, fallen and struggling with good and evil in the same way as their parents and with the same capacity to know and respond to the love of God as their parents.

Reverence for the Heart of the Child, by Leander S. Harding is a fundamental rereading of Bushnell’s classic book. It is his thesis that though this book is often quoted it has been the victim of significant misreading. Harding proposes a fresh reading of this classic in the theology of childhood through a careful analysis of the theology of the day and through bringing Bushnell’s original argument into dialogue with contemporary psychology including Family Systems Theory. What emerges is a reading of Bushnell that is not easily categorized as liberal or conservative and which regains the provocative and prophetic voice of the original. Reverence for the Heart of the Child takes the lessons learned from Bushnell and uses them to critique contemporary Christian approaches to childrearing and Christian Education and ends with practical suggestions for parents and pastors.

The Rev. Leander S. Harding, Ph.D. is an Episcopal priest and Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. He has twenty five years of parish experience and is a trainer in the Godly Play movement. Many of his writings can be found at his blog, leanderharding.com/blog.

Gafcon and the Pastoral Forum

It is clear from the recent communique from GAFCON that the move to establish a North American Province without the express approval of Canterbury is unstoppable. It is a tragically missed opportunity that a robust response to the needs of alienated orthodox Anglicans in North America was not negotiated at Lambeth. I think a unified and unifying response could still be made if the Archbishop of Canterbury immediately announces a chair for the pastoral forum who is a figure credible in Global South and GAFCON quarters. Drexel Gomez and Mouneer Anis are two names that come immediately to mind. The non-negotiable needs to be that any interim arrangement of alternate primatial oversight is acceptable to the parties seeking relief. The window of opportunity for a Canterbury sponsored solution is nearly closed.

Response to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Second Lambeth Presidential Address

Response to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Second Lambeth Presidential Address

By

The Rev. Leander S. Harding, Ph.D.

Rowan Williams has just made a very courageous second presidential address to the Lambeth conference. He has tried to put in his own words what traditionalists hope to be heard saying and what those standing for the innovations hope to be heard saying. This sort of thing is very basic pastoral work and many pastors will immediately recognize a larger version of their own role of being a mediator and peace maker in family and parish life. His paraphrasing of the traditionalist and revisionist positions is very articulate. He tries to put both at their best and challenges both sides to an act of imagination and charity that could allow the communion to go forward. He defines his own position in favor of a covenant with strengthened instruments of communion. There is much to admire in this statement and especially so as it comes from a man under immense pressure. I hope that it will have a major impact and influence on the final outcome of the conference.

I have my disappointments with the statement as well. One cannot do everything in a short statement but the terms of debate about homosexuality as presented in popular culture are taken on without comment or critique. The statement assumes that there is a debate between traditionalists and revisionists about how to respond to “gay” and “lesbian” Christians. Rowan Williams is accepting that homosexuality is a descriptor of human identity in the same way as gender or race is. This is a disputed question both scientifically and theologically, and the constant assumption that the theological dispute is a dispute about how to deal appropriately with the same facts confuses things. There is also a dispute about what the facts are.

There is another subtle subtext to this message. The Archbishop has implicitly described the dispute as a North vs South dispute. The imaginary conversation sounds like a conversation between TEC and the African churches. There is an implication that Africans and others in the global South are in a pre-critical cultural context and that those in the global North are dealing with the complexity of a post-critical situation with a more enlightened and nuanced understanding of homosexuality. This is inaccurate and an oversimplification. Among other things it misses the massive disagreement and division in North America and fails to register the sophistication of the scientific and theological objections to the homosexual agenda in the church that cuts across the global North-South divide. The Archbishop’s statement sadly implies that all who resist the homosexual agenda in the church have not engaged seriously the cultural and scientific issues.

A final disappointment is the Archbishop’s failure to grasp the degree to which in North America and among North Americans the dispute is far deeper than over the proper response to homosexuality. The uniqueness and divinity of Christ are very much at play in our setting. The Archbishop is right that it is easy to judge too sweepingly and too harshly but his statement does not really register the worry that many traditionalists have in North America about fidelity to basic Christian doctrine on the part of the leaders of their churches. It is not the case that traditionalists are making judgments on the basis of the homosexual question alone. Statements by key leaders in the Episcopal Church contradict the most basic teachings of the faith including the divinity and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What is even more worrying is the use of the traditional language of faith with a very different intention and meaning by many of our leaders. I think traditionalists in North America would like this concern to be truly heard by the Archbishop and the Lambeth meeting and not implicitly dismissed as prejudiced or over-reaction.

Bishop John Chane and Imperial Pluralism

Bishop John Chane and Imperial Pluralism

By

The Rev. Leander S. Harding, Ph.D.

“I think it’s really very dangerous when someone stands up and says: ‘I have the way and I have the truth and I know how to interpret holy scripture and you are following what is the right way,'” he said “It’s really very, very dangerous and I think it’s demonic.” Bishop of Washington, John Chane as quoted in the English newspaper The Guardian.

This is from an interview in which the bishop of Washington was commenting on the crisis in the Anglican Communion and the charge by Anglican traditionalists that many bishops in The Episcopal Church have simply departed from the Apostolic faith.

John Chane charges the traditionalists with the crime of certainty. This is a commonplace. It is a corollary of the reigning intellectual culture among the intellectual elites of the West. It is a consequence of the dogmas of post-modernism. It is based on the conviction that there is very little that can be known with certainty, perhaps just a very few “facts” of science, perhaps not even them. The dogma at work here is the ironic post-modern dogma of the certainty of uncertainty. Consequently according to this post-modern dogma, to claim certainty in the area of beliefs and values is immoral and especially so given the huge variety of religious and philosophical options. The high dudgeon of the well educated university grad schooled in the dogmas of post-modernism is reserved for anyone who has the audacity to claim certainty in the area of religion, morals and beliefs. This is seen by people such as John Chane as an example of immorality and trying to force your beliefs on others. People who are morally and religiously certain create alarm. They are in Bishop Chane’s words, dangerous.

This protest against certainty claims the moral high ground and sounds on the surface as though it is based on a generous tolerance. This supposed moral protest in the name of tolerance needs to be unmasked as exactly the opposite, the dismissive and marginalizing rhetoric of the powerful who seek to protect their own agenda from critique on the grounds of any transcendent authority. It is precisely an attempt to force your beliefs on others before any argument is engaged by virtue of the way in which the rules of discussion are established. It is saying, in effect, ” before we talk you must agree that your beliefs and values are the sort of thing that I say they are and I say they can never be more than one opinion among others. If we are to talk, you must give up all your truth claims before you come to the table. With regard to the rules of the table, I will be the final referee.”

Lesslie Newbigin has brought forward a devastating critique of this pretended stance of tolerance. Newbigin identifies one of the foundational myths of contemporary pluralism in the parable of the blind men and the elephant. A group of blind men so the story goes are exploring an elephant by touch. One feels the tail and says the elephant is like a rope and one feels the leg and says the elephant is like a tree and one feels the ear and says the elephant is like a large leaf. Each has a piece of the truth. No one of them has it all. To apply the parable to our current controversy, many in The Episcopal Church see the protest of traditionalist Anglicans as an attempt by one of the blind men to make his perspective the one authoritative perspective and thus a power play and an immoral case of over-reaching. Lesslie Newbigin points out that there is a problem with this parable. The parable is told from the point of view of the King and his courtiers who take in the whole scene. The parable is told from the point of view of a supposedly neutral observer who is able to see the partial and limited nature of all other perspectives from the vantage point of the one perspective which is not subject to any critique. The parable is told from the imperial point of view. The teller of the parable adopts the pose of tolerance but this is surface camouflage behind which the King asserts the right to relativize and marginalize all other claims to truth but his own. Of this Newbigin says, “In a pluralist society such as ours. . .any claim to announce the truth about God and his purpose for the world, is liable to be dismissed as ignorant, arrogant, dogmatic. We have no reason to be frightened of this accusation. It itself rests on assumptions which are open to radical criticisms, but which are not criticized because they are part of the reigning plausibility structure.” (Gospel in a Pluralist Society, page 10.)

Bishop Chane’s protest sounds high minded and tolerant but it is in reality the rhetoric of the despot who is beyond rebuke. I do not ascribe a calculating mentality to the bishop in this but the words quoted in the Guardian are nonetheless words which express an imperial pluralism. Having once dismissed his opponents, Bishop Chane will immediately turn and announce his agenda for revision of the inherited moral teaching of the church as a “Gospel imperative.”

Now the question is this: to whom shall we turn when issues are disputed; to the whole Christian dogmatic and moral tradition of the last 2000 years or to the dogmas of skepticism and nihilism of the current Western intellectual elites?


What I Wish Rowan Williams Had Said About GAFCON

What I Wish Rowan Williams Had Said About GAFCON

“I welcome the Jerusalem declaration of GAFCON. The vast majority of Anglicans will recognize the center and boundaries of their faith expressed in the GAFCON document including the robust affirmation of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the one and only son of God and the way, the truth and the life. The statement of orthodox Anglican faith produced by GAFCON is commendable and I recommend it to the design team for an Anglican Covenant as a most serious and weighty contribution to their process. I welcome the statement that GAFCON sees itself as a movement for reform and renewal within the Anglican Communion, and I look forward to the participation of GAFCON members at Lambeth and in other councils of the communion. I have questions about how the proposed GAFCON structures will relate to the councils of the communion and the existing instruments of unity. I invite the leaders of GAFCON to work with me and other leaders of the communion to make our Anglican Communion structures as responsive and responsible as possible. I hope that no new structural initiatives will be taken until Lambeth has had a chance to respond in more detail to the GAFCON proposals. It is my great hope that issues of this sort can be addressed personally and directly among the bishops of the communion at the upcoming Lambeth meeting.”


 

Thoughts on the Jerusalem Statement of GAFCON

Thoughts on the Jerusalem Statement of GAFCON

A Change in Tempo?

 

I have had a first look at the Jerusalem communiqué of GAFCON. I will be rereading it in days ahead but here are some initial reactions. GAFCON establishes itself as a confessing movement within the church based on an ecumenical definition of Christian orthodoxy and the historic Anglican formularies. GAFCON does not formally break with the Archbishop of Canterbury and describes itself as a movement for reformation and renewal. The statement asserts that Anglicanism is to be defined doctrinally. Canterbury is accorded respect but declared not to have the power to say who and who is not Anglican. This is an explicit rejection of the notion that to be an Anglican church all that is required is an invitation to the Lambeth conference. Rather Anglicanism is to be defined in terms of the common confession of creedal orthodoxy and adherence to the doctrinal heritage of the classical Anglican formularies. The language describing the significance of the 1662 BCP, the ordinal and the 39 articles is confessional and authoritative but is carefully worded to allow for some very modest interpretation and local adaptation of worship.

Those dioceses in North and South America that in word or deed have ceased to confess the uniqueness of Christ or promoted extra-biblical sexual morality are declared apostate and called to repentance. The existing instruments of communion are identified as an inadequate “colonial structure” and condemned for not promoting discipline within the communion. The primates who organized GAFCON are asked to create a council of primates and to enlarge this council with other confessing members and to recognize confessing Anglican jurisdictions whether they are in communion with Canterbury or not. The establishment of a new province for confessing Anglicans in North America based on the common cause partnership and to be recognized by the GAFCON movement is encouraged.

I do not read this as the break up of the Anglican Communion. I expect that many of the attendees at GAFCON will be attending Lambeth but I do see this conference and its statement as an important breakthrough in the impasse of the communion crisis. In the game of chess I believe there is a term called tempo. It has to do with which player is the one to which the other must respond. One player has the upper hand and then there is an exchange and the player who was setting the tempo is now the one who must respond. Until this meeting in Jerusalem the tempo was in the hands of the North American churches. They acted and the rest of the communion was in the position of responding to their actions. The existing instruments of communion including the Archbishop of Canterbury have in part by inaction and in part by intention, continually moved the tempo back to TEC and The Anglican Church of Canada. The emergence of GAFCON as a confessing group within the Anglican Communion which is willing to take bold action, though at this point action short of a formal break with Canterbury, changes the tempo. It is now the rest of the communion including its existing instruments of communion which must respond. It is the consensus of the emerging confessing majority in the communion which is now setting the agenda. If the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth conference do not respond to this initiative in a meaningful way they are likely to become irrelevant to the future of global Anglicanism. Irrelevancy for Canterbury, Lambeth and the Anglican Consultative Council seem a greater risk at the moment than the risk of a formal break or repudiation of these instruments by members of GAFCON.

A Review of The Forward Movement Catalog 2008

A Review of The Forward Movement Catalog 2008

 

The Forward Movement Catalog was in my mailbox at the seminary today. I have appreciated the ministry of Forward Movement over the years. Forward Movement is the semi-official tract publisher for the Episcopal Church. It is a remnant of a renewal movement of the early 20th century in TEC, and among other great publications which you can get from Forward Movement, you can get a pamphlet with the history of how this publishing organization came into being.

In the catalog you will find some real gems that are written in an accessible style that will be much appreciated by the parish faithful. Here are just a few of the very well-known authors from a quick look through the alphabetical listing at the end of the catalog; Bishop Fitz Allison, the scholarly retired bishop of South Carolina; Bishop John David Bena, now of CANA and the author of a study on faith; Richard Bolles, the author of the famous guide to job hunting, What Color Is Your Parachute; Frederick Buechner, perhaps one of the most popular Christian writers of the 20th century; John Booty, the Hooker scholar and former dean at St. Luke’s School of Theology; Tony Clavier, of blogdom fame; John Claypool, who was famous as a evangelical preacher before he joined The Episcopal Church; James Fenhagen, a former dean of General Seminary; Theodore Ferris, the great preacher and rector of Trinity, Boston; Peter Gomes of Harvard; Kathryn Greene-McCreight, priest, Barth scholar and author of an award winning book on theology and mental illness; C.S. Lewis; Henri Nouwen; John Polkinghorne, the world famous physicist turned priest and writer on science and religion; Charles Price, a well known seminary professor of a previous era; Carroll Simcox, another very familiar Episcopal writer of another era; Barbara Brown Taylor; the scripture scholar Phyllis Tickle; Desmond Tutu; John Westerhoff, Rowan Williams, J. Robert Wright.

The above list is just a sample and entirely arbitrary. It consists of people whom I recognize for one reason or another. There are many other authors and the list is on the whole a balanced list. There are recognizable conservatives and recognizable liberals and fine and thought-provoking authors who defy easy pigeonholing. When I was in the parish I found much helpful material here. There are very good pamphlets on preparing for marriage and baptism, on how to use the prayer book and the history of Anglicanism, on the meaning of sacraments, on how to deal with alcoholism and addiction and depression, on prayers for the aged and the young and all sorts of very practical things oriented toward the normal life of the parish church.

The mainstay of Forward Movement is Forward Movement Day by Day. This is a little booklet that is produced on an ongoing basis and keyed to the daily office readings. The author of the meditations is usually anonymous. For years I used this in the parish and recommended it to my parishioners. I had to give up some years ago because the writing became so heretical. If I remember it was the issue that seemed to deny the bodily resurrection that was the last straw for me and I canceled the parish subscription. I kept using the pamphlets, carefully on a pick and choose basis but Forward Movement was still the best source of short readable material on a number of topics that you really wanted to give to people either new to the faith or to the parish.

The press is under new management and I know that the new editor Richard Schmidt wants the press to be genuinely theologically diverse and to include conservative voices. He has visited Trinity and invited members of the faculty to submit articles for consideration and left with us a list of issues on which he is soliciting submissions. It is thus disappointing to review the entries in the catalog that touch on the issues dividing the church. There is a whole page of offerings on human sexuality. The offerings seem to me to be very heavily weighted in favor of the revisionist side. I may have missed it but I don’t see much on the Windsor process or anything that might help the average Episcopalian understand in a sympathetic way the reasons behind the protest of so many provinces of the Anglican Communion to the reigning theology and ethos of The Episcopal Church.

It is very worthwhile for what are sometimes called reasserting Anglicans to go through the Forward Movement Catalog looking for the many useful things they will find there. As I did so today I recognized many tried and true booklets and saw some others that piqued my interest and some that I hope never appear in any parish anywhere. With regard to newer authors and pamphlets on contemporary controversial issues including homosexuality and the crisis in the Communion, reasserting Anglicans will find very little that they can use or recommend.