Lenten devotion: an end and a beginning

Alleluia. Christ is risen.
People The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Christians in the Western world celebrate the resurrection today (our Orthodox friends wait another week). It means several weeks of great Anglican (and other Christian) hymns celebrating the resurrection, starting with this morning’s service.

More selfishly for those who adopt a Lenten discipline, this marks the end of our self-denial and/or extra effort.

This year I went for a multi-part approach, which in retrospect was excessively complex — more Pharisaic (or medieval) than Anglican. On the denial side, I gave up chocolate — and ignored the Sunday loophole — which seemed more tough than usual this year. I went for meatless Fridays, as defined by the Roman Catholic Church.

On the extra effort, after the Lent 1 old testament lesson, I started out reading the old testament in Chronicles and Kings . But that fizzled out as I switched to a daily devotional by NT Wright entitled Lent for Everyone: Mark Year B. Beyond the tie to the liturgical calendar — illuminating the Sunday readings — the latter had the benefit that if I missed a day (as I did about once a week), there was pressure to do extra effort to get back on track.

I also attended the San Diego Anglicans Catechetical Academy (held Saturday mornings in Lent). At the 5th session, Fr. Lawrence Bausch of Holy Trinity — the most Anglo-Catholic priest in the SD deanery (if not the Diocese of Western Anglicans) — talked about having a rule of life. This would include more than just daily prayer, but also scripture reading and Christian meditation, including at bedtime (The day of our session, Dennis the Menace had a very relevant cartoon on bedtime prayer).

After Fr. Bausch’s session, I stand convicted of being a part-time Christian. The faith is not just for Sundays or even Lent, but 365 days a year. In my case, having a daily routine for 6 weeks isn’t going to work — I need a daily routine for 52 weeks so that it becomes routine. So this is my intention from Lent 2015 — and hopefully it won’t be used to pave that road to Hades.

Finally, I used the season as an excuse to visit other parishes beyond my own: 7 parishes in the 47 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter. More on that later.

California Christian Catechesis

The San Diego deanery (aka San Diego Anglicans) of the ACNA diocese of Western Anglican is running a Lenten class for lay leaders on six Saturday mornings.

The classes are learning to teach the catechism approved (for trial use) by ACNA bishops in January 2014. Modestly titled To Be a Christian —available for free download at the ACNA and sale at Amazon and BN.com — the new catechism is a longer and far more detailed explication of the faith than in previous editions of the US Book of Common Prayer. (More on this another time).

The short course is led Rev. Brian Hughes, assistant rector of Holy Spirit Anglican (located at Bethel’s San Diego campus). It includes a series of guest preachers:

• February 21 – Introduction to the Catechumenate and the Catechism. Instructor: Fr. Brian Hughes of Holy Spirit Anglican Church, San Diego
• February 28 – Part I: Beginning in Christ (Q 1-18), What is the Gospel? Instructor: Fr. Cameron Lemons of St. Paul’s City Church, Lake Elsinore
• March 7 – Part II: Believing in Christ (Q 19-80), the Creeds. Instructor: Fr. Brian Hughes of Holy Spirit Anglican Church, San Diego
• March 14 – Part II: Believing in Christ (Q 81-148), How to Study the Bible. Instructor: Fr. Jamal Scarlett of St. Paul’s City Church, Lake Elsinore
• March 21 – Part III: Being Christ’s (Q 149-255), A Rule of Life. Instructor: Fr. Larry Bausch of Holy Trinity Anglican Parish, Ocean Beach
• March 28 – Part IV: Behaving Christianly (Q 256-345), Accountability Structures. Instructor: Fr. Russell Martin of Christ the King Church, San Diego

The sessions run from 9-12 at Christ the King’s Scripps Ranch office. Father Hughes has already uploaded the first two videos to his YouTube channel and has created a YouTube playlist.

For more information, contact Fr. Hughes.

ECUSA litigation scorecard

The influential American Anglican attorney, A.S. Haley, on Sunday published his annual survey of ECUSA property litigation. He counts 83 cases since 2000 where ECUSA (and/or its dioceses) sued others.

He also lists 8 where ECUSA was the defendant, but in 7 of the 8, ECUSA or the diocese “ triggered the filing of a lawsuit by moving to take control of the individual church's assets”. The exception was the Pawley’s Island (S.C.) parish (successfully) suing to keep its property as part of its plan to join AMiA.

Of the 83 suits, 33.7% (28) involve California parishes. The next largest batch of litigation is the 23 lawsuits in Virginia, including the historic The Falls Church and Truro Church in suburban DC.

Nineteen of the California suits (#11-29) involve the Diocese of San Joaquin (#11) or 9 of its parishes, sued twice (#12-29). All are tied to the lawsuit against the diocese, currently (for a second time) at the state court of appeals.

The other nine lawsuits:

• St. John's (Fallbrook) #2,#5
• St. Luke's (La Crescenta) #9
• All Saints (Long Beach) #7
• St. James (Newport Beach) #6
• St. David's (North Hollywood) #8
• St. Anne's (Oceanside) #3
• St. John's (Petaluma) #10
• Holy Trinity (San Diego) #4

According to Haley, three LA-area cases (Newport Beach, North Hollywood, Long Beach) are currently on appeal, while in a fourth (La Crescenta) the Anglican parish decided not to appeal a loss. The Anglican parishes also lost (or stopped appealing) the remaining five lawsuits.

I've attended services at six of the California parishes (in their original, pre-litigation locations), and two post-litigation.

Compared to parishes where (thus far) the dioceses have left with their structure and parishes intact, the ECUSA legal tactics have succeeded in increasing the cost of leaving — deterring other parishes from doing what they know would be theologically preferable. As Haley notes, in several cases ECUSA (or its diocese) has abandoned the parish because there were not enough remaining congregants to support a parish.

Christian penitence: Ash Wednesday

Next to Advent, Lent is my favorite season of the year. We are anticipating the most important event of the church calendar, and so Lent provides an opportunity to contemplate and prepare for that event over the next 46 days (including six Sundays).

Ash Wednesday itself is also very special. Since I returned to the faith as an adult, it’s the only time that I religiously (!) attend church midweek during the year. To me, Ash Wednesday sets the tone

Every year I also have the scramble of juggling work, commuting and spending an hour in church on Ash Wednesday. Last year, I had meetings both at breakfast and lunch, so I had to go after work.

And then there's the question of the ashes. At a previous job, I was a coward about wearing ashes to work — how people would react, having to explain, possible stigmatizing as a crazy Christian. Non-Christians (and most Protestants) did (and do) ask “what’s the smudge” as I walk through the day. (At my current job, there are two Catholics who regularly do Ash Wednesday so I don’t feel so alone.)

Ash Wednesday and Lent have historically been associated with fasting. This morning I've already failed on the fasting — in part due to forgetfulness, in part because I don’t want to fight the freeways when there’s a possibility of fainting (unlikely in the morning, a serious issue at the end of an all-day fast).

Searching for Ashes

Given my work and travel schedule, many years I’m searching for a parish to attend with a compatible schedule. In downtown London, these would be CoE, but here in California, Continuing Anglicans are few and far between.

Who might have such service?

1. Any 28 BCP parish
2. Many ACNA parishes
3. TEC parishes
4. LCMS Lutherans
5. Other Lutherans
6. Presbyterian?
7. University Chaplaincy
8. Catholic

I normally do #1, #2 or #4, but have also done #7 or #8 when that was all that worked. Since the RCC practices closed communion, I try to respect their policies and avoid that option whenever possible.

Today I went to an Anglican Catholic Church, one of the four founding provinces from the Affirmation of St. Louis that kicked off the Continuing Anglican movement. It reminded me of an English village church, with a small sanctuary (<100 seats in the pews) and a young rector and his wife.

It was a wonderfully moving procedure. After many months of ACNA worship in a strip mall, it was great to hear the classic liturgy again. Most of all, it was great to be kneeling again: it’s hard to imagine the Lord’s Prayer (let alone the General Confession or the Prayer of Humble Access) without kneeling, particularly during Lent.

In general, any parish that bothers to hold Ash Wednesday services tends to convey the theology correctly. For me, the culmination is to hear the phrase “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (which is not in the 1928 BCP but is in the 1979 prayer book). Still, the Lutherans — with Luther’s fixation on us as “poor miserable sinners” — tend to be particularly evocative this time of year.

Ash Wednesday Music

One thing I’ve always had mixed feelings on is music at Ash Wednesday (and Good Friday). During my LCMS days, the choir showed up for Ash Wednesday and we all sang a hymn or two. I don’t doubt that there are pieces that could be programmed, such as excerpts from masses during the golden era of sacred music (roughly from Palestrina to Brahms)

However, to me Ash Wednesday is a penitent, somber event and so a simpler, less ornate (and less celebratory tone) seem most appropriate. In fact, if the normal Sunday service is a nicely done high mass, the contrast of the spoken service (IMHO) emphasizes the somber and penitential nature.

For a contrary perspective, I listened to this year’s Ash Wednesday service from St. John’s College, Cambridge, as part of the BBC’s semiweekly Choral Evensong broadcast. It was great to hear the service begun with the full General Confession (not the Confession Lite begun with the 79 prayer book). And the plainchant for the service music does link the service to the weekly liturgy.

California's newest Bishop

On Sunday night, Archbishop Foley Beach and others from the Anglican Church in North America consecrated its newest bishop in Newport Beach, California. The Rt. Rev. M. Keith Andrews (M. Div, D. Min) was consecrated the second bishop for the Diocese of Western Anglicans.

The Service

Rt. Rev. Keith Andrews

The service was held at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian, one of 175 parishes of the ECO Presbyterian movement that broke away from the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). (Unlike the ACNA parishes, they got to keep their buildings). It was the same place where the diocese’s first bishop, Rt. Rev. Bill Thompson, was consecrated on October 31, 2009.

As recorded by Anglican TV, the service was clocked at 194 minutes from start to finish (excluding music before and after the service).

By my estimate there were about 600-700 people in the pews — of those 60+ deacons and priests — with another 60 attending in the altar party, including a 6-piece praise band and a 17-member choir that looked lost in the spacious choir benches. As with the most recent diocesan convention, the service emphasized praise music over hymns or other traditional liturgy.

The service combined the Ordinal — published in 2011 and approved by the ACNA bishops in 2013 — with the ACNA “trial use” Communion service that was launched in time for Advent 2013. The event was organized by Rev. Richard Crocker and Rev. Cathie Young — respectively the rector and associate rector of nearby St. James’ Anglican.

The Election

The diocese’ first bishop, Rt. Rev. Thompson was elected in June 2009 and resigned effective June 30, 2014. Bp. Thompson announced his resignation in August 2013 after two falls and a concussion. (In Feb. 2014, he revealed that he had since been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the diocese’s Executive Committee would assist in the governance.)

In late 2013, the Executive Committee appointed a 12-member nominating committee to find qualified candidates. The March 2014 diocesan newsletter explained the process:

According to our Canons, the Bishop must be drawn from male Rectors in the Diocese who have at least five years’ experience, are at least 35 year old, and are not divorced and remarried. This gave us a potential pool of twenty candidates. They were each contacted, and seven agreed to put their name forward.
…
On February 8th, the four candidates still in the discernment process were announced to the full diocesan House of Delegates at its annual meeting. The candidates still in the process are:

Fr. Keith Andrews, Living Faith, Tempe, AZ
Fr. Russell Martin, Christ the King, San Diego, CA
Fr. Larry Bausch, Holy Trinity, San Diego, CA
Fr. Jose Poch, St. David’s, Burbank, CA

On March 22, the committee nominated Andrews and Martin, dropping Bausch (the most Anglo-Catholic candidate) and Poche (who was also a candidate in 2009).

In May 2014, the diocesan House of Delegates voted to nominate Andrews in hopes that the ACNA College of Bishops would elect the 2nd bishop at their June meeting. Instead, Rev. Andrews was elected bishop at their October meeting.

Bp. Thompson was directly elected by the diocese, and the 2014 requirement for ACNA approval was somewhat controversial. This shift in policy caused confusion during the ceremony, in which the text of the program was not what was spoken during the presentation of the bishop-elect (emphasis added):

The Diocesan President says
I certify that the Reverend Doctor M. Keith Andrews was duly elected nominated Bishop of the Diocese of the Western Anglicans by the clergy and lay members of the House of Delegates of the Diocese on May 10, 2014, as attested to by the minutes of the House of Delegates.

The Dean of Provincial Affairs says
I certify that the Reverend Doctor M. Keith Andrews was duly confirmed elected as Bishop of the Diocese of the Western Anglicans by the College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America on October 10,2014, as attested to by the minutes of the College.

The Consecration
I counted 12 bishops in the altar party (not including the archbishop and the bishop-elect). Note all the bishops listed in the program were present — and I didn’t recognize a couple — but here they are:

Back row: unidentified, Bp. Eric Menees, unidentified, Bp. Clark Lowenfield, Bp. Gregory Bowers. Front row: Bp. William Murdoch, Bp. John Guernsey, Bp. Bill Thompson, Bp. Todd Hunter, Bp. Frank Lyons, unidentified

The new Bishop was examined by Abp. Foley and 11 other bishops. (The bishop not participating in the examination was Bp. Gregory Bowers, representing the Los Angeles-area Jubilee Convocation that is discussing fellowship with ACNA).

At the end of the consecration, the archbishop and the other bishops engaged in the traditional laying on of hands (which the unitiated
resembled a rugby scrum without the pushing and shoving).

The consecration was followed by the presentation of four episcopal symbols from four deaneries of the diocese: Rocky Mountain (a crozier), Arizona (a ring), San Diego (a pectoral cross) and Los Angeles (his cope and mitre).

After this — and before the offertory — the congregation heard greetings from Andrews’ ecumenical partners in Arizona and the local assemblyman (with a state proclamation). A longer talk came from a priest of the North American Lutheran Church (the ELCA-splinter group) and a representative from the Diocese of Singapore.

The New Bishop

Bp. Andrews gave a brief five minute talk, thanking those responsible. While the event did only indirectly touched on his qualifications and experience, I did have a chance to hear him speak in April 2014 as one of the two final candidates.

Here some excerpts of his resume from that presentation (which I have scanned and posted to Google). His work experience:

• Senior Pastor, Living Faith Anglican Church, Tempe, AZ (2005-Present)
• Anglican Mission in the Americas Canon Missioner and Network Leader (2005-2012)
• Vicar (1985-1998) and Rector (2005), St. James Episcopal Church, Tempe, AZ
• Associate Rector, Christ Church of the Ascension, Paradise Valley, AZ (1983-1985)
• Assistant Rector, All Saints, Carmel, CA (1981-1983)

His education:

• D. Min, Fuller Theological Seminary, 2003
• M. Div., Church Divinity School of the Pacific, 1981
• M.A., Arizona State University, 1976
• B.A., Arizona State University, 1975

His dissertation, entitled “A local church paradigm that fosters renewal in mission through church multiplication,” is listed in the Fuller library as a case study of his St. James experience.

What stood out from his presentation (and what I know of the other three semi-finalists) was his successful track record in planting churches. Obviously this is a crucial imperative for the diocese and ACNA more broadly.

The Diocese

What is less clear is the bishop’s plans for the diocese (and also the constraints of the existing clergy and laity). I was told that any candidate from outside Southern California (i.e., Andrews) would be expected to relocate to Southern California (which has the greatest concentration of parishes).

When first consecrated, Bp. Thompson remained rector of All Saints (Long Beach, Calif.) but then relinquished that role in July 2012 (at the age of 66) to become a full-time bishop.

The office of bishop and the diocese have remained at All Saints since Bp. Thompson stepped down. The diocese HQ seems to have been in a holding pattern (under its interim bishop), with few updates to the website; the bimonthly newsletter hasn’t been published in 10 months.

So will the diocese remain in Long Beach? Will Bp. Andrews have another home parish? What other changes are coming? When the ECUSA formed a new diocese in San Diego in the 1970s, the first bishop used his home parish as the cathedral; the second and subsequent bishops used the largest parish in the city center as their cathedral.

The diocese of 35 parishes is hoping to convert its four deaneries to new dioceses. To do that will require significant growth in membership, parishes and pledging — something that all California Anglicans hope that the new bishop can pull off.

Update: The official ACNA press release (reprinted at Virtue Online) lists 10 of the 11 bishops (beyond Abp. Beach) involved in the consecration:

• Rt. Rev. John A.M. Guernsey, Bishop of Diocese of Mid-Atlantic
• Rt. Rev. Todd Hunter, Bishop of Diocese of Churches for Sake of Others
• Rt. Rev. Clark Lowenfield, Bishop of Diocese of Western Gulf Coast
• Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons, Assisting Bishop of Anglican Diocese of South
• Rt. Rev. Eric Menees, Bishop of Diocese of San Joaquin
• Rt. Rev. John Miller, III, Assistant Bishop of Diocese of Atlantic
• Rt. Rev. William Murdock, Bishop of Anglican Diocese of New England
• Rt. Rev. William Thompson, Retired Bishop of Diocese of Western Anglicans
• Rt. Rev. Mark Zimmerman, Bishop of Anglican Diocese of Southwest
• Rt. Rev. Derek Jones, Bishop of Armed Forces and Chaplaincy