Save us from the time of trial

Apparently the Virginia Theological Seminary — a center-left seminary in the increasingly liberal TEC — is having a seminar series celebrating 30 years since the creation of the 1979 not-quite-a-Book-of-Common-Prayer. This week, one of the speakers was Prof Ruth Meyers of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

I don’t know Prof. Meyers, but here in California CSDP is known by Anglicans the Berkeley seminary that vies with its counterparts in NY and at Harvard to harbor the most extreme revisionist theologians in the TEC, if not American Protestantism. Prof. Meyers also heads the TEC’s Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music. (Does that mean she’s blessing same sex marriage rites?)

As quoted by the Living Church, Prof. Meyers laments the ending of a brief period of English translations shared by Protestant and Catholic churches during the ascendance of the Revised Common Lectionary:

But the liturgical and ecumenical unity underpinning common texts — which flourished in the 20th century — is now losing strength, Meyers said. She cited two primary sources of weakening liturgical unity: widespread ethnic divergence in worship styles around the world, and the Vatican’s moving toward a more literal translation of the original Latin in its new Roman Missal, which is nearing completion.

The story talks about how the RCL banished the male pronoun and promoted dynamic equivalence for translation from the original Latin:

Dynamic equivalence meant that translators working with the ancient Latin texts were to use language familiar to the people. The new English translation of the Roman Missal, she said, uses the concept of “formal equivalence,” a more literal, authentic translation that places high value on the ancient Latin.

The report doesn’t seem to be inaccurate, but it shows the problems of a one-sided, single-source story. (Reporters who attend a public talk or event without doing background research are prone to these problems.)

The story doesn’t really explain the Catholic side of why they are moving away from the inaccuracies of the dynamic translations, such as “And also with you.” The new more authentic translations may be anathema to the TEC, but should be well received by Schism I, perhaps by Schism II and also other conservative Protestants — say those who favor the ESV over the political correctness of the NRSV or the dynamic translation of the NIV.

Like modern-day politicians, Prof. Meyers seems to think that change is inherently good:

Meyers said that the 1979 Book of Common Prayer offers different options for some familiar prayers, such as the Lord’s Prayer. But, she said, “The Lord’s Prayer has been the most resistant to change.”

People develop a “deep familiar attachment to old forms of prayer,” she said, and nowhere is this better illustrated than in the Lord’s Prayer. Thus, she said, some worshipers will always want to say the familiar “And lead us not into temptation” rather than the newer “Save us from the time of trial.”

I, for one, think the Lord’s Prayer being “resistant to change” is a really good thing: newer is not always better.

I am not tempted by this new liturgy. Instead, I pray for the Continuing Anglicans (particularly ACNA) to follow the lead of the RCC (and that of the late Peter Toon) to save us from the trial of theologically dubious translations.

Celebrating our Risen Lord

There are a wealth of wonderful Easter hymns to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. How to choose from them all? Based on fond childhood memories and dozens of Easters since, here is a highly personal list, with subjective difficulty rankings:

• “Hail thee, Festival day.” (H40: #86; H82: #175). Very difficult. The mandatory Easter processional that combined the 6th century Fortunatus poem with the stirring Ralph Vaughan Williams tune.
• “Jesus Christ is risen today.” (H40: #85; H82: #207). Easy. The 14th century hymn, with a 1708 English translation and melody.
• “He is risen, he is risen!” (H40: #90; H82: #180). Easy. Evocative of #85, but a 19th century lyric set to the 17th century Joachim Neander tune.
• “At the Lamb’s high feast we sing.” (H40: #89; H82: #174). Moderate. A 17th century Latin hymn and melody with a J.S. Bach harmonization, as translated in the 19th century.
• “The strife is o’er, the battle done.” (H40: #91; H82: #208). Moderate-Difficult. Another 17th century Latin hymn — but one with a more martial feeling — set to aptly named tune Victory by Palestrina, harmonized by W.H. Monk (musical editor of Hymns Ancient & Modern.)
• “That Easter Day with joy was bright.” (H40: #98; H82: #193). Easy. The Hymnal 1940 translation of a 5th century Latin poem, set to the Puer Nobis, a Praetorius tune better known at Epiphany.
• “The day of resurrection!” (H40: #96, 1st; H82: #210) Moderate. A 8th century poem by John of Damascus, translated by John Mason Neale, set to a German Catholic hymntune and harmonized by W.H. Monk.
• “Come, ye faithful, raise the strain.” (H40: #94, 2nd; H82: #199). Easy. A second J.M. Neale translation of John of Damascus, set to a stirring march by Sir Arthur Sullivan.
• “Welcome happy morning!” (H40: #87; H82: #179). Moderate. Another Fortunatus poem, with another Arthur Sullivan tune.

Which of these would I chose if I were music director? Looking at the (1 year) liturgical index in Hymnal 1940 — and adapting the two Communion and the morning prayer recommendations — suggests the following

• Opening: “Hail thee, Festival day.”
• Sequence: “He is risen, he is risen!”
• General: “At the lamb’s high feast we sing.”
• Closing: “Jesus Christ is risen today.”

For communion, H40 suggests #207 (“Come, risen Lord, and deign to be our guest”) or #210 (“Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness”). These are both fine hymns, but for the C&E communicants — if I didn’t use the Messiah or another choral piece — I’d select the sublime communion hymn sung with the four part Bach harmonization: “Come with us, O blessed Jesus” (#211).

While “The day of resurrection!” makes a great Easter recessional, H40 oddly recommends it as the recessional for Communion (or morning prayer) on Low Sunday, Easter I. (Oddly, because “the day” was a week earlier.) H40 also recommends “Welcome happy morning!” as the entrance hymn.

As at Christmas, I guess we sing about our feast day many weeks later, because there is an embarrassment of hymnal riches to be sung throughout the entire season, not just on the principal feast day.

Palm Sunday and Passiontide

Today is Palm Sunday, remembering Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But as long as I can remember — and as recorded in the 1940 Hymnal — it has also been Passiontide, summarizing the entire duration of Holy Week (or at least the trial and crucifixion of our Lord.)

This morning I worshipped at a Hymnal 1940 parish. Two of the three hymns were Palm Sunday standards:

• “All Glory, Laud & Honor” (H40: #62), the standard Palm Sunday processional for every ECUSA, Schism I and Schism II parish I’ve attended for the past many decades.
• “Ride on, Ride on in Majesty” (H40: #64, 1st): the other hymn in our hymnal that focuses on Jesus’ entry and path to the cross
• “O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded”(H40: #75): clearly more of a Good Friday hymn.

The first two are (to me) mandatory Palm Sunday hymns. Update: I’m glad to see that LCMS pastor Rick Stuckwisch lists these two hymns as his recommended processional and recessional hymn for today.

I have mixed feelings about scheduling crucifixion hymns on Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is by itself one of the most important stories of the New Testament — really the denouement of Christ’s early ministry. To me this is Our Lord’s coming out party, in which his followers both proclaim his kingship (not an earthly one, as it turns out) and also he arrives in glory at the historic capital of God’s chosen people of the first covenant, to create a new convenant.

Good Friday to me is a separate service, with separate liturgy. But realisticially, a fraction of Christians attend on Good Friday while Palm Sunday often attracts C&E Christians (who often step it up during Advent and Lent). There is also the question of whether music is really appropatite during Good Friday: most Anglo-Catholic clergy I know have treated it as a very solemn, quiet service.

Certainly, if Palm Sunday is doing dual duty for Good Friday, there are plenty of great hymns that commemorate Christ’s crucifixion. Instead of Hymn #75, I would choose “Ah, Holy Jesus,” (H40: #71, 1st) that great Lutheran hymn with the tune Hierzliebster Jesu by Johann Crueger. (I would love to hear the 2nd tune, Sarum plainsong Mode IV, but no one seems to use it).

But there are no shortage of choices in our hymnal. “Drop, Drop Slow Tears,” (H40: #69) the 17th century hymn with music by Orlando Gibbons is both timeless and also relatively easy to sing. And for a Good Friday service, it would be impossible to beat “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord,” one of the few pieces of American folk music in Hymnal 1940 (#80).

If you’re not doing Good Friday hymns on Palm Sunday, how would you fill out the liturgy? This morning’s church used “Lift High the Cross,” which to me seems like a happy Good Friday hymn. Asked for advice by a music director, I think I came up with a better choice.

For Luke 19:28-40 — given by this year’s lectionary for Schism II/TEC churches (Year C of RCL) — a hymn website suggested a hymn I would not have thought of: “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” (H40: 355):

All hail the power of Jesus' name! Let angels prostrate fall;

Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown him Lord of All!

Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown him Lord of All!

Perhaps this is more of a Christ the King Sunday hymn, but if you want a familiar (easily sung) hymn for the recessional that captures the theme of Christ’s triumphal entry, IMHO it’s hard to beat. As Oremus notes, it’s also present in all the major US and English hymnals, another testimony to its staying power. Finally, to me it’s one of those great hymns — in music, lyrics and theology — that is always worth singing, no matter what the excuse.

Update: On the March 29 episode of Issues Etc., Pastors Todd Wilken and Will Weedon spent an hour discussing the imagery of “Ride on, Ride on in Majesty” and the broader significance of Palm Sunday. On March 30, the two discuss the observance of Holy Week, including that combination of Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday is a postwar change in the liturgy.

Legal nonsense in California

For those who didn’t know it already, Anglican Curmudgeon has the best coverage of the California (and other US) lawsuits of TEC vs. continuing Anglicans.

Last week, the California appellate court ruled 2-1 that a decision against St. James (Newport Beach) did, in fact, settle the substantive questions. Counselor Haley explains why (as the dissenting justice noted) this is legally unprecedented.

In a later post, Counselor Haley offers 10 questions for St. James to pose in its (anticipated) appeal to the California Supreme Court.

I couldn’t say it any better — so read both posts.

Teach our children well

My wife and I are learning from friends and family as they prepare their children for college. At our parish, the eldest member of the youth group is a high school senior and now waiting to hear back from a variety of Ivy League and comparable schools in the Northeast and California.

This prompted me to think: what will happen to our Anglican youth when they go off to college? As a parent, I’ve been thinking about Sunday School and youth group. Even before we were parents, we thought about what will happen to our children as teens, facing peer pressure, teen rebellion, hormones, etc. Since then, our church search has considered both aspects of Christian formation for ages of 0-18 — more recently, supplanting other concerns like music or liturgy.

However, my college thinking has been strictly about academic issues (college prep, AP, SAT, etc.) and not spiritual ones. This oversight seems particularly odd, given that I personally fell away from church in college — attending once in 4 years of college — and did not return until years later as an adult. Even worse, today’s mainline Protestant campus ministries focus on social justice and conforming to the culture, rather than traditional liturgy and doctrine.

So at church this morning, talking about college with our youth group member and a visiting diocesan dignitary, I realized that keeping even the most devout Anglican youth in the faith might be a serious obstacle. Anglican churches (Schism I or Schism II) seem to be in suburbia, which is good for educated professionals (with or without kids) but not for 18-year-olds going to college in a city or small college town.

Start with Harvard, the oldest American college (1636) which was led by Purtian ministers throughout the 17th century. Harvard Divinity School has turned out many Episcopal clergy over the decades, but (as noted in The Search for God at Harvard) Christian belief now seems to be but a distant memory among many of the faculty. According to the ACNA parish locator page, it has a parish about 3 miles from Harvard in Medford, but the mass transit option would take 55 minutes one way. The church in Waltham is 5 miles and 45 minutes away.

There is no official Schism I website for all the fragmented alphabet soup options, but (at least until ACNA was formed) the best site was ShelterInTheStorm.org. Among the Massachusetts parishes, it lists one church in Boston and 3 in the 021xx zip code (near-in suburbs). Easiest to reach is the ACC parish meeting in the Boston YMCA chapel and the Malden parish is 40 minutes by subway (the best option in Boston). SitS also shows an AMiA (ACNA) parish 45 minutes away on the subway, and an Anglican Use Roman Catholic parish a single bus away (45 minutes) in Brookline.

At Stanford (which once sold T-shirts “Harvard is the Stanford of the East”), the options are slightly better. Saint Ann Chapel — the former Stanford Newman Center for Catholic ministry that is now an Anglo-Catholic parish owned by the Schism I APCK — is only 2 miles away, an easy bike ride and reasonable walk. If you have a car — like most Californians — ACNA lists St. Luke’s Chapel in the Hills as an easy 5 mile drive. The APCK also has a parish walking distance to UC Berkeley (its seminary).

In the LA area, the options aren’t quite as good. Yes, at students at UC Irvine are near St. James, Newport Beach — lead defendant among the California cases within the TEC vs. Continuing Anglicans property fight. But there’s nothing (either in SitS or ACNA) on the West Side of Los Angeles, near UCLA. There are many parishes in driving distance — such as the historic Hollywood Anglo-Catholic parish Saint Mary of the Angels — but as in Boston, the mass transit options aren’t very attractive.

The same applies for youth attending other elite colleges, like UCSD or the Claremont Colleges (Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pomona, etc.) The answer is going to be driving — in the case of Claremont, 25 miles to Riverside.

The Church of England, Episcopal Church of the United States, and now the various Continuing Anglican groups have been part of America’s intellectual elite since the country was first founded. While academia has become very secular and progressive — far more hostile to traditional Christian faith than 50 or 100 years ago — in my experience, the Continuing Anglicans are every bit as educated and thoughtful as the ECUSA parish leaders I knew as a kid.

Therefore, I suspect most of us will expect our kids to go to college, often to elite schools in culturally hostile locations in the “blue” states. We Continuing Anglicans in suburbia need to think about how sending our children away to college will support (or potentially undermine) their faith.

To me, the conclusion is pretty clear: if we want to keep our children as they become young adults, we need more parishes near college campuses (and eventually campus ministries). Since the Schism I churches seem to be in maintenance mode, let’s hope that the ACNA’s plan to plant 1000 parishes will include dozens if not hundreds of parishes aimed at the college demographic. Who knows, maybe we can pick up (or keep) a few college professors while we’re at it.