Dan's Theo-Blog

As I fly home from Washington, D.C. where Bishops United Against Gun Violence has been advocating for expanding the requirement of background checks for gun purchases, I am studying St. Augustine’s  City of God .  This is happening in a time of American exceptionalism, summed up in the President’s favorite slogan  America First.  I recently saw a documentary film of an American Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden in the 1930’s -- their slogan passionately chanted,  America First.  American exceptionalism, the aggressive assertion of our superiority, the demand for special status in the world is precisely the idolatry that the Roman Empire practiced and Augustine condemned. At the same time, he championed virtuous civic engagement in a necessary but necessarily flawed political order.  This week as I walked the halls of Congress, waited in Congressional offices, met with office holders and their staffs in conference rooms, it was clear to me that  power is the name of the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsNM0el43So                           The Our Father is easily the teaching of Jesus we hear most often and with which we are best acquainted. If prayer shapes our souls, how did Jesus intend the Our Father to form us?             19 th Century English theologian, Frederick Dennison Maurice, began his commentary on the Our Father, not emphasizing the intimacy of  Father  (Abba) – though that is a worthy point  – but by Jesus’ choice of the first person plural,  Our.  Jesus did not just say  Father.  He did not say  My Father.  He said  Our Father.  In that  Our,  he made our relationship with each other part and parcel of our relationship with God. He defined our Source, our Destiny, and our Meaning in terms of our moral and relational bonds to one another. He put our brotherhood/sisterhood on the table first thing.             It was common in the Early Church to gather for prayer three times a day. The Church bell invited people to the

              I have replaced the windows in my home – every one of them – with mirrors facing in. I reasoned that wisdom begins and ends with self-knowledge so the things outside were distracting me from what really matters. No more windows – just reflections on myself.              There is a certain liberty in my little mirror world. I am free here to have my own truths, define my own good and evil, practice my own spirituality, compose my own prayers to whomever I choose to address -- or not. If I choose to believe in God here, I have noticed that God looks a lot like me. No surprise. I recall the Bible saying God was created in my image.            And there is a peace in it too. I still remember the people outside, those I loved who suffered and those who suffered, and I was at risk of loving them if they got too close. All unsettling to my serenity. But that was then. I live now in the present moment with myself.              Still, as I look at my reflection my

Were you a slave when you were called? Do not let it trouble you – although if you can gain your freedom, do so.                                    1 Cor. 7: 21 (New International Version)                                                    If a slave when called, do not accustom yourself to it; rather if you can indeed become free, make the most of it.                                    1 Cor. 7: 22 (Hart translation) Notice the difference. David Bentley Hart in the footnotes to his translation offers a persuasive case that  do not accustom yourself  to slavery is a more accurate rendering of Paul’s Greek than the  grin and bear  it translations that we have heard all our lives. The NIV prescription of passivity is far and away the norm and has been so since the Bible was translated into English.  All translations reflect the cultural, political, and socio-economic context of the translators and those who pay them and adopt their translations for Church use. The

Friends, old and new, welcome to my new blog. I wanted to step out of my old blog that led off with the word "Bishop" and write without the weight of so much (apparent) authority. I'll check in here not so much with any original ideas -- I don't have many of those -- as to share what I am learning in retired life. I hope to do some serious reading of Augustine and Shakespeare, looking for how they might inform each other's perspective. Along with that, I expect to explore the theology of how they church engages the world and the tension between the inner and outer lives of faith.  For example, today's burning issue in social media is The Episcopal Church's decision to invest in gun manufacturing companies in order to engage in shareholder activism to engage the manufacturers in working to reduce gun violence.  Not surprisingly, some are outraged, railing at the Church for beings "stupid." But the Church is acting as directed by resolution