Obama's Inaugural Preachers

So, Barack Obama's presidential election was accompanied by rituals of prayer by two leading figures in America's diverse Christian community, Bishop Gene Robinson (the only gay bishop of the Episcopalian church, the US wing of the Anglican church) and Pastor Rick Warren (a self identified Biblical Christian who 'planted' his own church, has earned millions of pounds in the process, and looks very unfavourably upon such 'liberal' causes as e.g. the practice of homosexuality).

In a nutshell, we have here the polar extremes not just of American Christianity but of the American psyche itself. Robinson, who defied church policy to accept his nomination as bishop represents the progressive wing of the Anglican communion whose ideals wait for no (wo)man - especially if s/he is an African....and Warren, the entrepreneurial demagogue preacher, replete with cosy conservative values and political contacts: the businessman Christian who speaks for 'everyman'.

I don't condemn either because they don't wash enough feet (though how many feet *do* they wash?) nor does it sadden me to see the unquestioned stranglehold of Christianity on American public ceremony...since good Christianity is good for everyone, this blog says. The problem is getting it on stage!

What *is* worrying, however, is what the whole affair brings to light: that the (milder) voice in the middle so rarely gets an outing in American culture - in politics or anywhere else. It's always the mavericks who get the attention. Perhaps I'm deluded if I think it's any different here.in the UK. Ahem, Boris Johnson and Stephen Fry. And of course our mavericks come as dripping with prejudice as does any American maverick. But really: couldn't a (single?) more unifying voice have been found for an historic occasion such as Obama's moment of accession? And would it have been so lamentable if that voice had happened not to be a maverick champion of some divisive cause? Maybe another time. Or maybe it's the case that voices of this kind are really rather hard to find. Can this really be so? O tempora, o mores.

Not taking Catholic Communion

There was a Catholic mass held today in the college chapel in place of the usual weekly Anglican eucharist. It was a fun service; some good singing, a nice sermon by the university's Catholic chaplain, and it was good to be re-familiarised with some of the niceties of Catholic worship which you don't get in the Anglican church. I couldn't help but try to end the Lord's Prayer with 'For thine is the kingdom...' but had to stop myself going any further because the Catholic version breaks after 'deliver us from evil'. For the record, it's worth stating as a quick word of explanation that I'm a baptised Catholic who received his first holy communion in the church before defecting in the direction of the Anglican communion while still young. And I've remained, when I've worshipped, primarily a worshipper in Anglican settings ever since.

What surprised and to some extent disappointed me today was the refusal of the bread and wine on the part of a good many members of the (Anglican) congregation at the Catholic mass. The priest could easily have stated that he was only happy to administer to Catholics. But he didn't do this, although he did state that anyone who preferred to have a blessing than receive communion was welcome to. I tried for a large part of the rest of the service to think about why the actions of the people who'd refused communion might be defensible. But I couldn't - at the end of it all - come up with anything. The same Jesus, the same Lord, the same creeds: granted that history separates Catholics and Anglicans in various ways. But history likewise separated tax collectors and sinners from the priestly castes in a number of ways, just as it has always separated those who wantonly refuse to be reconciled on the basis of past or present misgivings. The point of the eucharist is to emphasise that sitting down to eat and drink is what comes first, before we allow the awkward wrinkles of our human history to have their say in attempting to thwart our attempts to be together in unity. Jews have always known this and it's not a little sad that the central institution of the Christian religion - deriving, as it does, from Jewish origins - can fail so manifestly fully to unify God's people around God's gifts.

It's surely right to remember the past and to regret what has transpired. But the past is dead and gone and the present is the home of the living spirit in us. God's work of unity and reconciliation should not be blocked by pious attempts on our part to place awkward boundaries - grounded in our ideological takes on our often bloody and tragic human histories - in its way. The spirit - and God's love in it - are more unbridled than that.