Category: Christian faith

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Ascension Day 2011

As I mentioned the other day when the elect weren’t raptured into the heavens, I prefer to mark our heavenward walk on Ascension Day, which is today.

It is rich and complex with meanings and associations. Just one: that Jesus being raised up — this time in glory towards heaven — both pulls him out of the particular setting of time and space, making him a universal savior and yet re-imagines and transforms his other raising-up; that is, his crucifixion.

A Collect for Ascension

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe that thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Free Church Book of Common Prayer (1929)

(I wrote about it more-than-in-passing in 2009,  2004, and 2003.)

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Holy Saturday 2011

Holy Saturday touches my imagination because its the time that — in some strains of Christian theology — the dead Christ visits and ransoms from hell the holy dead. To my Universalist mind, it must have seemed more like a cosmic jailbreak (though I’m not one to put divine actions in a linear timeline.)

Something about the force of this liberation put me in mind of the medieval Name of the Rood, which I now read each Holy Saturday. You’re welcome to follow along old blog posts about it.

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Recommended Reformation Day reading

Greetings, readers — My husband, Jonathan Padget and I are back from a deeply restful and energizing vacation in southern New England. Expect much of the blogging in the days to come to reflect this.

But today, among other observances, is Reformation Day. Ours is a reformation faith; indeed when examined perhaps Protestant if not always Christian. In particular, our roots — both Unitarian and Universalist — run heavily through the English Reformed tradition, which is to say we’re of Puritan stock.

It’s not very popular to claim affinity for Puritans these days, nor indeed for several decades. And we’re apt to say we’ve gotten past that, if it weren’t so evident in how we continue to organize and imagine ourselves. But misunderstanding (or even deliberately maligning) the Puritans won’t help us understand how we got here or what shapes our particular gifts to the religious landscape.

On the road, Jonathan quizzed me on the difference between the Puritans and Pilgrims, the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies and the like. Having earned a religious history degree before going to seminary, I set out the distinctions in the usual way, but I couldn’t get some of the dates in the right order and began to second guess myself. God, in his Providence, made available a little book in a little shop conveniently next door to the Universalist Meeting House in Provincetown, Massachusetts, which I bough and devoured. I commend this to all Unitarian Universalist ministerial students and forgetful ministers, particularly if you can also get it used for half price.

This book is Francis J. Bremer’s Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction (2009, $11.95) from Oxford University Press. True to the name, it is a quick read, and quite authoritative. Compact, too, and sure to keep people from bothering you on the subway.

The biggest takeaways are its readable historical review; a good explanation of a spectrum of Puritan worldviews, with respect to social change when having different levels of political power; and background for congregational polity. In particular, Bremer reviews the precedent of Continental refugee churches for the local selection of ministers. Also, I hadn’t known of lay and ministerial conferences that carry over today in the UUA, the various ministerial study groups and independent theological organizations.

A worthy read, also valuable I think for group study.

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Two blog posts on mission and ministry

If you don’t keep up with the Quaker blogosphere, you might miss two valuable blog posts about mission, ministry and how these speak to generational change, resources and burnout.

Micah, for those counting, is a Quaker minister, with the Capitol Hill Friends worship group I mentioned last time. You can also follow them as micahbales and martin_kelley on Twitter.

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Happy Epiphany!

Today is Epiphany, the celebration of Christ’s manifestation to the Nations, often represented by the three mages (“kings”). Since Universalist Christianity — it seems to me — is marked by recognizing the ever-widening bands of God’s grace, concern and love, the thrust of Epiphany and the weeks that follow are vitally important.

The light of this understanding — the star — is dim, but grows until typified by the Feast of the Transfiguration, where Christ’s purpose is typified by blinding light and his disciples trembling but resolute knowledge.

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Please remember Tim Jensen in prayer

According to his brother Erik, he died yesterday (Sunday) morning.

He was a minister (most recently at Portland, Maine) but perhaps known equally as well in Unitarian Universalist circles as a blogger. I think of him in that generation of Christian ministers that immediately preceded my own, and who held on when there didn’t seem much reason for trying. I also think of him in that heady Unitarian tradition that values thought and reasoning more than now commonly seen.

His cancer was a matter of record — and I appreciate him carrying us on his journey — but I had hoped he might recover, or at least have more time.

Victoria Weinstein, knew knew him far better than I, has a few words here.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2 Timothy 4.7

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Overcoming cross cringe: UU Christians, speak

After writing the last post, I noted it on Twitter (I’m bitb) where Martin Kelley (martin_kelley) , a force behind QuakerQuaker picked it up.

To make the dialog short, I have an appeal for Unitarian Universalist Christians reading this. Please note in the comments how you have been affected by “anything but Christian” behavior, and (where appropriate) you have confronted it.

Also, I recall a good bit written about this when the UUCF began to reassert itself a few years ago. Does anyone recall which issues of the Good News had articles on the subject?

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Quaker "cross cringe" — ah, sounds familiar

Unitarian Universalist Christians use a few terms — Christophobia, cross cringe and ABC (“anything but Christian”) — to describe the reception we get in unfriendly settings.

A posting today at QuakerQuaker shows that the problem — or perhaps a like problem — isn’t uniquely Unitarian Universalist. A shame that. Perhaps, too, an opportunity.

“Liberal Quaker Problem” (QuakerQuaker)

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Ascension: where Christ goes, we shall follow

Today is Ascension Day, one of my favorites in the church calendar and one the Universalists historically paid especial attention to.

It isn’t about Christ leaving (read: abandoning) us any more than self-satisfied jokers suggest that he was launched like a deep-space probe. Rather, it reflects a spiritual truth. As the bridge between God and humanity, Christ prepares the path for human beings to become more Godlike. More compassionate, creative and free, among other things. And neither is this sanctification the province of a precious and rare set. (I wonder if members of Holiness churches, with their belief in a instant and particular sanctification realize how false and self-righteous they sound. Bad for the Church’s mission and discouraging to the “unsanctified.” My word to them: stop talking about sanctification and start showing it.)

The sacred path is often depicted — in cards, magazine and other visual media — as a lonely stroll around a pond or along a beach, which in a more subtle way is just as selfish and particular as the Holiness member’s forceful self-affirmation. Consider today, instead, that the sacred path might be more thickly peopled than a marathon, and that its end might nothing less than the completion of God’s purposes on earth.