From the Rector

Letter to an Alpha — A Skeptical Priest Looks at the Alpha Course

This article sparked the largest number of Letters to the Editor in the history of The Living Church — a relatively conservative national magazine for Episcopalians. The Living Church is read by many who treasure the traditions of the church and also by many who share the conservative theology of the Evangelical movement. The Alpha Course is an “Introduction to Christianity” promulgated by the conservative wing of the Church. Matthew’s response to his critics is also found, below.

Dear K:

This morning the Holy Spirit visited me in the form of a lovely dream, and then woke me at precisely five a.m. so that I would write this letter to you. I tell you this at the outset because I want to assure you that I, too, believe in the living presence of the Holy Spirit, as I also believe in the resurrected Christ. After hearing what I have to say about the Alpha course, you may doubt this, so I state it upfront.

I also believe that the Holy Spirit brought us together, and inspired you to hand me the tape of Nicky Gumbel’s sermons. I found him to be a wonderfully engaging preacher who introduces the principles behind the Alpha course with clarity and humor. I was interested in listening to this tape because people whom I respect speak highly of the Alpha course. And indeed, I was impressed by Gumbel’s affability, his charming manner and his light touch. But I was also disappointed by his simplistic and discredited theology. Anglicans are sometimes referred to as “Catholic lite” — a term that makes me cringe — but from what I could glean from the tapes, the Alpha approach is “Fundamentalist lite” — in my opinion an even more unfortunate development.

Listening to the tape, I once again found myself wondering if the church I love has become so intellectually flaccid that it is incapable of defending itself from this invasion by protestant evangelicalism, just as many of our churches now feature praise choruses as their artless alternative to the hymnal.

My disappointment in Nicky Gumbel became acute as he presented his “evidence” that Jesus is the Son of God. He uses the Bible as a proof text, implying Biblical literalism without actually invoking it. He blithely assumes that statements attributed to Jesus in John’s gospel are Jesus’ own words. He makes sweeping claims for the reliability of Scripture that ignores nearly two centuries of Biblical scholarship. Nothing about the great debates on the authority of Scripture or the historical Jesus enters his seamless presentation. The thousands of educated lay people who have been reading the likes of Crossan, Borg and Spong have no home in this world. His rationalist use of terms like “evidence” and “truth” commit the classic errors of Evangelical theology by reducing the ecstatic exclamations of faith to the merely descriptive language of empiricism.

Even more troubling are his claims for the superiority of Christianity — that not only are the teachings of Jesus unique, but it is only through Jesus that we can enter into a salvific relationship with God. These claims are dangerously narrow in an era when the piety of all faiths must be honored. I stand with most Episcopalians, and, indeed, the majority of Americans who now believe that Christianity is only one of many possible paths toward God. It is important and necessary to criticize organized religions that make salvation their exclusive property. As globalism spreads and our world shrinks, our appreciation of the world’s religions must expand. As the centuries attest and current events make plain, violence and warfare go hand-in-hand with religions of spiritual superiority.

Finally, Gumbel’s evangelical theology of the atonement troubles me. In this cosmology, the world is apparently a dangerous place (“enemy territory,” to use Gumbel’s phrase) from which God rescues us by effecting a cosmic shift in the balance of powers accomplished by Jesus’ death on the cross. This approach, while it has historic resonance with the Babylonian and Hellenistic cults that influenced early Christianity, is not the only tradition within Christianity, and lives in tension with historic Anglicanism’s deep Incarnational trust in the world — a world created through Christ and revealing God’s love through its inherent beauty and goodness. Anglicanism’s spirituality draws us into a positive and loving engagement with the creation and one another, rather than a Puritan attitude of suspicion in which one is quick to define forbidden territories, such as sexuality, evolutionary science, mystical spirituality, and other religions. While Gumbel’s “lite” approach stops short of drawing these conclusions, they are implicit in his methodology.

Now, one may argue that I am missing the point; that the Alpha course’s mission is to introduce unchurched people to an elementary understanding of the Christian faith, while the level of dialogue I propose is of a more “graduate school” approach. According to this argument, we should start them off with the basics: don’t confuse them with intellectual complexity before they’ve had a chance to experience the power of the gospel on its most basic level. We justify a similar approach when we tell our children fables about Santa Claus: they teach an important lesson which, we believe, will survive the inevitable collapse of the story as a truth-claim. But the problem is that while Gumbel’s audience may be unchurched, they are not children. The educated layperson of today has been introduced to the problems of Biblical authority and postmodern truth claims, and has grown so weary of Christianity’s inability to integrate these issues with a lively faith that they adopt Spong’s moniker as “believers in exile.”

There is something deeply troubling about a religion that thinks it must indoctrinate its newest members by making simplistic arguments that lack intellectual integrity. One cannot convert people to the truth by means of lies.

John Cobb has said that the death of the “mainline” denominations is being accelerated by its inability to think. Certainly the times demand the very best thinking that our brains can muster and our souls can bear. When, instead of fresh proclamations of the faith, we trot-out arguments of this sort, I fear for the future of this Church I love.

I am an evangelist, yes; I proclaim the Good News of Christ with passion and conviction. I am committed to the growth of the church. This does not require that I switch off my brain. A strong faith encourages a rigorous learning and confirms a lively intelligence.

I therefore pray that you will understand, and perhaps forgive, my disinclination to offer the Alpha course in my ministry. I give thanks for the love of God which your efforts clearly reveal.

Yours in Christ,

ML+

The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology

This article was published in The Living Church, March 14, 1999.

“God gave me the gift of preaching; and I wasn’t going to let no Episcopal seminary take it away from me!” -The Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, when asked if she had ever taken a seminary homiletics class.

Good morning, class, and welcome to your first seminary homiletics course, “Bad Preaching 101.”

This class is devoted to the art and practice of bad preaching in the Episcopal Church. By the end of this course, you will have mastered the basic skills required to preach the radical gospel of Jesus Christ while minimizing the risk of actually being crucified yourself.

You will learn about these and other useful techniques: Boredom as a Diversionary Tactic; Modern Methods of Academic Evasion, including the Uses and Abuses of 19th Century German Terminology; Mining the Obscure Riches of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations; Making the Most of Crying Infants; and the Magic of Poor Sound Systems.

There are three elements of bad preaching which, when skillfully treated, have a reassuringly numbing effect on a congregation. (And yes, this will be on the final exam.)

These three elements are:
1. The Obvious Theme
2. The Obscure Exposition
3. The Impossible Conclusion

To illustrate my points in this introductory lecture, I will refer to a story told by Jesus in the 12th Chapter of Luke’s gospel, verses 13-21, commonly known as the “Parable of the Rich Fool.” This story is deeply threatening to most Episcopalians, indeed to any American with an investment portfolio. Thus our challenge is defined: how to tell the truth about this story without deeply offending our congregations.

1. The Obvious Theme

No matter how bad the sermon, one cannot avoid capturing the attention of the congregation for at least the first minute or so of the sermon. During that dangerous interval, one must signal the congregation that they are not going to hear anything they haven’t heard a hundred times before. Thus, the best bad sermons begin in the selection of the sermon’s theme. The more obvious the theme of the sermon, the more quickly will the congregation feel free to attend to less threatening activities, such as reading the announcements on the bulletin, or writing a check for the offertory.

For example, the parable of the rich fool illustrates the sin of greed. Jesus describes a rich farmer who has succeeded in storing-up enough grain to last him many years, thereby winning an extended vacation if not an early retirement; but on the night of judgment his investments only serve as an indictment upon his soul.

When preparing to preach on this story, one should list the many cliches which come to mind:

“You can’t take it with you.”
“The love of money is the root of all evil.”
“Money cannot buy happiness,” etc.

The more worn aphorisms one can associate with the text, the more likely will the congregation be lulled into thinking that they actually understand the text; and from there it is just a short step to their thinking there is nothing very scandalous about the text. Present the obvious theme as a loyal dog presents a favorite pair of bedroom slippers; train your voice to smoothly communicate with sentiment and nostalgia; above all, maintain the impression that that which is easily understood is easily accomplished.

To be avoided are pithy quotations which rephrase the theme of your sermon in an arresting way. For instance, Sitting Bull’s remark, that “the white settlers’ love of possessions was a disease to them,” should be put aside. And of course, political associations should be avoided at all costs.

When reading your sermon before the congregation (and yes, in the Episcopal Church, all bad sermons must be read from a manuscript — that’s the rule) never attempt to bring Jesus’ passion for this topic into your reading. For Episcopalians, emotion of any kind can be profoundly disorienting.

2. The Obscure Exposition

Every bad preacher knows the feeling of dread which descends when, having presented the obvious theme in the first minute, the preacher faces many more minutes of air time, during which he or she is expected to say something that sounds impressive. This is the job of the obscure exposition. By embroidering your theme with obtuse scholarship, you will create the important impression that the obvious theme is actually quite complex and difficult.

Few methods further this goal better than the long academic assay into the exegetical, hermeneutical and historical-critical debates concerning the Biblical text. References to obscure scholars and historical figures are the ballast in the ship of bad preaching; all the better, of course, when quoted in the kind of learned, distant tone which suggests that the preacher had discovered the passage himself just the other day while leafing through the collected works of Josephus.

With respect to the parable of the rich fool, for instance, the bad preacher will be delighted to find in the reference books a dispute among experts with respect to whether or not verses 16-21 should be considered a separate pericope from verses 13-15, and another discussion as to whether there is any evidence to suggest that the parable is related to similar treatments found in Q. The bad preacher should devote the bulk of his sermon to these and similar questions.

Remember, however, that it is not the goal of bad preaching to actually put the congregation to sleep. A good bad preacher must be entertaining enough to give the impression of competence in the pulpit, yet not so entertaining that people might actually remember the sermon upon leaving the church. For this purpose, there are many joke books for clergy that can be bought, and many of these have the additional benefit of reducing compelling questions of faith to a sentimental story with a humorous punchline.

3. The Impossible Conclusion

Having thus used-up the expected allotment of time, the bad preacher can begin the conclusion of his sermon by repeating the sermon’s obvious theme, but this time with greater vocal gravity and significant pauses.

Finally, the familiar aphorism is rephrased in the form of an impossible moral imperative, utilizing that most useful word, “should”. For example, “Indeed, the love of money is the root of all evil; therefore we should put aside all greed and live our lives as God intended.” With this or other suitably impossible imperatives, the preacher may safely conclude with a prayer.

Please note that the bad preacher does not embarrass the congregation with answers to practical questions such as, “How do we attain this freedom from the love of money ?” The bad preacher will dismiss these kinds of questions as if their answers were obvious.

This approach strengthens the illusion that the congregation is filled with satisfied, spiritually competent people. Never encourage members of your church to explore their own emptiness or spiritual hunger. Maintain a wall of benign mystery with respect to the practical questions of the spiritual life — otherwise you will flirt with the unpredictable forces of spiritual renewal.

In general you must reinforce the impression that the spiritual journey is a lonely one; that an Episcopal church is no place to begin seeking spiritual companions; that we come to the communion rail not out of our emptiness but out of our worthiness; and that the heights of genuine spiritual fellowship cannot compare to the pleasures that are to be found at the coffee hour.

Thank you for your attention. Next time, we will discuss in greater detail the use of humor as an evasive device in bad preaching. Please read the first article listed in your syllabus, entitled “Jesus Was Actually aVery Funny Guy,” by Professor Franz Bibfeldt.

Thank you and have a good day.

The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology

Those of you who watch television with any frequency — and I know you’re out there — have seen the advertisement for a certain brand of beer which features a group of very hip young men and women partying and grooving to the sounds of a jazz saxophone laying down a gutteral riff. No words are spoken during this ad, but at one point the following words flash onto the screen: “The Beer Gods Are Smiling.”

My name is Matthew Lawrence — I am the Episcopal chaplain at the University of Michigan, and I am here to report to you that at the University, the beer gods are smiling indeed.

That television commercial is one of the most effective apologies for the cult of Dionesius I think I have ever witnessed; it illustrates nicely what I call the neo-paganism of our culture. And it points out at least one dimension to a crisis that I want to talk to you about this morning; a crisis that is amplified by the following statistics:

Statistic number one: One in three college students across the country drinks primarily to get drunk. The number of women on campus who reported drinking to get drunk more than tripled between 1977 and 1993, a rate that now equals that of men. Statistic number two: the teenage suicide rate has tripled over the past three decades. Suicide is now the third-leading cause of death among 15-24 year-olds.

The American Medical Association has this to say about our teenagers: “Never before has one generation of American teen-agers been less healthy, less cared-for or less prepared for life than their parents were at the same age.”

Now, let me offer another set of statistics and ask you if you think there’s any connection: Since 1969, the percentage of college students who considered it important to develop a meaningful philosophy of life has dropped from 83% down to the current level of 43%. Meanwhile, during the same period, the number of students who said that one of their highest goals was to be “well off financially” rose from 43% to 74%. Making money is now the single highest goal of our college students.

So obviously there has been a very significant shift in values among our young adults — a shift from finding meaning to making money.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with making money; God knows somebody’s got to pay the bills around here. But to what end do we make money? Is there a higher purpose, an ultimate meaning to our lives? And do you suppose there’s any connection between this shift in values away from meaning and toward the making of money, and this increase in teenaged suicide and alcoholism? Are these not all symptoms of a profound cultural despair?

One study of students on campus came to this conclusion:

The three most visible symptoms of the crisis in higher education are: 1) substance abuse, 2) indolence, and 3) excessive careerism. Underlying these symptoms are three fundamental problems: 1) meaninglessness, 2) fragmentation of a student’s life into unrelated, incoherent components, and 3) the absence of community.

It is impossible to look at these statistics and not conclude that, in some fundamental way, we have failed our children. Not just we parents; but we, the church; we, this culture; we, the schools and universities. One author put it well when he said that we are all facing “a growing poverty of meaning in [our] personal and communal lives.”

Meanwhile, the beer gods are smiling.

Here’s another statistic: “70% of Generation Xers say there is no such thing as absolute truth.” Which is not surprising when you consider that half of all grown-ups who say they are Christians do not know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount. Nor, one might infer, do they care. For a lot of college students, there is only one thing they know about Christianity and one thing they need to know, and that is simply that it is uncool.

…and the beer gods are smiling.

We live in a time when even some of my most devoted undergraduates won’t come to a Bible Study that conflicts with any one of a half dozen of their favorite TV shows; when the most popular bit of personal data found on the electronic student directory is “favorite beer”; when a student retreat takes on an eerie resemblance to an episode from MTV’s “Real World.”

We live in a time when hostility toward Christians is a badge of honor: when Marilyn Manson, on live national television, obscenely berates Christians and wins applause; when HBO’s Mr. Show portrays televangelists as Satan worshipers; and popular songs routinely deride churches and preachers and Sunday morning Christians.

… and the beer gods are smiling.

So what are we to do?

One bright piece of news comes from a study that was released just a few days ago that says that, despite all evidence to the contrary, parents do actually have a profound effect on their teenagers’ lives and moral choices. Even though our teenagers sometimes do everything they can to make us think they aren’t listening to us and they don’t care what we say, the teenagers in the study who were most successful in making the transition into adulthood — the ones least likely to get pregnant, get into drugs, or drop out of school — were the ones whose parents were emotionally available to them; the ones whose parents made their expectations and values clear to their children; the parents who were committed to communicating with their children no matter how indifferent their children pretended to be.

Those of us who are parents need to remember that; we express our love through our emotional and ethical engagement with our children; no matter how painful and fruitless it might seem at the time: we don’t give up on our children.

And on a very fundamental level, that means we can’t give up on ourselves. Insofar as we despair, our children despair; insofar as we fail to learn about and communicate our best understanding of the meaning of life, our children will suffer the consequences.

Now what does this have to do with campus ministry? Well, just as it is true that parents must never give up on their children; a church must never give up on its young adults.

A study a few years ago found that 60% of the non-cradle Episcopalians received their first significant introduction to the Episcopal Church through a campus ministry. Campus ministry is by far the most effective evangelical force in the Episcopal Church.

So why is it, then, that across the country and within this very Diocese, funding for campus ministry is being cut, and cut, and cut again? Why are campus ministries across the country having to shut down their doors due to budget constraints?

One bishop put it this way, he says that failing to fund campus ministry is like “eating our seed corn.”

At Canterbury House, we no longer receive any funding from the Diocese, which has been forced to cut back on a variety of programs; we receive no funding from local parishes, which are in their own ways scrambling to balance their budgets. And of course, we receive only very small donations from our students. We survive through the generosity of previous generations — my salary is paid from an endowment established around the turn of the century, and supplemented by a major gift in 1957. There has not been a major gift to Canterbury House in 40 years.

The income from our endowment is sufficient only to cover the cost of my salary, and that just barely; all other expenses — my secretary’s salary, our musical budget, any program expenses, our renovation project — has to be raised from individual friends and supporters.

Nonetheless, I am proud to report that in the year since I’ve been at this job, our student congregation has grown from two students to between 35 and 50, thanks mostly to the commitment of some dedicated student leaders, and to the terrific jazz quartet we have every Sunday evening at our worship services. There’s a new life and energy at Canterbury House these days, the kind of energy that turns skeptics into believers and disciples.

I know all about this process of turning skeptics into believers because when I started out in college I was in full rebellion from Christianity. I thought Christianity was just a bunch of fairy tales that my parents used to keep me from misbehaving. But then I met this Episcopal priest who changed everything for me. First of all, he was really cool. He drove a red Jaguar. His wife was a former model. He had a PhD in Systematic Theology. And even better than all that, he took an interest in me. He asked me to help out around the church. He helped me think through the papers I was writing. And when my life was in crisis; when I was in despair, and drinking too much, and thinking about suicide, he was the one that I turned to.

It was his presence on my campus that made all the difference in my life. I guess you could say that now I’m just trying to return the favor.

It is time for all of us to return the favor.

Because we can talk and talk and I can preach and preach but the truth of Christ is communicated through relationship, one to another; it’s communicated by the experience of God mediated through companionship; it’s communicated in God’s good time at the interesection of our own personal stories with the steady, ongoing presence of the church in our lives, communicating the presence of Christ in the sacraments and in the Word. And that is why we need campus ministry.

Against the rootlessness of life on campus, we offer a place where students are grounded and made whole. In our worship, we meet students where they are, with music and language students know and understand; we speak of eternal truths and ancient wisdom and what happened last night on MTV.

And day by day we develop, through Bible study, service projects, retreats and spiritual direction, a deeper and more meaningful relationship than is typically found at the clubs or the parties; a relationship that will last them beyond their four years of college, into adulthood and old age and eternity: a relationship with the living Christ, as interpreted by the Episcopal Church.

We’re making a difference at the University of Michigan; we are growing at a phenomenal rate; and with your support and God’s blessing, we can build Canterbury House into what it used to be, one of the most outstanding campus ministries in the country, in the heart of the best public university in the land.

If you are interested in becoming a part of this exciting time at Canterbury House, I would encourage you to speak with me after this service; take my card, pick up one of our brochures; drop a check in the mail; whatever feels right for you.

Sure, the beer gods are smiling; but their pleasures are short; and the joys of the living Christ spring eternal. Thanks for listening. AMEN

The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology

I believe that hypocrisy is the perpetual shame of Christian churches.

I believe that I participate in the Church’s hypocrisy, and that God calls me to work toward spiritual integrity within myself and my community.

I believe that trusting God is harder than believing in God.

I do not believe in a god that punishes people for their inability to believe someone else’s creed.

I believe that some creedal formulations, such as “Jesus Christ died for my sins,” help some people come into relationship with God.

I believe that lots of people make a grave mistake when they assume their path is the only path to salvation.

I believe that “salvation” is a word that describes a soul’s connectedness to God in this life.

I believe that attempts to narrowly define the afterlife, or God’s conditions for entering into it, violate its mystery.

I believe that God holds us accountable for our actions in this life, but I do not claim to make those judgments on God’s behalf.

I believe that creedal or doctrinal litmus tests reflect a fear of diversity.

I believe that Jesus was killed for speaking the truth in a corrupt world, and that he calls us to do the same.

I believe that social justice is a dimension of spiritual integrity, and that spiritual growth is meaningless if it is merely self-serving.

I believe that the spiritual journey is a way of ordering one’s life, not controlling one’s thoughts.

I believe in prayer and silence as a path to God.

I do not believe that God can be fully understood by human brains, or adequately described by human words.

I believe in singing.

I believe in the transformative power of myth.

I believe that Holy Scripture is inspired by God and is “true” in much the same way that great literature, poetry, myths, legends, and oral traditions are “true.”

I believe a historically reliable image of Jesus can be found in the Gospels, but it takes a critical mind to find it.

I believe that people use Scripture to oppress people they are afraid of, including gays and lesbians, and to manipulate others into conforming and giving money.

I do not believe that it is a sin to be a practicing gay or lesbian, when the relationship is founded on deeply committed, monogomous love.

I do not believe that it is a sin to be a practicing heterosexual, when the relationship is founded on deeply committed, monogomous love.

I believe in the healing and loving power of God, revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and revealed in the communities that serve that power.

I believe that God is revealed in the world.

I believe that we have much to learn from the wisdom of other cultures and religions, and that we are called by God to discover and reveal this wisdom.

I do not believe that one can find God through thinking alone — we must have prayer and community.

I believe that God embraces scientific truth and reason.

I believe the Kansas School Board has lost its mind.

I believe that when we get trapped in our heads we can lose touch with God.

I believe God is best understood as a Verb rather than a noun.

I believe that Holy Communion helps me discover God.

I believe that many Christians put too much emphasis on beliefs.

I believe in the beauty of paradox.

The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology

This was published by Crazy Wisdom Bookstore, in anticipation of Y2K.

I’ve been savoring the crazy apocalyptic predictions with this millennium, and I’m struck by the way in which the American apocalyptic vision contrasts with the good old Biblical one.

Used to be, a good apocalypse involved a righteous God that would kick the bad guys’ butts and establish justice for us little people. Now, it’s all about our own butts getting kicked. Food shortages (Oh no! We might have to share!); computer breakdowns (How will we live?); stock-market crashes (You mean I can’t be rich forever?!) global warming (My God! We might have to cut back on fossil fuels!) are all the visions of a guilty culture desperately clinging to addictions it knows cannot be sustained.

I think maybe this means WE are the bad guys. Certainly, campesinos in Nicaragua will receive the news of our catastrophes with a Biblical sense of vindication. They will write new psalms celebrating our downfall, which will be cherished through the centuries as evidence of the existence of a just God.

Someone once said that the only repentant nation is a defeated nation. Perhaps that is the lesson we are preparing to teach ourselves. Meanwhile, we will continue to fire up the SUVs, stock our ammo supply, and prepare for a doom of our own creating.

As for me and my house, I’m trying to see the world more from the campesino’s perspective. The future looks a lot rosier that way.

The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology

Introduction
Canterbury House is a campus ministry located on the edge of a major public university. Our primary mission is to reach the vast majority of students, both undergraduate and graduate, who seek spiritual community but are suspicious of “organized religion.” We attempt a precarious balance: an experience that is spiritually nurturing and yet intellectually challenging; where the conventional “trappings” of institutional religion are minimized yet the essential values of the Episcopal Church are still communicated; where both contemporary culture and ancient wisdom is affirmed and made more meaningful.

1. The Theme
The most important value of our worship experience is that it be meaningful and relevant. We have found that students more readily engage the content of the readings and the sermon if they are given a specific question or theme to think about and discuss. For that reason, at the beginning of the service I present a specific theme inspired by the Gospel for the day which the opening meditation, hymns, other readings, and sermon will all reflect. After introducing the theme with some very brief remarks, I invite the congregation to a silent meditation on one or two questions suggested by that theme (about 3 minutes of silence, marked by the sounding of a gong three times). The silence is gently broken by a Taize chant and then the service moves easily into the Collect of the Day and the readings. The beginning of the service emphasizes quieting down and listening rather than lots of scripted proclamations. We tend to avoid opening hymns, lengthy opening sentences, and the Gloria for that reason.

2. Interfaith and Non-Scriptural Readings
Responding to the openness among “Generation X” members to a variety of spiritual traditions, and because I believe it is very important to teach people how to discern the presence of God in other cultures, we often offer a reading from another faith tradition that relates to the theme for the day. In doing so, we send a signal to our congregation that they very much want to hear: that we do not pretend to have a corner on the truth, and we will not perpetuate the institutional church’s sin against other religions. Thich Nhat Hanh’s Living Buddha, Living Christ is a most helpful resource in this regard; readings in the journals The Sun, Parabola, and Tricycle are also very helpful. We also have readings from contemporary Christian writers that give fresh insight on the theme of the day. Kathleen Norris, Marcus Borg, and Anne Lamott are especially good resources.

3. Secular music, Gospel music
We have no interest in the “Praise music” that many contemporary services draw upon. But we are interested in helping people discern the presence of God in the music of our living culture, breaking down what Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls “the unchristian dualisms of sacred and profane, religion and politics, church and world.” The living God is alive and well outside the Church, and it’s time we honored that. We have an outstanding jazz quartet that plays in the traditions of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Sun Ra; they also play pop music such as Stevie Wonder or Bob Marley; and they improvise over Taize chants and traditional hymns. We also play a lot of gospel hymns — it rocks, and honors our diversity.

4. Student leadership vs. priestly leadership
I’m always trying to find the right balance between the students’ need to find their own voice, and their need to learn whatever the Church tradition has to teach them. My homily time includes lots of time for discussion. I’ve begun to appreciate more and more the importance of students having the freedom to speak their truth, even when that truth seems banal or even misguided. It is important for them to take responsibility for their truth, and to find a sacred place that honors them where they are in their journey.

5. Creeds
Students are enormously sensitive to issues of intellectual integrity and attempts by religions to impose a “group-think” conformity. For that reason, I rely on the overall service to communicate doctrine without requiring a “pledge of allegiance” creedal statement. This feels to me to be most respectful of the diversity of opinion within the congregation; people get a chance to speak about their beliefs within the homily time, and that gives us all an opportunity to challenge and discuss those beliefs openly.

6. Taize chants and meditation
Our Taize chants and meditations are longish; we are not afraid of silence; our jazz quartet improvises on the Taize melodies while we chant, and the effect is to deepen the experience. The quartet also improvises very quietly during the prayers of the people — sometimes just a very soft drum and string bass duet. The prayers conclude with a Taize chant.

7. Inclusive, Contemporary Language
Considering that many, if not most, of our students have not been raised on the Episcopal prayer book, inclusive and contemporary language goes without saying. I use many of the recently-authorized Eucharistic Prayers, as well as material from the New Zealand Prayer Book. However, on special occasions a particularly archaic prayer or litany is effective in communicating a unique tradition or sentiment (for example, the Bidding Prayer during the Advent Lessons and Carols service). When the archaic language is the exception, it sometimes stands out in a fresher light.

The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology

My tennis buddy approached me soon after hearing about the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide: “These people were computer programmers, right? And they thought a UFO was going to beam them up? How could they be so smart and so stupid at the same time?”

The next day, Scott Simon on National Public Radio answered the question more gently than I could: “Intelligence does not always produce wisdom.” But that’s not really an answer — it only begs the question that has been nagging at me since I first heard of this tragedy: What is it about religion that leads perfectly rational people to embrace the most ludicrous beliefs?

The question surfaced again as I discovered, on page two of the Ann Arbor News, a quarter-page ad listing eight of a claimed “167 converging clues” that reveal “overwhelming” evidence of Jesus’ imminent return. It’s well-written, carefully researched, and (I’m sorry to have to say this) really stupid. People have been confidently predicting this event since the day when, as the story goes, Jesus floated into the sky (or was transported into a waiting craft, depending on which preachers you believe).

How many times must we fail to predict Jesus’ return before we achieve a skeptical mind about such claims? What do we make of these, and countless other, examples of intellectual lobotomies performed in the name of God? And let’s be honest, what assurance do I have that the same hasn’t happened to me? After all, is belief in the resurrection any more ridiculous than belief in UFOs hiding behind Hale-Bopp?

I put the question bluntly because lives are at stake. While mass suicide in fulfillment of an allegedly divine purpose is rare, membership in mind-numbing cults is all too common. Closer to home, lives are routinely ruined on the shores of irrational religious doctrine, from gays persecuted in the name of infallible holy writ to emotionally vulnerable persons falling victim to faith-healing hucksters. Religion can shroud the most blatant forms of exploitation and discrimination in the mysterious aura of God’s good name.

No wonder so many good people associate religion with snake oil. Who can blame them, when religious leaders tell us to turn against our God-given reason as if it were the devil’s own voice?

My atheist brother used to say, “Never trust anyone who says, `Trust me.’” Good advice in a day when televangelists raise millions of dollars on the strength of doctrines that blithely defy the most fundamental principles of scholarship.

Those who are not familiar with the intellectual traditions of Christendom may be shocked that these words come from a minister. But in fact the the majority of Christian scholars would agree that the challenge of faith is to deepen the spiritual life and the intellectual life simultaneously. Those who say the two are mutually exclusive are suggesting that we sacrifice the full wisdom this precious life offers.

Of course, atheists have their own blind spots. As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I made the acquaintance of a post-doctoral fellow in astrophysics. He bragged about his genius level IQ, and upon learning that I was a Divinity School student, sniffed that there could not possibly be any geniuses teaching there, since any belief in God was clear evidence of an inferior mind. I suggested he read a few chapters of Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology before he made such judgments, but he categorically dismissed the idea.

Sometimes the smartest people can be really stupid.

Religion is a powerful force. In the wrong hands, it can be used to destroy lives as completely as it saves them. All we have to protect us are our common sense and the wisdom of our skeptical elders. Faith requires deep questions, not easy answers. In the end the truth is never captured in simple formulas, but in the restless engagement of inquiring minds and discerning hearts.

To settle for anything less is to court disaster.

The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology

Published in Faithlinks October 27, 2002 (www.faithlinks.org)

“Exorcism, Ann Arbor Style”

by Matthew Lawrence
© 2002 Matthew Lawrence

It’s not that we thought our new house was haunted, per se. I mean, we had never seen specters in the attic or blood seeping through the walls or furniture hanging from the ceiling or any of those other silly haunted house clichés. No, it was more out of tradition than anything that we held an exorcism in our house a week after moving in.

It might seem strange to you but this is how it works in my religion: as soon as you’ve moved into a new home, you invite a friendly priest and two dozen of your best friends over for a little ghostbusting. Your priest calls it a House Blessing because he wants you to focus on the positive, but you know none of this would be necessary if it weren’t for the dark spirits that you suspect might be lurking in the shadows. I mean, sure, it’s all sweetness and light on the invitation but just wait until the gruesome goblin comes flying out of the closet! Then won’t you be surprised!

Well, so would I, actually. Like I said, it’s not as if we actually believed the house was possessed. We’re just a bunch of liberal Episcopalians — I doubt our priest even believes in the devil. But let me tell you, when it’s the first night in your old new house and you’re lying awake at two in the morning and you hear strange sounds coming from the basement like someone trapped inside a brick wall and you find yourself envying your children because they have their parents nearby and you don’t, it helps to know that your house will soon be officially certified as demon-free by a bona-fide religious authority. Even if he is an Episcopalian who talks about the Mythic Imagination a bit more often than is absolutely necessary. (By the way, it’s very important that the priest performs the exorcism in one of those impressive black robes. If he shows up wearing anything less than The Full Get-Up ask him politely if he really expects your Mythic Imagination to be triggered by a golf shirt and khakis.)

Once the priest is properly attired we gather in the living room munching hors d’oeurves and slurping wine until everyone is feeling brave, and the priest reads something from the Bible and makes some wry comments that leave you wondering what he actually believes. Then off we go on a parade from room to room. It’s sort of an apocalyptic home tour: arriving in each room, you receive compliments on your color schemes and drapery, then join your friends in a cosmic battle of good against evil. The priest is spraying holy water on the walls while you are carrying a lit candle or a bowl of water or if you’re lucky the swinging incense pot, and everyone is praying and chanting and harrowing the hounds of hell from under the beds.

The best part comes when the priest gathers us in a circle holding hands. He gets us droning like Buddhist monks, some of us high and some of us low, while a musician friend gives us a drum roll on some bongo drums and another plays some Tibetan wind chimes. The priest holds out a cross and presents it to all the corners of the house while he whispers a prayer that sounds vaguely Latin, and then he comes into the center of the circle and his voice gets louder and louder: “Let the mighty power of Holy God be present in this place to BANISH from it every unclean spirit, to CLEANSE it from every residue of evil, and to make it a SECURE HABITATION for those who dwell in it; in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord!” Then he claps three times and we all stamp our feet and shout “Amen!”

After that, we figure we’re pretty safe.

The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology