Prairie Anglican

The Great Commission, TEC style

   

From the ACC weekly update. What would Jesus do? Probably not sue a local parish, confiscate the property then sell it to Muslims. There must be a special place in Hell awaiting these folks. 

New York: TEC sells church to Islamic Center
Source: Front Page Magazine 
March 30, 2010
By Faith McDonald

During its peak as a thriving little manufacturing center filled with stately homes and mansions, Binghamton, New York, was nicknamed the "Parlor City." Today many of those same mansions are funeral parlors. History appears to be repeating itself in modern day Binghamton. For some 130 years, the city was the home to the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd. But recently, the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York sold the pretty little church building on Conklin Avenue to the Islamic Awareness Center.

In selling Church of the Good Shepherd's building to the Muslim group, the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York was killing two birds with one stone. First, they placed an enormous obstacle in the path of the now-Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd. Second, they offered a big inter-faith embrace to their Muslim brothers and sisters who needed a property from which to extend the Dawah (the invitation to Islam). That's a good day's work for a diocese that has been losing church members for the past ten years or more.

Unlike the diocese, the Church of the Good Shepherd has grown every year under the care of Episcopal priest team of husband and wife, the Reverends Matthew and Anne Kennedy. But in 2007, Good Shepherd made the difficult decision to join the dozens of congregations that were leaving the Episcopal Church while remaining in the wider Anglican Communion of which the Episcopal Church is a part . These parishes are referred to as departing churches, but they argue that it is the denomination that has departed  -  from orthodox, biblical Christianity. The Kennedys were deposed (ceased to have authority as priests) in the Episcopal Church, and received as priests in the Anglican Church. And the Diocese of Central New York began an aggressive lawsuit against the church for all of the property....

On January 8, 2009, the lawsuit was decided in the diocese's favor. The diocese was "entitled to immediate possession" of the church building and to the rectory, home to the Kennedys' growing family since 2002. The Kennedys and all of the people of Good Shepherd hurriedly removed their property from the church building as they were warned that the diocese did indeed intend to take immediate possession. At the same time, the church was trying to find another place to worship and to host their soup kitchen for the homeless, the Shepherd's Bowl. The monsignor of the nearby St. John's and Andrew's Catholic Church opened his parish kitchen to the feeding program so that the meals for the homeless would not be interrupted. But for the first week, attendance was scant. Signs on the old building directing the homeless to the new soup kitchen had been taken down, apparently, by the Diocese when they were padlocking the church to keep out the Anglicans....

Although the Diocese of Central New York refused to sell the Church of the Good Shepherd to the Anglicans for whom it had been home, they were happy to sell it to a Muslim group for $50,000, a third of the amount that Good Shepherd had offered. According to the Rev. Tony Seel, the Diocese even added a legal caveat to the sale stating that the new owners of the property could never re-sell the building to the original congregation.

The property had been standing vacant and padlocked for many months, when on March 17, 2010, Kennedy passed by his former church building. He saw a crane removing the cross from the bell tower. The former Good Shepherd Church had red doors, symbolizing the blood of Christ as well as the blood of the martyrs. Now the doors had been painted green, and the new owners had covered over the glass that had formed the horizontal arms of a cross-shaped window on the church door. Over the back door was a new sign that said "Islamic Awareness Center."

The former Church of the Good Shepherd is now a "Dawah organization," with representatives ready to meet with schools, parent-teacher associations, and other community organizations to introduce Islam and Muslims. The Islamic Awareness Center states that it will "explain Islam's message of peace, share Qur'an and Hadith, and answer questions." It also offers "programs suitable for children using a puppet show," it adds....

The rest of the article may be found here. 

Another view...

It seems to me that, in the below, the Bard is contrasting the Christian worldview with a more worldly way of dealing with problems. Yet does being a Christian mean it is better to suffer in silence than take action? 

To be, or not to be: that is the question: 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 

And by opposing end them? 

If one is "to be" as a Christian, are we to simply accept the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? Or are we to try to overcome them? Or is the important distinction not what we do (or don't do) but our frame of mind -- our intention?

Do that which is good...

Do that which is good, and no evil shall touch you. Go your way; eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth your works; let your garments be always white, and let your head lack no ointment.

Revd. Dr. John Henry Newman quoting the Holy Ghost, 1843

Collect discussion

Dana writes: 

Mike:  What do you think of this collect? (We should be having this discussion on the Prairie Anglican.)

Look with pity, O heavenly Father, upon the people in this land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions. Have mercy upon us. Help us to eliminate our cruelty to these our neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this land; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I am not trying to start a fight.  My relationship with you is very important and I treasure our discussions. After all, iron sharpens iron.

-- Dana

Mike responds:

OK, here we are, dusting off Prairie Anglican. Thanks for the nudges to use this forum.

Iron sharpens iron, eh? Who said that? Bismarck? Der Kaiser?

Actually, I'm working very hard this Lent to not be iron but clay molded by You Know Who. It's a work in progress. Which is to say, I am.

You ask what I think of this collect. What's it from? Is it next Sunday's? I'm wary about being drawn in to analyze and even criticize a collect. What do I know?

All week I've been praying the collect that's with the Morning Prayer at the Mission St. Clare site:

"Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen."

I'd have to say -- and not by way of misdirection -- that I'm pretty comfortable with this collect from last Sunday. It seems to have all the right ingredients: It's focused on God, and how only He can help us miserable sinners do what He wants us to do, which is the only way we can experience true joy.

In sum: We don't measure up; only God can help us measure up; and only through grace, which helps us walk the line, can we know happiness and be saved.

Now, the collect you asked about has nothing in it to offend. Does it? It's asking God to have mercy on those who are oppressed and need justice. Being against any of those things would be like being against motherhood.

I'm tempted to not take what I perceive, perhaps incorrectly, to be the (friendly) bait and let it go at that. But of course I don't have that kind of self control. (g) One way to read the above would be to assume a subtext that we live in an unjust society and that we need to call on God to fix things. Again, who could disagree with that? Utopia does not exist on earth. All societies are, to some greater or lesser degree, flawed. Things man create can not achieve perfection. That's a given.

Some might detect within the subtext a particular assertion that America is rife with injustice, terror, cruelty and inequality, and that God needs to fix it. If I were a citizen of Haiti and praying this collect, I would assume that's the case. If I were a citizen of the United States and praying this collect, I would tend to have my own subtext of gratefulness we live in a nation where we have so much material wealth and freedom, though some of the conditions the collect lists are no doubt problems in particular instances and to varying degrees.

It is different to be poor and oppressed and sick and afraid in a country where many, even most poor people have homes, cars, color TVs and cell phones and access to at least emergency rooms and public defenders if the police unjustly throw them in jail. There are countries where being poor means, for the great many and not the few, living in hovels or on street, no food, no clean water, no rule of law, being harassed, enslaved or killed by the police, the militia, etc.

There's oppression, fear and sickness, and there's oppression, fear and sickness.

My honest reaction to the collect -- which is subjective and probably completely wrong, and which I wouldn't probably even think to comment on but have because you specifically asked -- is that it seems to have a certain TEC/social justice focus, as opposed to taking aim at asking the Lord to extend grace and salvation to us, as individual miserable sinners trying to in some small, pathetic way live our lives in imitation of Jesus.

Christ was pretty dismissive about Cesar, "that fox" Pilate, and the scribes and Pharisees who ran Israel. Seems to me -- and I claim no authority to say this -- Jesus' message was aimed at the hearts of individual sinners, and not governments for failing to extend "equal protection of the law and equal opportunities." Are those bad things? No. Should we hope and pray all people have them? Yes.

I think there's a basic paradox.

Does Christ care about government, whether laid off people get nine or twenty-four months of unemployment checks, and whether we're "fair and unprejudiced enough" to marry gay people in our churches? Or does Christ want to love God and love our neighbors and try to live according to the Bible's teachings, and thereby bring about the best kind of society to whatever degree we can be good?

Obviously we can't know. My personal sense is Christ wants me to put the emphasis first on God, and then treating everybody the way He would treat them if He were in my place. I don't think that can be teased out to "therefore, the Lord wants me to vote for this candidate," or "therefore, the Lord wants me to do try to enact a law to punish people who spend $80,000 to buy a Mercedes when there is a guy who happens to live in my house in Bettendorf who hasn't gotten one of those invasive back-door cancer exams because his insurance doesn't cover it."

There are some people, probably some people who dress in black and wear those funny collars, who think Jesus wants them to drive to Iowa City to cheer Obama during his visit. And there are probably some who think Jesus wants them to go there to protest him. If so, I would say both are wrong. As Democrats or Republicans? Sure. Because that's what God wants out of Congress? Nay.