Like Dogs and Vomit: Boomers, Xers, Millenials and Generational Implications for the Churches

Sorry for the typo, COD did not make this meme.

Like a dog that returns to its vomit
   is a fool who reverts to his folly.

Proverbs 26:11

Like biblical and literal dogs returning to their own vomit, seems a whole host of journalists, sociologists, and various types seem periodically to return to issues around the shift in generations from Boomers to Millenials -- with Xers often bit players in this discussion.

[Seriously, this is not just Crusty being a typical jaundiced, snarky Xer.  I was at a church conference recently where the topic for plenary discussion was shifts in generations and their implications for the church. The way the topic was phrased?  "What are some issues involving shift from Boomers to Millenials in the church?  How can we respond to challenges in working with the Millennial generation?"

I tweeted, "Thanks for marginalizing me."  Despite the utterly Boomer-centric premise of the question (it  assumes some kind of Boomer-Millenial axis where "we" clearly does not involve Millennials, they are some "other" that must be responded to) it did not even reflect the group assembled.  There were (admittedly not many, this was a conference for Episcopal Church leaders, after all) millenials as well as Xers in that room!  The premise behind the question is an important one (there is a generational shift happening) but the way it was phrased reflected the utter inability of many in the church to construct a positive way to have a conversation around that shift.  How do "we" boomers "deal with" those whacky millennials?

OK, end of that digression.  There may be another one later.]

Luckily, when it comes to questions of Boomers and Millennials, there's lots of vomit for journalistic dogs to return to.  In the past week, Time magazine has come out with a cover story which can be found here, and the Barna Group has continued its important work in this area here.  Crusty hasn't read the Time magazine story, for reasons which may indicate some of these generational shifts.  The online version is free if you are a print subscriber, but Crusty is not a print subscriber to anything (and COD's parents spent their lives in print, father was a printer and his mother was a journalist!).  Now, that's just print subscribing; Crusty doesn't mind paying for digital content, he subscribes to all sorts of digital media -- Boston Globe, New York Times, Spotify, and so on. He would be interested in downloading the individual article from Time or the entire issue on an a la carte basis (like he does with The Economist), but the option to download individual articles, let alone individual issues, is not available, just a one-week trial membership (yeah like I want all-access to the Time media empire's crap smorgasbord).  So Crusty is stuck only with the headline from the Time story:  "Millenials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents.  Why they'll save us all."

As for the Barna Grou's piece, they argue that the churches need to adapt more to the millennials' worldview.  [Disclaimer:  while Crusty acknowledges good stuff in Barna's demographic and sociological work, he has issues with how their theology shapes conclusions.  For instance, Barna's work unChristian was spot-on in noting how negative images of "Christianity"permeate the culture, providing hard evidence for how many people under 30 see Christians as hypocritical and anti-gay.  However, Crusty disagreed with Barna's suggestion that the way to counter this was to explain that evangelicals weren't anti-gay, but do a better job of articulating why  homosexual practice was not acceptable.  Right research, wrong conclusions, in Crusty's opinion]  This is in addition to a whole slew of significant sociological and demographic work done in recent years, including important studies by the Pew Research Center.  Robert Wuthnow's book "After the Boomers," came out in 2010 and has been instrumental in debunking some aspects of these generational shifts, but also confirming some widespread changes.

In particular Crusty remembers reading the Pew report from 2010; it fundamentally reshaped his perspective on this whole generational "question."  After reading the 2010 report (which can be found here), he had lunch with a friend who had done the same.  Crusty was a part-time college chaplain at the time, so COD had been interacting on a regular basis with young people of faith, a real rarity in the Episcopal Church.  Crusty said to his fellow Gen X clergy colleague over a couple of Hopalicious beers, "We are the stewards of Gondor.  We need to preserve as much as we can in the next 20 years so we can hand things over to the millennials to shape the church."

Crusty's colleague almost spat out his Hopalicious, which would have been a sin; spilling one's Hopalicious should be a Levitical abomination.  But he managed sputter, without spilling, "The Steward of Gondor?"

"OK, without the insanity and self-immolation," I added.

OK, maybe with better table manners and manscaping.

What Crusty meant was this:  in the church, Gen Xers are transitional figures, under-represented in  leadership.  We came of age in the 1990s when ordination processes in the Episcopal Church specifically discriminated against younger people.  CODW (Crusty Old Dean's Wife) was specifically told, "You're too young to be going through the ordination process," by her Commission on Ministry and Standing Commission.  To which she replied, "Which of you who has a child who wants to be a doctor will tell them to go be a lawyer first?"  [You can see why Crusty married her.]  Crusty was told, "You don't have enough experience," to which he replied, "So we pay lip service to baptismal ecclesiology and thirty years of committed lay ministry?" When CODW was ordained at age 25, of the over 7,500 clergy in the Episcopal Church at the time, a grand total of about 300, or about 4%, were under 30.  Crusty was hired to be on denominational staff at age 32, making him one of the younger staffers.  At one all-staff meeting, while discussing evangelism strategies, the question was asked how the church could reach out to younger people.  This was in 2002, when Crusty was 33.

Everyone turned to look at me, the youngest person in that room by about 10 years.  And back in 2002, at that meeting, COD replied: "First of all, the only place I'm still young is in the church.  Second, forget about Gen X.  Be thankful for those who have come to the church despite slashing youth ministry, college chaplaincies, and discriminating against us for a decade in the ordination process.  If we spend the next decade wringing our hands about what to do about the Gen Xers, we'll repeat the same mistakes with the millennials.  Focus on reaching the millennials."

So why are Xers like the Steward of Gondor?  If you reading this blog probably goes without saying you know Crusty, along with many others, believes we are in a profound shift in the nature of the church in North American culture and in global Christianity, a shift as significant as the conversion of Constantine in the 300s and the Reformation in the 1500s.

Stewards, by nature, watch over or preserve something.  Despite being gripped by anxiety about institutional survival (how will our parish/seminary/Elks Club/denomination survive?) we need to keep in mind the resources that we have.  We have a whole slew of organizations, institutions, and structures birthed in the 20th century when that was our ecclesiological model of operating  (to say nothing of the millions of committed persons in the churches).  Crusty has written before about how the ecumenical movement is a classic example of this:  what was in its origin in the early 20th century a grassroots, lay-led movement that worked primarily through affinity based networks became by the end of the 20th century a clericalized, professionalized, institutionalized extension of the denominations.  Building organizations and institutions was how we did business ecclesially in the 20th century, because it's how we did most everything in the 20th century.

Yet we are shifting to Millennials, a generation as big as the boomers:  over 80 million millennials, comparable to about 77 million Boomers  (admittedly the US population has grown as well so they are smaller as percentage of population); whereas there are about 45-50 million Gen Xers (depending on where Gen X "ends" and millennials "begin").  The key, as many of these reports have concluded, is that the Millennials have very different understandings of community, communication, institutions and organization.  Millennials will eventually be running everything in the church.  What will be handed over to the Millennials?  The next 20 years will be crucial in helping to shape not whether, but how, this generational shift will happen.

The Boomers are, by and large, primarily those currently in leadership at the helm of all those things birthed in the 20th century; they are also a transformational generation in how they reshaped many institutions they received and created new ones.

Gen X is a skipped generation, a silent generation, like my father's generation.  I'll never forget when Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, the first thing my Dad said, "Well, that's it for anyone from my generation ever getting elected president."  Or when they dedicated the Korean War memorial and his

Never forget the forgotten war.

response (he served in the United States Marine Corps from 1952-1956) was, "Oh, now they remember us and our war." Since Gen X was smaller, since the church didn't get how profound a shift we were undergoing until it already happened, we will be skipped, by and large, in the broader landscape of this change.

Millennials are the next transformational generation.  They're going to do what the Boomers did:  they are going to build new things that reflect their understandings of how the churches should function and live out the gospel, they are going to transform the churches.

Gen Xers have a role here; we are liminal and transitional.  Liminal in that we speak both Boomer and Millennial (though of course there are Boomers that do this, too, COD is talking in general, overall).  Crusty spent the first two years of college using a typewriter and last two years using a computer, and didn't get cable TV until he was 14, whereas my Boomer older brothers [Crusty is being literal here, he is the youngest of five boys and there are four Official Brothers of Crusty Old Dean, OBOCOD] didn't get color TV till they were 14 and graduated from college never using personal computers.  The 18-year-olds entering college in fall of 2013, by contrast, have grown up never knowing a world without the internet.  Crusty sent his first email at age 21.  Transitional in that we need to use this foot-in-both worlds aspect to assist in the handing things over to the Millennials.   Despite all our snark and sarcasm, Xers still get that institutions are important.  Xers can serve as transitional figures in a couple of ways:

a)  How will we use these resources in institutions to help reshape the church for the 21st century?  To be even more blunt, if out denominational staff goes out of business in 10 years because we don't need a 20th century model of denominational organization in a 21st century church, we have assets and resources:  over $250 million in endowments and property at 815 Second Avenue.  If we have to close half our churches in the next forty years, what will we do with those resources?  Xers can have a hand not in trying to claw control and leadership of dying institutions from Boomers, but thinking about how the resources of the church can be in service of a new vision and work with millennials in this.

b)  Millennials tend to think more collaboratively, more based on common affinity.  As the recent Barna report puts it, "Millennials are a generation that craves spontaneity, participation, adventure and clan-like relationships...Leaders who hope to alter the spiritual journeys of today’s Millennials need to embrace something of a ‘reverse mentoring’ mindset, allowing the next generation to help lead alongside established leaders."

Instead of talking about millennials as "them" that "we the church" need to figure out, what would it mean intentionally to incorporate millennnials as co-creators RIGHT NOW and not in the hazy "future" of the kind of church we need to reflect our new realities?  Xers can serve an important role in this, in terms of how structure of some kind is essential for coordinating collaboration.   

To give an example, Crusty once got called up by a group of young adult interested in exploring issues of globalization and how young adults of faith could respond to that.  "Great," I replied, "how can I help?"  They replied, more or less, "Provide some funding, and get out of the way and try not to control what we do."  Crusty wasn't offended -- he actually thought this was pretty wise -- but replied, "OK, but do you know of the following six groups which are interested in the exact same thing as you are?"  Organizations and structure allows for cooperation, collaboration, efficiency, and sharing of models of best practices.  Xers can help serving as bridge from the Boomers to Millennials in this regard.  

So how are Xers the Steward of Gondor?

The Boomers are the Elves, whose era is past.  [Crusty, BTW, says this with appreciation and thankfulness: the Boomer generation transformed the Episcopal Church and did some incredibly important things.]  However, literally or figuratively, they are heading off to their ships to go to their Grey Havens.

The Xers are the stewards of Gondor.  The steward was not the king; his job was to preserve and protect the resources of the realm until the king would come and claim them.  That's what we're called to do.

The Millennials are Aragorn, the king come to claim the throne at the beginning of the Age of Men [sic, Tolkien was not gender inclusive]: their time is here.  Time magazine has it right, though Crusty wouldn't necessarily phrase it as "they will save us all."  They are NOT going to save us all because it presumes they care about saving "us".  They are not going to save us, they are going to transform their world.

How can we live into the call of the Barna group's report?  How can we let "the next generation...lead alongside established leaders"?  In many congregations where Crusty has been a member, he has pointed out that the Episcopal Church identifies confirmed, adult communicants as people over 16, so theoretically they can serve on a Vestry or a deputy to diocesan Convention.  Yet how often does this occur to anyone?  COD would be perfectly OK with setting age quotas at all levels of the church -- and BTW would be OK with setting other quota for underrepresented groups in leadership and representation.  After all, we have a clergy-lay quota at the General Convention level, because we think clergy and laity sharing oversight is so important to our church we should  enshrine in it our governance.  Is it that we don't think sharing oversight with whoever we uncritically think of as "them"(like in that plenary discussion noted at the beginning of this post) -- young adults, women, and people of color -- is important to enshrine in our governance as well?  Or is it the sin of being unwilling to give up power to share power?

It's time to end this return to vomit: Crusty is tired of repeated articles and reports about how generational shifts are impacting the churches and our society.  This is old news, and anyone who doesn't get this already is in deeper trouble than they realize.  We must, instead, actively engage how we can co-create a church that reflects these changes.  Otherwise, like my charge to forget the Xers and focus on the millennials, we risk becoming not the metaphorical dogs but the literal fools repeating folly.

Cutting the Gordian Knot of Lent Madness

Well, the time has finally come: the exercise in futility known as Lent Madness draws to a close this Spy Wednesday (the formulators of Lent Madness almost had Crusty with their designation of the Golden Halo on Spy Wednesday; Crusty is just glad someone else knows about Spy Wednesday; COD got his church to call their Wednesday in Holy Week service Spy Wednesday back in 1995; Crusty once preached a whole sermon about Spy Wednesday).  There are no more zero-sum-game

Spy Wednesday:  Backstory to a Kiss.

false choices to be made, no hard-fought debates about whether the New Deal was better than the Civil Rights movement, or whether people who lived out the gospel to the point of martyrdom are somehow more worthy than the random name given to someone credited with writing that gospel.  This annual exercise of mostly white live people voting for mostly white dead people is on hiatus for another year.  What should be our takeaway, what should we ponder as we prepare for the next round of Lent Madness (which, given the perpetual campaign mentality of the founders of Lent Madness, will probably begin on Easter Monday)?

[Psst -- Crusty is friends with the founders of Lent Madness and actually quite likes it. It's not so much Lent Madness but some underlying issues which it brings to the surface that gets me worked up and brings about the Hulk-like transformation into COD.]

In Crusty's most recent Lent Madness post, he reflected on the way in which Lent Madness is like the statue in the second chapter of Daniel:  it is a golden crown built on the clay feet of the Episcopal Church's utter paucity of any theology of commemoration or sainthood.  It is the clay feet of a theology of sainthood which has led to a kind of law of unintended consequences: the at times jaw-dropping arguments for one saint or another which range from misapplication of historical categories (can a random name of a person given to a gospel which is a composite of a number of sources have standing against an actual martyr?) to racism (we should vote for Frances Perkins over MLK because what she did helped all people).  Crusty doesn't blame Lent Madness, which, as he keeps saying, he actually  likes; but he is at times embarrassed, and at times horrified, by what it reveals about The Episcopal Church.

To review, there were very few commemorations on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church until 1964, when processes were set in place to allow for additional commemorations.  That process itself, however, is hopelessly flawed in practice, if not principle.  As COD wrote previously (try to think back to last week):

"The actual guidelines are laid out on pages 741-746 of Holy Women, Holy Men:  we commemorate persons to call to mind their lives for instruction, guidance, inspiration, and emulation; who should have actually existed;  who should be dead for 50 years (or two generations); and already be commemorated in a local observance in some way.  Well and good, but there's two problems with this.  For one, we have added persons that simply stretch the boundaries of this thinking, for all sorts of reasons:  persons from traditions that do not commemorate persons on a liturgical calendar, persons nominally Christian, persons not even Christian, persons not dead 50 years,  persons not commemorated locally by anyone, and persons who may not pass the historicity test (unless, of course, we become biblical literalists solely for the purpose of adding people to the calendar and treat Scripture as ahistorical in almost every other aspect).  And secondly, we haven't kicked people off the calendar who don't represent those elements.  By the standards we seem to have currently, I'd like to remove some people I don't think are worthy of emulation or inspiration and I don't turn to for guidance and whom I'm not sure existed historically."

Crusty has a solution for the conundrum of the Episcopal Church's fetid black hole of commemoration laid bare by Lent Madness:  Cut the Gordian knot.

Alexander the Great, while wintering in the Phyrgian city of Gordium, was faced with the riddle of the Gordian knot:  a knot supposedly impossible to untie.  Rather than fumble his way trying to untie the knot, Alexander simply cut it with his sword.  Crusty proposes mixing metaphors and using Occam's Razor to cut the Gordian knot of our calendar of commemoration:

Get rid of it.  Have GC 2015 decline to reauthorize Holy Women, Holy Men and all previous and subsequent added liturgical commemorations.  Return to the pre-1964 Kalendar.

As Sam Seaborn, Rob Lowe's character, once said on West Wing: "I have a thing. I have a thing I was

To play Crusty in the movie version of COD?  Yeah right.

going to mention, just a proposal to throw out there. When I was a congressional aide, we had an expression, 'no idea was too stupid to say out loud,' so here it is, bear me out. Instead of buying these ships? Don't buy these ships. Buy other ships. Better ships. That's my idea."

Instead of this liturgical calendar, let's get a better liturgical calendar. That's my idea.

Now, Crusty would like to hasten to say that this is not because of any particular animus towards HWHM.  He uses it as the duly authorized calendar of commemoration as he has used all its predecessors, because it is what General Convention has authorized and COD thinks if we have structures we should follow them.  He thinks the folks who put it together did the best job they could, but they, in turn, are inheritors of the desultory situation produced by the combination of a lack of a theology of commemorating saint and not following the guidelines laid out for commemoration.  It's also not because of any particular love of the 1928 BCP and its predecessors; COD would be in favor of founding the Society for the Preservation of the 1979 Prayer Book, or the Society for Forgetting Entirely the 1928 BCP Because There's Not Much to Remember Because Lots of People Grew Up Never Using It And Think It is Overly Clerical And Sucks (granted, not a good acronym, but accurate)

COD is moved to suggest this course of action for several reasons:

a) It's clear we no longer follow the guidelines for commemoration laid out on pages 741-746 of Holy Women, Holy Men.  So why be bound by the commemorations which so openly violate them?  "Local commemoration" has been stretched to the breaking point:  Where are there Episcopalians locally commemorating Lottie Moon and Karl Menninger?  Thurgood Marshall died in 1993; how is sixteen years (from his death in 1993 to 2009 when he was proposed as a trial commemoration) two generations or fifty years?  Joachim and Anna are about as historical as Paul Bunyan.   Now, don't get Crusty wrong, Lottie Moon and Thurgood Marshall are amazing individuals.  And while it's probably pretty clear that Mary had parents, if we take non-canonical gospels written over a hundred years after the fact as passing the "historicity" standard, we might as well commemorate Feast Day of the Talking Cross (Gospel of Peter) or Feast Day of the Childhood Playmates Jesus Struck Dead (Infancy Gospel of Thomas).  Actually Crusty probably shouldn't have suggested those, they may show up in 2015.  All of these, and others, simply fail what is laid out in the guidelines for adding people to the calendar of commemoration.

And, of course, there's the corollary:  we exclude people from HWHM who are historical, are locally commemorated, and which many Christians see as worthy of emulation.  Charles I is probably the best example of this:  celebrated on many other calendars of the Anglican Communion and with his own devotional society, and voted down more times than William Jennings Bryan ran for president.  Note:  Crusty has absolutely desire to celebrate Charles I.  But HWHM is not about my own personal piety; Charles I clearly meets all the standards for commemoration.  Crusty commemorates Cyril of Alexandria, whom COD thinks was a thug and a poor theologian (and probably used Apollinarian theological treatises he thought were written by Athanasius) because he is on the calendar of commemoration, and he meets the criterion for being there.

This is another example of a crisis of governance and authority in the Episcopal Church:  where  canons, rubrics, and other components of governance are followed when one agrees with them, and conformity to them from others required, and simply ignored when one does not.  HWHM stands with communion of the unbaptized, those who require Lutherans to be confirmed when joining the Episcopal Church, people who have multiple chalices on the altar, and all sorts of other violations of standards of governance:  it's OK to violate them if we feel like it, and with no one actually asking whether we should change the standards themselves to reflect some kind of consensus.  It's apparently OK to add commemorations which are in open violation of the guidelines and OK to reject commemorations which are perfectly in line with the guidelines; I guess it depends on whoever is in the room at a given time when the voting happens.

Note:  Crusty is not some sort of slave to rubric and doesn't narc on people who don't stand or kneel during the eucharistic prayer.  He does not necessarily agree with everything in the Prayer Book or canons.  However, the answer is to change our governance, not capriciously to enforce those we agree with and refuse to follow those we disagree with.

b)   Getting rid of HWHM and the processes which created it would be a return to the standards of the early church.  The process of canonization was, by and large, a local affair for the the majority of the church's existence, done on the local level, with eventual petition to the diocesan level for recognition; and, if truly the will of the church, eventually gaining even wider acceptance.   St Guinefort, the dog saint, is one of Crusty's favorites of this kind of groundswell of local commemoration.  Even when the local bishop refused to authorize the commemoration, women continued to bring their children to his shrine for healing.  (Seriously, how could we add Copernicus and Kepler to the liturgical calendar and not St Guinefort?)  It has only become more centralized in Catholicism the past 500 years or so (and continues to undergo changes; John Paul II's  canonized more persons than all other popes combined).  The Episcopal Church had no process at all until 1964.

Crusty ain't voting in Lent Madness till Guinefort is added.

Why not let liturgical commemoration emerge from the local, grassroots level?  Allow bishops, in their authority as liturgical ordinary, to permit commemorations in dioceses?  This worked for a couple thousand years.

c)  It would be in keeping with aspects of our polity.  The Episcopal Church, historically, has allowed leeway to dioceses to order their patterns of life and worship.  There is, for instance, no canonical description of how dioceses should choose bishops, only that they do so.  A diocese could draw lots and it would be perfectly kosher by the canons.  If we now seem to be about letting decision making in the church be done at the closest level, why not do this with liturgical commemoration?  Diocesan bishops are permitted, as liturgical ordinary, to authorize certain aspects of worship; so why not let them?
 
Why let a small committee funnel a list through the General Convention, and declare that to be the "official" list of commemorations?   For a church that prides itself on its democratic polity, in reality we have a rather top-down process of liturgical commemoration of persons.  Let's let liturgical commemoration be the work of the people, and bubble up from the local level.

Let's return to a list of official commemorations that includes only the major feasts and saints' days of the church.  Let's get rid not only of Holy Women Holy Men but any officially authorized additional commemorations.

Getting rid of Holy Women, Holy Men would be a return to the traditions of the church catholic, and in keeping with aspects of Anglican polity.  And, if we truly believe that praying shapes believing, removing the shackles of a top-down process could open a path to solve the real problem underlying all of this and allow for a theology of sainthood and commemoration to emerge, over time, through praxis.

So next year, let's flip Lent Madness.  Instead of two people cherry-picking from our flawed process and calendar, instead of voting people out, let's open-source all of this.  What if we started with an open nominating ballot, and seeded persons from 1 to 32 based on the number of votes they get in the nominating process?  If we think it somehow raises awareness and serves as a teachable moment to have people advocate for a small list of pre-selected saints, how much more would it be if we built that list through an open process of discussion?

Instead of reflecting what's wrong with the church's process of commemoration, maybe Lent Madness 2013 can help fix it.

Fear the New Tribalism? Lent Madness and the Theology of Sainthood

OK, starting off with a disclaimer (never a good way to start, I know).  Crusty has been serving as devil's advocate, super villain in waiting, snarkster in chief, for the whole Lent Madness thing.  He hasn't voted or participated since early in 2012, when he helped, with others, to orchestrate Philander Chase's takedown of Thomas Merton.  Apart from wanting to uphold the legacy of the seminary where he is dean, Crust was miffed that Philander was set up as an obvious patsy to the much better known Thomas Merton.  And yea, verily, some people learned the hard way:  Don't mess with Crusty.

Truth be told, though, Crusty really has no beef with the whole Lent Madness thing.  COD is friends and colleagues with the people behind this, Scott and Tim -- and more than that, is honored to be friends and colleagues with them.  They are smart and savvy and have a deep spiritual and faithful center, and have done much more for the world in their ministries than a wise-ass blogger who spent a decade fruitlessly getting the world to care about ecumenism before becoming dean of the smallest seminary in the Episcopal Church.  They have done what no one else has been able to do in the past decade:  have the Episcopal Church be known for something other than lawsuits and fights over homosexuality.  That is no mean feat.

However, Crusty has been uncomfortable with some of the deeper issues Lent Madness has brought to the surface.  To be sure, Lent Madness has not created any of these issues; rather, they are part of the pond in which it is swimming.  COD is troubled by a new tribalism, expressed in advocacy born out of the absence of any coherent theology of practice of sainthood in the Episcopal Church.

Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research.

Crusty was reminded of a story:  back in the day, before he was crusty, old, or a dean, COD was an undergraduate religious studies major at a New England college know for openness and liberalism.  He and his friends went off one Friday night to a party at Malcolm X House, the African American university-sponsored house on campus.  We had lots of them:  Womanyst House, German House for people who wanted to speak German, co-ed fraternities, all-male fraternities, sororities, you name it, we had one.  Crusty was headed to X House because they threw awesome parties, putting aside the notion that Malcolm would probably not approve of serving alcohol as a devout Muslim.  But anyway, Crusty was in line to get in when he noticed a sign at the front:  "Black Students: Free.  Everyone Else:  $5."  Crusty figured, Whatever, I'll certainly drink more than five dollars worth of beer tonight.  However, the sign sparked some serious conversation in the line.  One student asked, "Why does everyone else have to pay?"  The African American student collecting money at the door replied, "Because African Americans have been oppressed for so long in this society, we deserve to get something for free."  That caused a female student to shout, "What do you mean?  Women are still oppressed in this society!"  Then a Latino student called out, "I'm a person of color and an immigrant, I'm doubly oppressed!"  A Jewish student said, "What about Hitler and the Holocaust?  Jews have been persecuted for thousands of years all over the world!"  A gay student then said, "Sure, I'm white, but as a gay man I'm oppressed by this homophobic society!"  If only we had known about Godwin's Law back then, we were doing it in real time before the Internet!

Crusty thought at the time, as he still does, "They're all right; all those groups have been and still are oppressed."  What was startling was

a)  efforts to privilege one kind of oppression over another and
b)  arguing the finer points of comparison of gradations of oppression.

Rather than make any statement about oppression, the scene in the line only reinforced a kind of tribalism: advocating for one's perspective at the expense of the bigger picture.  Sadly this is something the internet has only reinforced in the past 25 years (yes, Crusty is old -- there were no cellphones or internet in that line), as groups are now able more than ever to communicate only with people that share their own viewpoint.   Rather than a debate in line, if this happened now, people would probably take pictures of the sign and storm off to post angry rants on Twitter and Facebook, where their like-minded friends would chime in, and then there would be a Tumblr made of all the stupid things drunk college students said so that the people who make those Tumblrs and think the same things but don't tweet them can be smug and superior.  Meanwhile, the real issue is never discussed:  all those people were, and are, oppressed.

Will Nikki and Paolo be in next year's Lent Madness?

Crusty was taken back to that night standing in line 23 years ago as he has seen something analogous at times in discussion around Lent Madness voting -- the notion that voting for one candidate or another is a sign or marker of what one thinks is more important or relevant than something else.  We can see this in the matchups first between Frances Perkins and Martin Luther King, Jr., and lately between Frances Perkins and Jonathan Myrick Daniels, and between Oscar Romero and Florence Li-Tim Oi.  There has been a  consistent push for Frances Perkins to win "so she can be better known."  (Throughout, Crusty will be paraphrasing some of the blogostwitterspherebook chatter so as not to single out individual persons -- except for the Mt Holyoke website, which openly advocated for people to vote for Perkins so she could be better known.)  Everyone knows Jonathan Daniels, people don't know enough about Frances Perkins!  Everyone knows MLK, people need to know more about Frances!  Sure, MLK was as civil rights leader, but Perkins' advocacy of the New Deal is important, too, and impacted as many people!  It has crystallized in some aspects around the Perkins-MLK and Perkins-Daniels matchups, but present elsewhere as well.  Is a vote against Florence Li-Tim Oi is a vote against women and women's ordination?  Or is a vote against Oscar Romero demonstrate a lack of willingness to stand with the poor?  At first Crusty thought some of the eye-raising matchups (Martin Luther vs Martin Luther King?) were just Lent Madness entering its hating its success and its audience phase, kind of like the third season of Lost.  Just as Crusty thought in line at X House, "They're right, they're all oppressed, but we're not talking about that, we're bickering over gradations of oppression," he found himself fuming that all these people are right in their advocacy of Perkins and MLK and Jonathan Daniels and Oscar Romero and Florence Li Tim Oi.

There are at least two issues in Crusty's mind with the way this is unfolding.

One is that it perpetuates the kind of zero-sum-game thinking that pervades our world.  Good God, we don't need to choose between civil rights and the f****g New Deal.   Aspects of the conversation itself  actually trivializes both.  Notice I say at best, because, of course, this whole Lent Madness bit occurs more or less inside our own bubble.  For instance, at an academic conference recently Crusty shared some of the Lent Madness stuff with some colleagues, marveling that Perkins had taken down MLK.  An African American colleague working at a historically African American seminary said, "On my campus we would consider it insulting to put Dr King up against anybody for a golden halo."

The second is that this reveals the utter paucity and void of any kind of theology of commemoration or sainthood in the Episcopal Church -- and all the knee-jerk Holy Women, Holy Men haters need to realize that it goes back longer than HWHM.  It probably goes back, in some form, to everything after the 1559  Book of Common Prayer.  Cranmer eliminated the overwhelming number of saints' days, restricting them by and large only to those with a biblical warrant or basis -- though even he included four commemorations  (St George, Lammas, St Clement, and St Lawrence) not found in the Bible.  After that, commemorations were added without any real systemic thought or justification -- 57 added in 1561, and another round with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.  The Episcopal Church continued to have very few commemorations until the 1964 General Convention made up for lost time by adding over 100 commemorations and setting up a process for additional observances.

Since Anglicans (apparently) do not believe in the main function of saints in the Catholic  (and in some ways Orthodox) tradition -- that is,  an intercessory function of saints (we pray to them to intercede with God on our behalf), or pray for protection and healing directly from the saint -- the calendar of commemorations has served almost as an anamnesis.   The actual guidelines are laid out on pages 741-746 of Holy Women, Holy Men:  we commemorate persons to call to mind their lives for instruction, guidance, inspiration, and emulation; who should have actually existed;  who should be dead for 50 years (or two generations); and already be commemorated in a local observance in some way.  Well and good, but there's two problems with this.  For one, we have added persons that simply stretch the boundaries of this thinking, for all sorts of reasons:  persons from traditions that do not commemorate persons on a liturgical calendar, persons nominally Christian, persons not even Christian, persons not dead 50 years,  persons not commemorated locally by anyone, and persons who may not pass the historicity test (unless, of course, we become biblical literalists solely for the purpose of adding people to the calendar and treat Scripture as ahistorical in almost every other aspect).  And secondly, we haven't kicked people off the calendar who don't represent those elements.  By the standards we seem to have currently, I'd like to remove some people I don't think are worthy of emulation or inspiration and I don't turn to for guidance and whom I'm not sure existed historically.  So we'll give a pass to all the people on the calendar while adding people according to a different standard?  Here again, I don't blame the people who put together HWHM -- we use it at the seminary and I have a copy on my desk 24/7.  They were just working from processes they themselves inherited.

Listen to Boogalo Shrimp!  Stop the Madness!

Thus we have an interesting confluence:  a wonderful, lively, informative, and didactic form of mishegas called Lent Madness but which is like the statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the second chapter of book of Daniel:  Lent Madness is pure gold, but built on the clay feet of our theology of sainthood and commemoration.  The paucity of this theology, in turn, moves the conversation at times to being an ecclesial version of undergraduates standing in line outside Malcolm X House,  arguing as to whether the New Deal or the Civil Rights movement is more important, or whether standing with the poor or fighting for women's rights should get your vote.

In this way, then, perhaps Lent Madness is a perfect metaphor for a theology of commemoration and sainthood in the Anglican world: the church's commemoration of saints, in all ages, has always told us more about ourselves than those we commemorate.  It seems our current format makes them little more than people we'd like to be Facebook friends with.

Ragnarok: the Twilight of 815

Let's make sure there's no mistletoe at 815.

Crusty Old Dean is trying to get the Official Child of Crusty Old Dean (OCOCOD, an afflication for which, sadly, there is no known cure) into mythology.  COD immersed himself in Greek and Norse myths around ages 8-10, mainly for two reasons.  For one, he had been reading a lot of comic books and found out that Thor was not just a comic book character.  For another, he was simply fascinated by all the bizarre stuff that came up: in a world of four TV channels showing inoffensive sitcoms, no cable TV or internet, he thoroughly enjoyed the dysfunction of rampant sex, violence, monsters, cow-licking creation stories, and child-eating that seemed to be part and parcel of myths.

One of the recurrent themes in Norse mythology is that of Ragnarok:  that history is cyclical, that the world, including the supposedly immortal Gods, will destroyed in an apocalyptic battle – and yet reborn, only to have the entire process repeat itself.

Well, at the last meeting of Executive Council, we received the latest installment of the 815 Ragnarok:  a seemingly endless cycle of apocalyptic discussion about the placement and future of the denominational offices of the Episcopal Church.

As a reminder to any new readers out there, or any readers at all (seriously:  don’t you have real blogs to read?), Crusty spent a decade on the denominational staff of the Episcopal Church, and at one time had an office with a window and his name outside the door at 815 Second Avenue.  And yea verily, rumors and plans for relocating the Church Center have abounded pretty much ever since it was opened there.

First of all, we should note that the opening of the Church Center itself was an act of Anglican establishmentarian hubris, like calling a denominational Cathedral that represents less than 1% of the population a "national" Cathedral.  At the time of 815's founding, many church denominations were consolidating offices on Riverside Drive, on the upper west side of Manhattan, in a new bulding which also housed the National Council of Churches.  Dwight Eisenhower laid the cornerstone of 475 Riverside, and Congregational, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Reformed, and other denominations either had their headquarters there or housed significant parts of their denominational structure there.   Yet the Episcopal Church Center had no interest in joining this party, continued with plans to open its own headquarters, with the Presiding Bishop at the time noting that “These people work for the Episcopal Church, not the National Council of Churches.”  Note:  accuracy of quote is disputed, this was relayed orally to Crusty Old Dean by an aged NCC employee. And, in a bit of irony, the Presiding Bishop was also first president of the National Council of Churches for part of this time.  Awkward!

Mmm...hogfat...

In addition, the area where 815 is located is not, as some might presume, built on an ancient Indian burial ground, the standard trope for buildings that may be seen to carry a trouble history.  Rather, the area was available for redevelopment in the 1950s for the Church Center and United Nations because of another reason. In the days before reliable refrigerated shipping, the mid-town east side was the home of slaughtering yards and was home to abbattoirs, cattle pens, and breweries.

Lastly, we should also acknowledge that moving denominational HQs are difficult.  The times that it has happened, historically, often has to do with denominational mergers.  The most recent example is illustrative:  the ELCA opened a new HQ in Chicago, in an office building within spitting distance of O’Hare.  It did so because the ELCA was formed from the merger for three different entities in 1987 – the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC), and the American Lutheran Church (ALC), each previously with its own denominational headquarters.   However, these three entities were only formed after 1963, when 26 Lutheran bodies merged – and these 26 are in turn the result of mergers from the 1910s and 1920s which brought together over 50 Lutheran bodies. The ELCA was able to “do it” because they were creating a new body, and, rather than privileging the headquarters of any of the existing merger partners, chose a new one.  Likewise, for instance, with the formation of the Presbyterian Church, USA, in 1983, from the United Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church in the United States.  Rather than either of the major partners’ existing HQs, the organizing assembly had a choice between Kansas City and Louisville, or, as one member at the founding Assembly told COD, reflecting on the historical background of the properties in question, “A choice between a whorehouse and a warehouse.”  The most recent successful relocations have come from mergers, not from denominational choice – though there have been smaller church bodies which have done so, such as the United Church of Christ (to Cleveland).

So 815 was born with a hefty dose of establishmentarian hubris and on top of rendering plants.  What could go wrong?

And, 50 years after its founding, it has become an almost ecclesial Detroit:  once occupying 9 floors with over 400 employees, it now leases out 3.5 floors, with further consolidation in place to allow for more floors to be rented. 

Alas, the cycle of Ragnarok for 815 does not seem to be in the thousands of years the ancient Norse believed, but, roughly, every few years or so.  There have been reports, or General Convention resolutions, or internal conversations about selling, regularly since its opening in 1963.  There have been resolutions at the General Convention level in 1982 (D081), 1985 (A069), 1988 (D130), 1991 (D002), 1994 (D092 and D033), 1997 (D012).  These are only resolution available through the online electronic database of GC resolutions -- Crusty is 34,000 feet over America right now and does not have access to his pre-1976 collection of General Convention journals.  Also this does not include any Executive Council or internal staff proposals.  In the lunchroom at 815, one of the older support staff once swore that in 1974 potential new owners were measuring out and parceling up office space before a proposed deal was squashed.  Whether apocryphal or not, evidence to the theory of continued discussion about the place and role of the Church Center.

We are in the midst of just another cycle.  Last General Convention passed Resolution D016; to see Crusty’s initial thoughts on this, go here.  The original resolution, passed by the House of Deputies, called for the establishment of a Task Force and a recommendation within a specific, designated time period -- by June 2013.  This was amended simply to express the "will of the General Convention" to move the headquarters away from 815 Second Avenue without any Task Force or required benchmarks.  Having been on staff up until 2011, COD knew that there were already internal discussions and conversations, which were also noted in the debate around Resolution D016.

At the most recent Executive Council meeting, a report was presented on the question of the Episcopal Church Center. The Executive Oversight Group – hereafter for COD to be EOG – consisting of senior staff at the Church Center, prepared this report.  This report was, in turn, informed by work undertaken by Cushman and Wakefield, a global real estate firm that “assisted” in the work, and whose involvement was underwritten by the diocese of Los Angeles (perhaps in atonement for its significant reduction of its diocesan giving to the denominational offices?  Crusty does not know).

Crusty, as usual, has some thoughts – and he freely admits that his comments here are based on the Episcopal New Service coverage.  Crusty has neither seen the report, nor was present at the Executive Council meeting.  All COD has, like 99.99% of the church (more than the percentage of the church that live in the Eastern and Central time zones) is this ENS report.

Right off the bat, Crusty has a problem with the lede of the story (as the son of a printer, having smelted lead for hot lead linotype machines, Crusty refuses to use lead instead of lede): “The church’s denominational offices would remain at the Episcopal Church Center in New York if the Executive Council accepts a recommendation it received Feb. 26 from a group of Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society executives.”  Shouldn’t this read something like, “could remain” or “would remain for the time being” or something?  After all, can’t the General Convention pass a resolution in 2015 to undo any action Executive Council might make during a triennium?   Seems overly deterministic here.

But onward!  The report makes several recommendations; key among them are:

--that the denominational center and staff remain at 815 in New York City,

--that there be further consolidation to rent out more office space.

There are many reasons given for this recommendation.  One is the synergy and proximity to organizations such as Episcopal Church Foundation, Episcopal Relief and Development, Church Pension Group, the United Nations, and so on.  The other is the critical mass of Episcopalians who live in the Central and Eastern time zone (80%, which is an improvement from 1900, when 90% of Episcopalians lived east of the Mississippi).  Crusty, frankly, wonders what the real implications of this are as a reason not to move; perhaps Episcopalians are unable to understand our time zone differences?

Among the several reasons given, several stand out for Crusty:

1)            Crusty is glad that we, apparently, have rediscovered our sense of social justice in terms of employment fairness.  The report notes several issues related to a move, including the potential for a two-tiered compensation system (some new hires in a lower cost of living area being paid less than some continuing employees), concerns about moving to an area which does not recognize same sex marriage, the fact many staff could or would not be able to relocate, and so on.

Crusty is delighted!  He also hopes perhaps this commitment to fairness can be applied in other areas and not only trotted out when deciding not to move the denominational headquarters.

Maybe we will no longer terminate union contracts without notification or negotiation, as occurred in 2009 with maintenance staff, while at the same time speaking out in favor of union rights in other areas.

Perhaps we can actually set standards for severance which are in conformity with other non-profit organizations.

Might we even redress the already existing two-tiered compensation system that we have, where employees with the exact same qualifications can receive different compensation packages because of ordained or lay status?

2)            COD notes that everyone in the church seems to be embracing our polity when it suits them and ignoring it when it does not.  Many will, no doubt, be infuriated with this recommendation, given that the General Convention clearly expressed its desire for the relocation of 815.  Crusty, rather, sees this as a sign of progress and acceptance of our true polity.  Because the reality is, many levels of the church simply ignore General Convention resolutions and canons as they see fit.  We do, after all, have a canon on communion of the unbaptized, along with GC resolutions on eucharistic hospitality (like the 1979 GC standards passed in resolution form), but in many places and many area this is just ignored.  Likewise, a friend once sent COD a power point presentation on the revised ordination process to be rolled out in a diocese, asking for input.  Crusty noted that it departed in some respects from that approved in the 2003 and 2006 revisions of the Canons; the person replied that they knew that and this was better for their missional context.   Just look over resolutions passed in 2003, 2006, and 2009, let alone stretching back years, and we can see how many are routinely ignored.  So what’s good for the diocesan and parish geese are good for the denominational gander? Or are we all willing to be accountable?

3)            Crusty is frankly baffled by some of the language in the report as quoted in the release.  He was struck, in part, the way the report

declares that “the real underlying energy in examining the location of the church center is less about its location and more about how it actually functions,”

ponders, “how long, we wonder, would it be before complaints about the isolation of the Church Center in New York would become complaints about the isolation of the Church Center in some other city?”

and further suggests that “Perhaps rather than shifting the locus of our communal anxiety from one site to another, we would be better served in the long run to use our best judgment to make a rational and strategic decision in the best interests of the church’s engagement of God’s mission and then clearly articulate that decision to the church.”

WTF is that all about? COD is perplexed that comments such as these appear in a report whose goal is to present a recommenation about the location of the Church Center.  On what grounds and basis and data is this report able to identify “underlying energy?”   Why is it speculating about whether a move would lengthen or shorten the Ragnarok 815 cycle?  Why not just make a recommendation and put a lid on the editorializing and creating of straw men?  COD, for one, welcomes discussion of new ideas about a denominational center, but holds none of the opinions mentioned here.

Why needlessly antagonize or dismiss people with language like this?  

4)            In fact, if anything, COD is concerned that fixation on issues above – like whether the EOG is thwarting the will of Convention when in fact everybody ignores what they feel like – will take attention away from some other potentially important aspects of this report which may not get their due.

--For one, the recommendation by the very real estate firm retained to provide advice that they should sell the place, and that the church should not be in the business of property management.  The EOG report's recommendations not only firmly puts the church in the business of property management but expands that business by suggesting

a)            further consolidation to make more floors available for rental and

b)            eventually asking for rent/financial agreements from current Episcopal Church agencies located in 815.

--For another, one the one hand Crusty finally welcomes some financial transparency; in some of his budget posts from spring 2012 (remember spring 2012?  Before Psy and when Michelle Bachman was running for present? Doesn’t it seem like five years ago?)  COD wanted to know more about debt service and lines of credit which were not outlined in detail in various draft budgets.  Well, here we get it:  we find out there was a $37 million loan, not line of credit, taken out in 2004 to fund the extensive – and admittedly needed, included asbestos abatement – renovations of the Church Center, and that this is secured not by the building, but by unrestricted endowment assets.  We even know the interest rate, 3.69 %!

Remember last time we counted on investment income?  "Oops."

Yet an important element in the recommendation not to sell is that it is better to pay off a loan at 3.69 percent with the expectation for 8% growth in investment assets.  To this Crusty says, “Yes, we know how well depending on investment growth worked for the 2000-2009 triennia.”  One of the reasons for the massive, and in part foreseeable, budget shortfall in 2009 which led to layoffs was the consistent underperformance of investment growth. Have we learned nothing?  Maybe we'll get another "oops" in 2015 like we did in 2009.  After all, the finance and investment people won't be the ones losing their jobs.

5.            Crusty also has a procedural concern here:  what about the newly formed Task Force on Restructuring?  What are the implications of making a report and recommendation to Executive Council when there is another entity charged with looking at reform and restructuring of the church?  Should we consider tabling this report (it was presented to Executive Council, will go to a committee for discussion, and future consideration at the June meeting) or even referring it to the Task Force?  Or will we have dueling proposals for 2015?

Finally, Crusty, while not agreeing with some of the language used here, particularly some of the bizarre editorializing comments above, does agree in essence with some of the central tenets here.  It really doesn’t matter where our denominational headquarters is unless we are committed to a holistic rethinking of the kind of denominational structure we need.  Moving it for the sake of moving it, without concurrent discussion about the nature, scope, and purpose of a denominational structure, is pointless.  Likewise, keeping it in place without a holistic appraisal is likewise pointless.  As Crusty has said repeatedly on this blog, we have regularly rethought and changed our structure.  In the 1780s, governance inherited from the Church of England was in some ways radically reimagined for a new context: having clergy and lay people share governance; electing bishops; and so on.  Likewise, at the turn of the 20^th century the Episcopal Church engaged in a sustained conversation about restructuring and governance (one could even argue this extends from the period of the Civil War through World War I) , leading to changes in 1919 that led to creation of a denominational structure.  So who the hell cares where a denominational HQ is if we can’t rethink how we need to do mission in radically changed contexts and think through how this relates to dioceses, congregations, ecumenical partners, and other networks and organizations?

And, like Ragnarok was not the end, the Episcopal Church will survive.  After all, in 1801 the first bishop of New York resigned to become a gentleman botanist farmer, thinking that Anglicanism would die out.  In the early 1800s the diocese of Virginia didn’t even bother to hold its diocesan council for a couple of years and had shrunk to a handful of clergy.  We still have African American Episcopalians despite a legacy of de facto segregation, exclusion, and institutional racism which the church, at times, tries very hard to forget.  We could go on with other examples.  Even if we do die, we will be reborn; the question is, can we seize this moment and shape the change that is coming, rather than be shaped by it?  This triennium, Crusty thinks, will be a referendum on whether the church is able to do that.

Papal Predictions: Pontifical Bracketology

Crusty feels he should be first out of the gate in the papal prediction derby.  But first of all, he needs to highlight just a few ways Europe kicks America's ass:

1)  posting the alcoholic content of beer along with the price in pubs;
2)  excellent rail travel;
3)  being able to gamble on anything, anywhere.

A mentor once told COD when he was a young seminarian, "You should have a nominal vice, like smoking or martinis or small-stakes gambling, because if you don't, we all know nobody's perfect, especially clergy, and people will wonder what really weird secret stuff is your vice."  Crusty settled on martinis and small-stakes gambling.  It's even better when combined, COD spent a magical night -- literally, from about midnight to five AM -- drinking free beer and playing craps at a 25 cent one-man craps table that had only three chairs in a Holiday Inn in Sparks, NV.

Beer and betting?  Light years ahead of us!

COD loves the fact that in most UK and Irish pubs, you can bet on pretty much any current sporting event.  Likewise, bookies in the UK also take action on all sorts of non-sporting events, like who was to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury (and who will be the next Pope, FWIW).  In the USA, we seem to have legalized all forms of gambling except for sporting events in the past thirty years.  Show me a petition, and I'll sign it!

This is why COD pushed hard for General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Reno or Las Vegas in 2015:  since a new Presiding Bishop is being elected, we could place bets!  COD would change his name to Reno Mike and work in the sports book in Lake Tahoe for the duration of Convention.

So read Crusty before placing your bets on the next Pope.

A couple of preliminary remarks:

a)  anyone holding out hope for another John XXIII, put down the wacky tobacky and take a whiff of reality.  While it's true that the papacy is one of the last absolute monarchies in the world, the notion that a reformer could be elected and bring about sweeping changes -- while possible -- is remote.  Bl. John Paul and Benedict have appointed the current batch of cardinals -- Benedict 67 out of the 118 with a vote.  Neither of those popes could be labeled as a moderate or a reformer, and neither are many of those with a vote.

b)  what clergy, or laypeople, might look for in a Pope is not necessarily what the people who get to vote are looking for.  During the Presiding Bishop election in 2006, COD asked a bishop his thoughts on the election.  The bishop noted, "Keep in mind what is an important concern for bishops is not as important to others; a factor for us is how we think someone will manage and run the House of Bishops."  The rest of the church mainly sees the Presiding Bishop as primate, but the people with the vote -- the bishops -- have additional concerns and perspectives.  Similarly, what the people with a vote -- cardinal bishops under the age of 80 -- are looking for is someone who can manage the complex and difficult Vatican bureaucracy.

c)  ignore any media story that mentions the possibility of Timothy Dolan of New York.  While it may get people's attention in American media, there will not be an American pope in my lifetime.  Not happening.


On to some candidates and scenarios.

Jay Bilas comparing Papabiles' upside and wingspan.

1)  After two non-Italian popes -- after having only Italian popes for 400 years -- there may be a push to elect an Italian.  They have a disproportionate number of electors (28 out of 118 are Italian).  Heck, Crusty's been to Italy, where it's nearly impossible to get anything done, like convincing your taxi driver to take you to the correct hotel.  Maybe an Italian can do better at trying to get the Vatican to work.  If so, COD thinks Angelo Scola of Milan.  Historically Milan has at times served as a stepping stone to the papacy.  Danger here is whether electing an Italian dooms the church to an inwardly looking papacy when that's the last thing it needs.

2)  If a non-Italian European, (again a disproportionate number of electors: 62 out of 118 voting cardinals are Europeans) COD thinks maybe Christoph Schoenburn of Austria.  Personally COD would vote for Schoeburn, he's the closest thing to a moderate in the race.

3)  There will be considerable push from some quarters for a non-European, non-Western candidate, given the numerical strength of Catholicism is in South America, the fact it is growing rapidly in Africa, and potential for future growth in Asia, and that in the past generation cardinals from the developing world have advanced into the papal curia and gained crucial networking and experience.  If they decide to go this way, COD thinks Peter Turkson of Ghana for an African or Odilo Scherer of Brazil for a South American.  It's not Asia's time yet.

4)  The dark horse.  Remember that Bl John Paul II was an unexpected dark horse candidate; this has happened in the past.  Archbishop Tagle of Milan has been mentioned, but COD thinks the memory of John Paul is fresh and that Tagle's age (he's 55) may count against him, there may be reluctance for another potentially long pontificate.  Crusty would put his longshot money on Marc Ouellet of Canada.

But it's prediction time.  Crusty predicted Justin Welby for Archbishop of Canterbury, so it's time to get out ahead of the pack:  COD predicts

Cardinal Scola; or, if they go with a non-European, Cardinal Scherer of Brazil; or someone else.

And remember, all predictions guaranteed or your money back.

Benedict's Resignation: No Need for AntiPope Containment

Crusty awoke this morning and discovered it was one of those rare days when religion invades the news cycle, and, for once, not having something to do with homosexuality and sexual misconduct by clergy.  Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, effective February 28. COD was glad this was not a Leap Year, so the Pope wouldn't have to serve that extra day before the end of the month.

COD found himself pondering several aspects to this revelation:

1)  whether Popes can resign,
2)  whether something else is going on, and
2)  an initial assessment of Benedict's papacy.

As for (1), of course Popes can resign.  The Code of Canon Law which governs the Catholic Church contains provisions for this, in the 1917 and revised 1983 versions.  Depending on how you count, perhaps upwards of 10 Popes have resigned -- Crusty says "depending" because some of these "resignations" were depositions by various German Emperors, or Popes resigning due to charges of misconduct against them.  Honest-to-goodness resignations, with the incumbent legitimately resigning the office freely, are more rare.

AntiPope Containment Unit

The two most recent are Pope Gregory XII in 1415 and Celestine V in 1294.  Gregory XII is a particularly illuminating example:  the church had been rocked by the so-called Great Schism since 1378, when rival popes were elected, one residing in Rome, the other in Avignon.  This caused a bit of a kerfuffle, so say the least; since's one's salvation rested in being subject to the Roman pontiff (see Unam Sanctam, 1302), which one was the right one? Most everyone agreed the Schism wasn't a good thing, but weren't sure how to solve it.  One of the solutions put forward by leading canonists and theologians was for the Popes to resign and a new one elected.  A group of cardinals, frustrated by the situation, elected a third Pope, hoping that the other Popes would do precisely this.  Naturally, they did not, so it resulted for a decade or so with there being three Popes.  In a gracious gesture, Gregory XII resigned to help clear the way, thinking that there needed to be a clean slate.  John XXIII, the last of the three popes standing tried to get the church council that met to solve the schism to elect him Pope, but, when it became clear they wouldn't, he tried to flee, was tracked down, caught, and deposed by the church council.  The reason there was another John XXIII (1958-1963) is that the previous John XXIII was declared an antipope.  Nothing in Canon Law about whether a massive explosion occurs when Popes and Anti-Popes mix (like in Star Trek, when it always seemed matter and anti-matter were always about to crash into each other and end the galaxy).

Celestine V is the other classic example of a pope resigning.  He was, by all account, an elderly, pious,  monk when elected at age 79 or 80.  Overwhelmed by the office, he resigned barely six months into the papacy.  Retirement did not go so well for him.  His successor, worried someone might try to place Celestine back on the papal throne, had him imprisoned for the rest of his life.  Some scholars also identify him as the figure in Dante's Inferno (III. 59-60) who was sentenced there for his cowardice.

The reason for some modern consternation about popes resigning stems from Paul VI, who, as Thomas Reese noted in his piece for the National Catholic Reporter, opined that "paternity cannot be resigned." During John Paul II's pontificate, numerous rumors swirled during his different health crises that resignation was imminent.  COD was working as a hospital chaplain in a Roman Catholic hospital the summer of 1994, and gossip among the Catholic priests on staff reached an almost fevered pitch about a possible Papal resignation due to ill health.

So yes, Popes can, have, and will resign.

2)  The rumor mill is already swirling that maybe there were other reasons for Benedict's resignation: one that seems to be in the twittoblogofacesphere is that he is somehow implicated in sexual misconduct coverups, either from his time as Archbishop of Munich or as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  Crusty sincerely doubts this -- not because he doesn't believe Benedict might have done some things which reflect poorly on him; there's plenty in the public domain already, and the Vatican already turned Holy Week 2010 into a pep rally for the Pope.  This is an organization which has resisted calls for resignation of senior bishops clearly compromised far more than Benedict.  Only one prelate, Bernard Law, resigned his see, and in turn he was rewarded with a plum position in Rome and still entrusted with a say in the committee which selects new bishops.  There's a bishop in the US Conference of Catholic Bishops with a criminal conviction on his record, for God's sake (the Bishop of Kansas City).  If no other figures have been asked to resign or be held accountable, except for Law, why should we imagine suddenly the person at the top would resign?

If anything else is going on, COD suspects it has to do with Benedict's health.  He has looked noticeably older in recent months, can no longer walk down the main aisle during services at St Peter's. A well-connected friend of Crusty's passed along a rumor a couple of months ago that the Pope had had a stroke, but COD didn't give it much credence because it seems there's always something in the papal rumor mill.  But maybe he does have health complications that are not being revealed.

So on to (3), an initial assessment of his papacy.   Crusty's initial thought it is: mission accomplished.  Now, first off, not that Crusty is particularly pleased with that assessment.  But let's go back to 2005, when the enclave was meeting to elect a successor to John Paul II.  If Crusty had been blogging then, he would have made three points about what he thought the cardinals were looking for in a new pope:

a)  someone with strong managerial credentials.  There were some who felt John Paul II spent too much time traveling and speaking; combined with his extended health issues, this led to a leadership drift.  Just like in a congregation with a long gap between pastors, when committees and factions in the congregation step into that vacuum and begin running things, many felt someone needed to come in and have a firmer organizational hand in the many departments and factions in the Vatican.
b)  someone with strong theological credentials; there were some who felt, despite all his gifts, John Paul was not forceful enough theologically.  For example, while he reached out to Jews and Muslims, there were those who felt the theological issues in interreligious dialogue were not being given enough attention.
c)   someone older:  having emerged from the long and charismatic shadow of John Paul II, nobody wanted another 25-year papacy; rather, an older Pope with the above credentials could be a good transitional figure.

Lots of rumors swirled in 2005:  would it be an African or South American, reflecting the increasing diversity and globalization?  COD thought those folks were dreaming, and, had he had a place to put down a bet, it would have been on a conservative European cardinal.  And Crusty was not surprised at all to see Cardinal Ratzinger emerge on that balcony.

Thus COD's initial assessment:  they got what they elected.  An older theological conservative with extensive managerial experience.  COD will leave it to the real Vatican insiders to break down Benedict's legacy in the Catholic Church, he will reflect on one aspect where he did have some contact:  the Catholic Church's ecumenical engagement with other Christians.  Crusty did served as Ecumenical Officer for the Episcopal Church during his pontificate, after all, and helped to coordinate relationships with the Catholic Church.

Put simply, Benedict was at the forefront of a great ecumenical reordering and retrenchment.  This is a Pope whose prominent ecumenical "successes" include:

1)  working to heal the breach with the Society of St Pius X, a conservative break-away from the Roman Catholic  Church.  Crusty wishes the Pope spent as much time trying to heal the breach with other Christian bodies that didn't have bishops who denied the Holocaust.

2)  establishing Ordinariates for those Episcopalians and Anglicans to be received into the Catholic Church.  Well, not so much the Ordinariates themselves because

a) there had been something like this before, a Pastoral Provision which allowed Episcopal and Anglican priests to become Roman Catholics, remain married, and still use an Anglican Rite.
b)  the Catholic Church is free to do whatever it wants, Crusty sure doesn't ask their approval for what Episcopalians do.

Rather, Crusty was bothered because of the way this was presented as an outgrowth of Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue, because, while the Catholic Church has every right to do this, it was and is as profoundly un-ecumenical action, taken without consultation or discussion with Anglicans, and because it is a reassertion that the only acceptable form of full communion with the Roman Catholic Church is reintegration and return.

John Paul II, in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint, wanted to have a conversation about how the ministry of the Pope could be in the service of Christian unity.  Crusty still longs to have that conversation, but isn't holding his breath.

Farewell, Benedict; maybe retirement will treat you better than it did Celestine V.  And I will keep praying for my Catholic brothers and sisters.

Blogging the GOEs, Last Question: GOEs Go Medieval

Crusty can't quit you, #GOE.

All is forgiven, GOEs.  Crusty knows you and I have had our ups and our downs, our ins and our outs; the Syd to my Nancy, the Mr Roper to my Jack Tripper, the Adam Trask to my Aron Trask, the Doofenschmirtz to my Perry the Platypus, the Vrsonky to my Karenina, the Bert to my Ernie, the Jordan Catalano to my Angela.  COD couldn't spew out considerably more words than candidates spent writing these questions if he didn't care so much.  You got me started with that WTF opening question, and Crusty had a bumpy first two days with this GOE.  But you pulled it together and banged out a couple of good questions, and topped it off with a real whopper.

And here it is:

Set 7: The Holy Scriptures

LIMITED RESOURCES:A printed one-volume annotated Bible, a printed one-volume Concordance and a printed 1979 Book of Common Prayer. NO electronic or Internet resources.
A reminder: This is not a liturgical question; it seeks, rather, a careful discussion and application to contemporary faith and culture of a biblical mandate for repentance.

A. In both Old and New Testament writings a call to God's people for repentance is clear and undeniable. In an essay of 500 to 750 words, explore this call through exegesis of the following texts:

          Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 and Matthew 4:12-17

Your essay should address the literary, historical, and theological highlights of each text and set forth the biblical case for repentance as represented by these texts.

B. As an ordained person, you have just attended the monthly meeting of your Ecumenical Community Clergy Council. The topic discussed was "Preparing for Lent." One member had suggested that the group consider sponsoring "Ashes to go." She remembered some media coverage on Ash Wednesday 2012 showing clergy imposing ashes on street corners in the downtown business district and suburbs. She recalled that there was a great deal of positive reaction to this practice, stressing the theme that the churches were "meeting people where they are," and commenting that with people's busy lives, this was a visible way to reach out to the community. Another member was strongly opposed, asking, "What would be the biblical basis for this?" The group then had turned to you for your position on your colleague's original suggestion.  In an essay of 500 to 750 words, address the following questions:

1. In what ways does such a contemporary practice ("Ashes to go") respond faithfully to the call for repentance as articulated in Joel and Matthew?

2. In what ways does it not?

The GBEC, and the people who take their exam.

COD was tempted to title this blog post Law and Order:  GOE Unit.  Because, despite what we may think, the General Board of Examining Chaplains are not a bunch of collective Professors Binnses from Harry Potter, the History of Magic professor so boring and divorced from reality that he died and came back to teach class the next day as a ghost, and nobody really noticed any difference.  When it wants to, the GBEC pays attention, and often comes up with questions which are relevant and timely.  Last year they had a question on developing a social media policy for one's congregation, as well as questions exploring "church" and "state" issues (which didn't surprise Crusty given an election year was coming, and the prominent role religious issues have played in previous election cycles).  So like Law & Order episodes which are more or less cribbed from real-life legal cases, the GOE can sometimes take real-life issues and turn them into questions, albeit with a significantly longer lag time (imagine if Law & Order was only on TV one week per year!).

Here the GBEC crafts the question for the Bible area of canonical competency around an event which received some buzz in the Episcoblogosphere last year: the whole concept of "ashes to go," with people standing out on street corners or positioned in other various places to administer ashes on Ash Wednesday, apart from the normative liturgical context.  At the time last year when Crusty saw some of these reports about this new, innovative ashes-on-the-go thing, he scratched his head and initially mumbled, "I thought we already had this, and it was called the Catholic Church."  When Crusty lived in New York City, walking to work he would see people duck in and out of RC Churches on Ash Wednesday, with an elapsed time of maybe 20 seconds; when he was serving part-time as college chaplain, one year the Catholic chaplains more or less stood just inside the front door of their chaplaincy and administered ashes as people walked in and out.  Heck, last time Crusty attended a RC Church, the whole service seemed to be a form of communion on the go: with people coming in late, listening to a 5 minute homily, perplexed by the new translation of the Nicene Creed and turning the new Mass card with the translation over and over as if it were some kind of Rosetta Stone, whizzing through a prayers of the people with maybe three intercessions, then dashing out the second after receiving Communion.  The people sitting next to COD collected their things as they went up for Communion (COD did not receive) so they could leave directly after receiving.  Now, COD knows not all liturgy can be extrapolated from limited data sets or experiences, but the examples above are true.  But I digress.

The beauty of this question is severalfold:

First, the GOE takers are on a roll with their wording.  Last question had the hilarious (to Crusty) "thus broadly construed" and endless use of air quotes for "council."  This one has "A reminder: this is not a liturgical question it seeks, rather, a careful discussion and application to contemporary faith and culture of a biblical mandate for repentance."  Two LOL question wording moments in two consecutive questions!  Always important to begin with a disclaimer like this given how quickly Episcopalians can quickly disappear down liturgical rabbit holes -- though again COD shudders to think if any students blew past the disclaimer in their anxiety to get to the question and went into an exegesis of the Ash Wednesday liturgy.

Second, they finally seem to have kicked their addiction to vagaries in wording which have plagued previous questions.  This one had some of the strongest and clearest language EVER: it actually said there was something in Scripture "clear and undeniable."  Crap, getting Episcopalians to agree on anything as "undeniable" is nigh impossible!  And COD certainly hopes we could all agree that there is a call to repentance in Scripture; on what, exactly, we're called to repent...well, that'd be more interesting, but remember, folks, you're not being asked that!  While clear, this is a complex question because, like in church history, you're being asked to do at least seven, and maybe eight, things:  "address the literary, historical, and theological highlights" -- that's three things -- "of each text" -- times two -- and set forth the biblical case for repentance (a fourth thing).

Then on to section B, and the ashes to go.  Remember:  this is not a liturgical question.  The whole issue around McAshes is framed in a Biblical context, as one of the colleagues in clergy group, clearly not another Episcopalian, demands to know the "Biblical basis."  And again, COD loves the fact that the candidates have to be reminded of something they have just read about: "In what ways does such a contemporary practice ("Ashes to go") respond faithfully..."  What other contemporary practice could it be?  Why not just say "Ashes to Go"?  Is it just Crusty or am I the only one who finds this funny? 

The original going Sic et Non medieval on your...

And then the GOEs save their best for last:  they get medieval on the candidates, going all Sic et Non on their asses.  They are asked to reply from BOTH perspectives.  They are to point out how Drive Thru Ashes (mark COD's words, it'll happen) is  "faithful to the call for repentance" as found in Joel and Matthew (remember: this is not liturgical question!) as well as how it is *not*. Crusty found himself thinking they should have put this question into theory and practice of ministry set, since most Episcopalians seem to have lost the ability to see things from any perspective but their own.  To go truly medieval, of course, they then should have asked the candidates to give counterarguments to each point they made, and conclude with Section 3, "But I say..." and give the definitive answer to one's clergy colleagues, who clearly seem to be looking to you to provide some guidance.  Funny how in GOE questions people are always looking to you to make cogent, extended, and detailed theological statements.  Like those Elvis movies when a band appears from nowhere and he breaks into song, in the GOEs it's the opposite, the music stops and people turn to you.  The Vestry did so in Question 4, your colleagues in this question.  Maybe for a change of pace they could say, "As the conservative Baptist and the UCC minister start arguing with each other, in the 150 words you can get in edgewise before the Unitarian fed up with yet another intraChristian debate at clergy group gets up to get lunch which has arrived early and the overworked Catholic priest who is the sole clergy person at a parish bigger than all of yours combined dashes out to give someone last rights, explain how his practice does and does not respond faithfully to the call for repentance as articulated in Joel and Matthew while still making sure you still get one of the the box lunches which has chips and not the useless fruit."

So that's all, folks.  In general, in COD's mind, a mixed GOE.  Some problematic questions, largely in terms of phrasing and framing, not in principle.  A great WTF question out of the gate.  Hard, but overall fair, questions in theology, church history, and Biblical studies.  Some really great turns of phrase in the questions themselves.

Signing off until next year:  This was Part II: Electric Boogaloo.  Tune in in 2014 for Blogging the GOEs, Part III: The Search for Spock.  Live long and prosper.