Grok says not so fast. . .

  

For a very long time the issue of errors in the Bible has dogged Christianity and created a problem for those who hold a high view of the Scriptures.  Curiously enough, the Grok IV artificial intelligence from Elon Musk's company, has found evidence to give weight to the truthfulness of the Bible and the veracity of its stories from the beginning of the Old Testament to the end of the New Testament.  Far from simply reporting differences within the text, the Grok review found profound uniformity and the difference of details adding weight to the claim of truthfulness.  Furthermore, the Grok review found striking commonality across the books and across the fullness of its time of writing to give support to the claims of Scripture.  Nobody would ever suggest that a review by AI will settle the argument but it does help us too see that what is being claimed for the Bible is inherent within the text and reasonable -- just as reasonable if not more so than the doubts lent to the Scriptures.  This is not going to silence the Bible critics nor will it satisfy the Bible's supporters but perhaps it will remind us that our claims are not on the edge.  The internal consistency of the Scriptures is not an accident nor even a human scheme but evidence of something wider and deeper.  Listen for yourself and tell me what you think.

London Bridge is down. . .

Words that once gave the coded announcement of the death of the Queen have become the words which acknowledge the death of what was once greatness in Britain.  I for one am sad for it.  In many respects, the death of the Queen has either hastened it all or made it more obvious.  I am not sure which.  On the one hand are the images of Britain that we tend to see.  It is an increasingly secularized state in which the state church is largely a shell of its former self and in which agnostic and atheist seem to be able to live together with believers because they both value tradition and ceremony.  The Brits have always done an exceptionally good job of that.  But the ceremonies done so well cover the lost of much of what was once underneath it all.  Resolve and faith were hallmarks of British life and were put to the test during WWII and this small island nation seemed uniquely poised to flaunt the Nazi onslaught when other nations fell swiftly and easily under its grip.

The King is perhaps well meaning but chafed under the long life of his mother and the denial of the crown until age and disease have made him seem not simply late to the party but less than ready for prime time.  Perhaps I read too much into the tabloid stories and The Crown.  I hope so.  But the grand universities of this great empire are just as much bastions of wokism and liberalism as they are here.  The government too wedded to DEI causes over the old virtues that once held this diverse empire together.  The nation too comfortable with government money and more proud of the National Health Service than just about anything else.  Is that all there is?  This is a hard thing for an anglophile like me to ask but it must be.  Has Britain become a mere caricature of its once robust self?

It was painful to watch as the monarchy and government pandered to President Trump as if the nation of Elizabeth II and Churchill had become a mere lapdog to whoever happened to be in the White House at the moment.  A strong and profound alliance requires more than a mere echo of one opinion but a strong conversation.  Europe long ago lost its voice and identity over a Common Market, common currency, and common commitment to progressive democratic socialism.  It would seem that across the Channel things are not far behind.  The reality is that the Christian history of Britain, like that of the continent, has become a footnote and legacy -- something you prefer not to mention except in small print and something you spend half your time repenting of in order to prove you are on the right side of culture's drift. The vibrant voice of Europe and England is more Islam than Christianity and the dominant issues are more about taking care of people so they do not have to than the strong virtues of honesty, integrity, faith, and service.

This is a lament because as Europe has gone and England is headed, Canada is soon to follow.  Though Canada remains divided between its east and west, the liberal causes are there enshrined into law and not open to change.  We will be there soon unless we learn that conservatism implies that there is something to conserve and something worth conserving.  Our children are learning well their values from media and liberal educational policies and institutions.  Yes, we have alternatives and there is an actual resurgence among young men wishing to be men of virtue again but these are small numbers in comparison to those who have drunk the poison of liberalism and progressivism.  We must not simply pass on the faith to our children but also pass on virtue and honest reason unclouded by ideology and falsehood.  We must do more than merely give our children a good home but nurture their minds and their hearts in this home within the truth of God's Word and what is goodness.  We must teach them to resist and respond to the confused voices of academia who mouth the mantras of liberalism without either understanding what they are saying or seeing where it is headed.  London Bridge may be down but perhaps the George Washington is as well and countless others are falling.  Our future does not lie in the triumph of desire and individual autonomy but in truth that is also a scandal and service that gives more than it expects in return.  With the faith, we must teach our people well or Africa may be alone in resisting the  reinvention of self, marriage, and family as well as who Jesus is and what He has accomplished and what we should look like in Him. 

Pope said it - must be true. . .

After years of equivocating and spreading a fog over the clarity of Scripture and tradition from Pope Francis, we have this from Pope Leo:

“I do understand that this is a very hot-button topic and that some people will make demands to say, “we want the recognition of gay marriage,” for example, or “we want recognition of people who are trans,” to say this is officially recognized and approved by the church. The individuals will be accepted and received. Any priest who has ever heard confessions will have heard confessions from all kinds of people with all kinds of issues, all kinds of states of life and choices that are made. I think that the Church’s teaching will continue as it is, and that’s what I have to say about that for right now. I think it’s very important. Families need to be supported, what they call the traditional family. The family is father, mother, and children. I think that the role of the family in society, which has at times suffered in recent decades, once again has to be recognized, strengthened.”

Of course, it really does not matter what the Pope thinks.  It matters what Scripture says and the Church has confessed faithfully in response to that Word of God through the ages -- at least until things began to change and some Christians began to believe that it did matter what they thought and it mattered more than what Scripture says.  In any case, we ought to be grateful that this Pope at least has noticed what has been happening and says [traditional] families need to be supported and that the family is father, mother, and children.  It has been a while since the Vatican spoke so clearly.

We are not beholden to Rome but it helps when Rome speaks in faithfulness to Scripture and supports the rest of us who confess what God has said, His order in creation and the blessing of marriage and family.  In our times, this has been a truth confessed by fewer and fewer churches and rather ambiguously by others trying not to offend the culture.  The family is in trouble and the source of that trouble is often from voices within the churches who listen more to the pulse of the world and the press of media than to the clear and blunt teaching of Scripture.  I wish it were merely the government or society pressing against the faithful but the reality is that without Rome's clear confession we are tenuous minority.  Everyone else seems to have decided that doing what feels right in your own eyes is not a recipe for sin but for the ultimate human achievement and fulfillment.  

So, while I will not rest in my own encouragement to the faithful to hear God's Word and keep it with regard to marriage, children, and family, it does help when a voice from Rome admits that the family has suffered.  If the same Pope admits that the family has suffered in part by the failures of Francis, I will be even more encouraged.  For now, these are good words.  He has not exactly appointed the most faithful folk to positions in the Vatican to carry out these words so, like everything, we must wait and see how this pans out.

On another note, the same Pope in the same interview (how odd is it that Popes are interviewed like political or media figures!) that homosexuality, the role of women (aka ordination), family, and the Latin Mass are "hot button" issues or charged or divisive.  Well, sure, they are emotionally charged even if they will not change to approve same sex couples or the ordination of women (deacons or priests).  Of course, the traditional family (in the face of our want to change that definition) and reverent worship should not be emotionally charged but our culture has made them so.  But divisive does not mean that they need to be changed.  Truth is divisive.  I think Jesus said that.  It is the stumbling stone.  He is divisive -- setting family member against family member.  He is a scandal -- unless He is diluted or softened to make Him say and do nothing at all.  We have to remember that.  You can talk about some of these things all day long and it will not make these doctrines and issues less divisive or charged.  Sin has made the things of God a conflicted problem for us.  Redemption and faith are the only way out of it.  In the world but not of it.  

Striking. . .

“The most striking phenomenon in the Roman text is the augmentation of the words of consecration said over the chalice.”  So wrote Josef Jungmann in volume 2 of the Mass of the Roman Rite.  Of course, Rome seems to consider the words of consecration to be more narrowly the words Jesus spoke and not quite the words which describe His speaking and what He did.  Perhaps this is considered nitpicking but it does occur to me that the additions are really somewhat dilutions; they do not enhance but detract from the words of Christ. 

On the day before he was to suffer, he took bread in his holy and venerable hands, and with eyes raised to heaven, to you, O God, his almighty Father, giving you thanks, he said the blessing,
broke the bread and gave it to his disciples saying: Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my Body, which will be given up for you.

In a similar way, when supper was ended, he took this precious chalice in his holy and venerable hands, and once more giving you thanks, he said the blessing and gave the chalice to his disciples, saying: Take, all of you, and drink of this: Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.  Do this in memory of me. As often as you shall do these things, you do them in memory of Me.

Perhaps it is understandable why there might be a desire to add to the words of Jesus in order to emphasize them or somehow make them more eloquent, it raises doubts about why there was this departure from the text of Scripture and, in particular, the words commended by St. Paul with such solemnity.  My point is not that this is the worst possible thing on earth but it does raise an issue.

Rome, along with Lutherans, insists that these are Jesus' words and that Jesus is still speaking them, albeit through the mouth of the priest/pastor.  So the question is why not let Jesus' words be simply Jesus' words without elaboration?  Bouyer has put it best.  The more we tinker with the words, the more they are our words and not the timeless words of Jesus, less they are words of God and more they are merely words and the creation of man.  Within the great and awesome mystery of Christ's presence in bread and wine, it would seem to me that precisely here the words of Jesus should be only Jesus' words -- without elaboration, paraphrase, or comment.  Let the words of Jesus remain His alone.

That is not to say that the words of the entire canon cannot be changed or should not be changed -- just the opposite.  From time to time they can and perhaps should be changed.  Goodness knows we have remembered that Jesus gave thanks but most Eucharistic prayers are heavy on everything but thanksgiving.  Yet the words of Christ should remain His own and without addition or edit.  First Corinthians 11:23-26:

²³ For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; ²⁴ and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” ²⁵ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

In another odd change, the Tridentine Canon had added the words Mystery of Faith right after the chalice or covenant statement of Jesus.  It was another striking deviation from the Words of Scripture in the Roman version, anyway.  The insertion of the words mysterium fidei into the Simili modo, though it does not interrupt Jesus' words (“This is the Chalice of My Blood”), it does interrupt the Scriptural narrative of those words. St. Thomas Aquinas was concerned enough to call it an inappropriate (inconvenienter) inserion.  Josef Jungmann echoes the concern: “And then, in the middle of the sacred text, stand the enigmatic words so frequently discussed: mysterium fidei.” Finally, Pius Parsch finds it disburing: “The insertion of ‘the mystery of faith’ is most unusual, since it even disturbs the construction of the sentence.” 

Curiously, until the changes to the liturgy in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, the Latin rite was practically the only one that did not sing the words of the consecration.  Among the changes ushered in by the liturgical reform in the name of the Council was to allow for the possibility of singing the words of consecration, indeed the singing of the entire Eucharistic Prayer, in the Latin rite. As the General Instruction of the Roman Missal [GIRM] says:

"No. 30. Among the parts assigned to the priest, the foremost is the Eucharistic Prayer, which is the high point of the entire celebration. Next are the orations: that is to say, the collect, the prayer over the offerings, and the prayer after Communion. These prayers are addressed to God in the name of the entire holy people and all present, by the priest who presides over the assembly in the person of Christ. It is with good reason, therefore, that they are called the 'presidential prayers.'

"No. 32. The nature of the 'presidential' texts demands that they be spoken in a loud and clear voice and that everyone listen with attention. Thus, while the priest is speaking these texts, there should be no other prayers or singing, and the organ or other musical instruments should be silent."

"No. 38. In texts that are to be spoken in a loud and clear voice, whether by the priest or the deacon, or by the lector, or by all, the tone of voice should correspond to the genre of the text itself, that is, depending upon whether it is a reading, a prayer, a commentary, an acclamation, or a sung text; the tone should also be suited to the form of celebration and to the solemnity of the gathering. Consideration should also be given to the idiom of different languages and the culture of different peoples.

"In the rubrics and in the norms that follow, words such as 'say' and 'proclaim' are to be understood of both singing and reciting, according to the principles just stated above. 

At the 2006 Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, Benedict XVI sang the entire Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I) -- including the consecration.  In this he was joined by hundreds of concelebrating bishops and priests. 

Well, perhaps you learned something.  I did. 

 

 

 

Technology: Blessing or Distraction or Dead End

The gift of technology is, or perhaps could be, a tremendous blessing to the Church.  It may well be in some quarters but in many congregations it is a burden and has proven more costly than anticipated.  Web sites, apps, social media, live streaming, podcasts, cloud based systems, and the like have added more than a hefty bottom line cost for all that they might do.  Even under the best of conditions, it is a maze more than a superhighway and it offers a dizzying array of choices, options, alternatives, and possibilities to the Church.  The problem lies not simply in what to do with it but also where to begin and where to end.  For most congregations, technology is a tangled skein of yarn without a clue to the thread that will unravel it all so that something useful can be made of it.

Most congregations do not have the bucks to pay for or the manpower with the know how or the free time to do much with the technology so it often ends up like a DIY project gone terribly wrong.  It somehow seems to end up on the desk of the pastor -- typically as one of those other duties as assigned.  The technological problem has become a pastoral problem.  Even the recruitment and supervision of it all is largely deposited on the altar side of the rail instead of in the pews.  Perhaps large congregations can afford the cost of consultants, installers, and maintenance of it all or perhaps they can staff and pay for it in house but the bulk of us are left to fend for ourselves in a marketplace too filled with options and choices to make much sense of it all.  It ends us becoming a financial drain and a headache more than a boon to the mission.

How much do these things distract our attention or actually contribute to the fulfillment of our mission as a church?  How much do these things consume of our resources and would the be better spent in pursuit of other things or how much do they actually ease the burden or expand the reach of the same church?  Would we be better served investing more in technology or applying the savings from less investment to other purposes?  These are the questions facing most congregations and most pastors.  How many more apps do we need to put on our phones as church workers and how much more screen time should we obligate ourselves to give?  It always was and is easier to pick up the phone or order online the office supplies and resources you need to do your work as a pastor than to find a place to shop and go there.  I get that.  But is it easier to provide competitive and state of the art digital access to those inside or not yet inside the Church?

Personally I think it is high time to begin to test the various means available to us to make sure that we are using technology and it is not using us up in the process.  Stress and burn out come from trying to do too much with too little and this is exactly the promise of our technology -- do more with less but do it at home and on your phone while you are off duty.  How is that working?   We pay through the nose for online software costs, for cloud data storage, for access to our stuff wherever the internet goes, for security, and for the RAM and processing power to do it.  Is it helping us?  Really?  It is not a rhetoric question.  Is is a real issue of how best for a pastor to apply his time and attention and the congregation their money and leaders?  Maybe too much really is too much.  I fear we are at a tipping point when the gift has become a burden and our technology is costing us as much as, if not more, than it returns.  You tell me.