Theological and other musings from Fr. Neo. You might call it ‘Mere Christianity with an edge.’ Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!
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Posted on March 12th, 2010 by fatherneo.
Categories: Uncategorized.
For the early Christians, training for baptism often involved looking at two different pieces of Scripture. The first was the Sermon on the Mount, the other was the Exodus.
The Lectionary readings for Lent often follow this ancient pattern, and today is a good example. We have the call of Moses prior to the Exodus, we have Paul’s warnings about the children of Israel after the Exodus, and we have Jesus’ warning about the fig tree, a symbol of the faithfulness and fruitfulness (or lack therof) of God’s people. We will focus today primarily on the familiar story of Moses.
There are no throw away lines in Scripture. God meets Moses where? At a bush. Do you know what the Hebrew word for ‘bush’ is? It is ‘tsena.’ What word does that sound like? That’s right ‘tsinai.’ The first meeting with Moses was at a little ‘Sinai,’ no less important than the Mount of Sinai.
This moment in Moses’ life, understandably was a watershed event in his life. Remember that Moses was on the run. He had spent his formative days as a ‘prince of Egypt’ but began to identify himself with the Hebrew slaves, because he himself was a Hebrew, a child of Abraham. He saw a Hebrew slave being tortured by an Egyptian taskmaster, and he took the side of the slave and subsequently killed the Egyptian taskmaster. He then fled to the wilderness of Midian and found a wife among the nomads and became a shepherd for his father-in-law. It was while he was tending sheep that he found God–or I should say God found him.
There is an important back story that precedes the story of the burning bush, though. You remember when Moses killed the Egyptian and became a fugitive. What often gets missed, though is that Moses was not called to go to Pharaoh for decades. He did his own wandering of the wilderness, filled with his own self doubt and his own searching. He met his wife while sitting next to a well. She and her sisters were going to draw water for their flocks and some shepherds tried to chase the sisters away. Moses stood up for the sisters and they reported back to their father Jethro ‘a priest of Midian’ (whatever that means), that Moses had done such a thing. Jethro rewarded Moses with his daughter Zipporah, and Moses worked for Jethro as a shepherd. He was a shepherd for decades!
I believe God was preparing Moses. Moses was a silver-spoon guy raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. There had to be something in his life that helped him to identify with his people. When his first son was born, Moses named him Gershom—which means, alien, sojourner, stranger, for, as he says, ‘I have been a stranger in a foreign land.’ Moses became an exile. Moses was a refugee—God saw to it. God was God in Moses’ life before he even acknowledged. God is God of the past as much as he is God of the present.
Moses was prepared for the burning bush.
The burning bush was more than an experience of enlightenment for Moses. This was more than him ‘finding himself’ or self-actualizing. This was a living encounter with the living God. I emphasize–the living God. This is a God with a name, this is a God with an identity. And Moses comes face to face, or at least voice to voice with this God.
Notice when Moses sees the burning bush and hears the voice of the Lord (apparently through the mediation of an angel) what he is told immediately. ‘Come no closer. Take off your shoes, for you are on holy ground.’
Why would the Lord command Moses to ‘come no closer?’ Why do you think? Because it was dangerous! There is a wildness, a holiness about God that we have to continue to remember. Scripture is clear that God is a loving, forgiving and merciful God. But Scripture is also clear that there are times when we must take off our shoes and stand back, to bend the knee and to bow the head. He is holy, he is altogether different from us. He is no pal or buddy–he is the Almighty Lord of heaven and earth.
There are times when we should speak to the Lord as we speak to a friend or brother. There are also times when we must shut our mouths in the face of his holiness.
Annie Dillard is great on this point. Referring to us and our liturgy she says:
‘The higher Christian churches—where, if anywhere, I belong—come at God with an unwarranted air of professionalism, with authority and pomp, as though they knew what they were doing, as though people in themselves were an appropriate set of creatures to have dealings with God. I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed…If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe genuinely shocked.’
The first command of God to Moses, this venerable figure of the Old Testament, was ‘come no closer…take off your shoes, the place on which you stand is holy ground.’
As Kallistos Ware has said, ‘Our encounter with God is like someone walking over the mountains in the mist: we take a step forward and suddenly find we are on the edge of a precipice, with no solid ground beneath our feet but only a bottomless abyss.’
Moving on, notice the phrases that come from the lips of the LORD. ‘I have seen.’ ‘I have heard.’ And, ‘I know.’ ‘I have seen the misery of my people, I have heard their cry, I know their sufferings.’
This is not the deist God that Americans know and love, this is not some ‘unmoved mover’ or some generic god or power of heaven. This is, who? ‘The God of your fathers (your ancestors). The God of Abraham, Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ He is intimately involved with his people. He is also a God who promised to deliver Israel–unfortunately for them, it took 400 years, but in case they forgot who he was–he is a God who saw, and heard, and knew them all.
But there is another important verb. Not only does God say that he sees and hears and knows; ‘I have come down to deliver them.’
Next, look at the call of Moses. As we know, Moses is full of objections. ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharoah?’ In the same scene, Moses says, ‘I cannot speak, send someone else.’ Notice that God does not say, ‘Oh you’re a good guy, you can do it.’ Rather than spending time giving a pep talk to Moses, God rather puts the emphasis on himself. ‘I will be with you.’ Later he says, ‘who gives a man his speech, is it not I the Lord?’
In Moses ministry and call, he had to concentrate on God and never himself. Also, Moses had already started to move out in his call whether he realized it or not. He stood up to the Egyptians, he stood up to the shepherds who were abusing the women at the well. He was starting to be a voice for the voiceless, the defender of those who could not defend themselves. God had called him.
What is the name of the God who calls? It is a name that Jews to this day do not attempt to speak. It is the Hebrew letters yod, he, waw, he. That is YHWH. In the original Hebrew text there are no vowel points and since the name is not uttered, Jewish scribes have simply used the phrase ‘Adonai’ or Lord whenever the name comes up. Even in most of our English translations of the Bible, when the divine name comes up we translate it LORD. This points to the fact that there is an unknowingness about God’s name. There is an English medieval book written by an anonymous monastic simply entitled The Cloud of Unknowing. That’s a great title. There will always be an element of the ‘unknowingness’ of God. As much as he has been revealed in Scripture, there are things about God that he prefers us not to know. Remember his answer to Job—where were you?… Gregory of Nyssa said, ‘God’s name is not known; it is wondered at.’
However, the diving name is not totally ambiguous. The word comes from the Hebrew verb ‘to be,’ and we translate it ‘I AM.’ The word, incidentally only exists in the Old Testament and is found in no other literature. So what does ‘I AM’ mean? It is not primarily talking about the nature of God, because that is unknowable–but his relationship to us. To be the I AM means that his presence and his purpose have nearness and immediacy. To be the I AM is to have the ability to ‘bring about what is not currently present,’ as Old Testament scholar Walter Bruegemann has said.
There was no way out for the children of Israel. But God is near. I AM is near. I AM brings about what cannot be brought about. He brings the great Exodus, the great Passover.
Reflective Christians over the centuries have looked to Moses and the Exodus as a model of redemption in Christ. Paul himself uses the wanderings in the wilderness as a warning. The supernatural food and drink of the Eucharist and the waters of baptism Paul sees foreshadowed in the children of Israel who were guided by Moses to the promised land. The ancient word for Easter is what? Pascha–that is Passover.
The Christian faith is the only faith that has dared to say that the I AM of the Old Testament made himself known in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
When God tells Moses at the burning bush ‘I have come down to deliver them’ he quite literally does so in Jesus Christ. He has come down to deliver us.
But we are not saved from slavery in Egypt, we are saved from the slavery of ourselves. We are not delivered from the bondage of Pharaoh, but the bondage of the Devil.
It is interesting that when Paul says ‘there is no temptation that has overtaken you except that which is common to everyone…but with the temptation, God will provide the way out so that you will be able to endure it.’ Do you know the term for ‘way out?’ It is the word ‘Exodus.’
Jesus is the way out. He is the one who saves us from our sins. All we need do is repent. So how do we repent in light of the holy God who calls?
Can we hear the call and do we sense the presence of Jesus? I close with a Lenten reflection. Donald McCullough wrote a book called the Trivialization of God. He says,
‘[when we repent] We must pause long enough to become aware of our actual circumstances: our joyous gratitude, we discover, has led us into the throne room of the universe, and now we are in the presence of the Holy One who utterly transcends us, who holds together all creation from the smallest molecule to the largest galaxy and all history from the first page to the last, who is burning…against sin with the flame of purging love, who has claimed us in Jesus Christ and will keep us in the embrace of grace for all eternity—the God, in other words who is far more than we thought we wanted but for that reason exactly what we really need to draw us out of ourselves and away from every trivial god.’
Posted on February 20th, 2010 by fatherneo.
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”Catechumens will hear the word for three years.”
So says Hippolytus, Presbyter in Rome in the 3rd Century. As time and circumstances evolved (Constantine being the major one), this training of the Catechumens was transferred to the whole of the Church in preparation for Easter (Pascha). Lent is a time for us to diagnose the things in us that need to die. Far from being a time of morbid preoccupation, this dying to self actually makes us more alive and more human. If we are owned by food, or by the need for power, or the need to be the center of the world, what kind of people could we be if we laid those things aside and became what God desires in us, the attributes of Jesus–to be truly blessed. From Matthew 5:
3 “ Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
For they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
For they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
In a world of selfishness, greed, lust, and overindulging to meet needs, maybe more than ever we need Lent.
Posted on February 15th, 2010 by fatherneo.
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I have always been moved by the writings of Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk whose consecration name was ‘Mary Louis.’ As his autobiography the Seven Story Mountain depicts, he struggled through the death of his parents and grandparents, as well as through years of rebellion and sin before he was called by God to the the Gethsemani Trappist monastery in Kentucky. There, he wrote many profound books on the spiritual life and found his heart’s true ‘home.’
Yet the struggles with desire did not end in the monastery. At age 51, after being hospitalized with back problems, he met and fell in love with a nurse who he had a several month relationship with–ultimately physically intimate. Certainly none of this is uncommon or even all that surprising. Still, though he ended the relationship for the sake of his vows, did it taint his legacy? Is there something disingenuous about not persevering through to the end?
Part of me thinks so. If he was so called to one thing, why did he turn to another so deeply?
The other part of me wonders what his life and writings would have looked like had he traded the vows to monastic life for the vows of marriage. Certainly most of us are called to the latter, though I am comforted in knowing that in our time of sexual freedom (more what I would call ‘laxity’), there are men and women out there still called to a life of celibacy.
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by fatherneo.
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President Obama’s moniker for success has been his desire for ‘change.’ Whether or not he pulls it off is another matter. I get burned out by the polarization of the political landscape. I tire of hearing about the ‘good old days’ of the right and the lack of moral center that seems to characterize the left.
The desert fathers and mothers were faced with a society and a church that needed change. Only their approach and strategy did not have anything to do with societial structures. While we can ‘do something’ about who or who is not in power, we really need change of a different sort. What if God’s people everywhere committed to something simple but difficult? Calling on the name of the Lord? Here’s a comment about the fathers and mothers of the desert:
“It is a picture familiar enough in the Middle Ages; the three parts of society, those who fight, those who labour and those who pray, all working in their different ways for the life of the kingdom. Prayer was a great action to be fulfilled in the body politic; the monks were like trees, purifying the atmosphere by their presence” (The Lives of the Desert Fathers, 12).
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by fatherneo.
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Seems as though it is now easier for Anglicans/Episcopalians to swim the Tiber to Rome:
Those disenfranchised Episcopalians–does this make the decision easier? What factors would go into your decision? Are you ready to kiss Papa’s ring?
Posted on October 20th, 2009 by fatherneo.
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I’ve been reading the life of George Whitefield, Anglican itinerant who helped lead (With the Wesley brothers) the Great Awakening of the 18th century. Fascinating stuff. Several things were curious–one was that the churches banned Whitefield from preaching mostly because he was talented and full of the Spirit.
He was not heretical or dramatic. He was just popular. Therefore, he was forced to preach in the streets and hillsides. This brought the awakening to the ‘unwashed’ and poor of among the English peoples (and later the Americans). Many people repented and found Christ, many of whom were not welcome in the church. They experienced the ‘new birth’ in Christ, outside of the pews, not in them.
When we ask God for ‘revival,’ what are we asking for? When we ask God for revival, what do we wish to see? Drama? Emotion? Full churches?
Maybe another question, is who do we want to see get revived? The desperate are usually the ones who are open to the Spirit of God, not those who are fine with the state of their lives. The untouchables usually have the spiritual soil for such awakenings. Are we ready for them?
Posted on September 21st, 2009 by fatherneo.
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(Henri Luke Orombi of Uganda)
Tim Keller reports in his Reason for God that both secularism and religion are on the rise in the West. However, it is not your grandma’s Christianity that is the wave of the future. It is not the ‘Old Line’ form but a robust, orthodox, and ethnic Christianity that will be the one our children and grandchildren will experience.
With immigration on the rise and a desire among the young for a socially conscious yet vibrantly biblical and orthodox Christianity, what will the older denominations choose? The tired, worn-out elitist religion of the West, or the colorful Christian witness of the rest of the world and increasingly urban America.
Consider: 20 million Anglicans in Nigeria and under 2 million in the US (at least in TEC); there are more Presbyterians in Ghana than the USA and Scotland together. Keller states that in 50 year, there will be a half billion Christians in China ‘which will change the face of Christianity forever.’ So which one will you choose?
Posted on August 28th, 2009 by fatherneo.
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With the continued disintegration of the mainline churches, those pastors/priests and laity out there–if you could change your denominational affiliation, would you? Those ‘evangelicals on the Canterbury trail’–do you regret your decision to join the Episcopal Church–or Anglicanism in general?
Do you wish you were kissing Papa’s ring? Do you wish you could grow a really long beard and chant in Greek? Do you wish you could leave it all behind and be ‘emergent’ or whatever they’re calling it these days? Do you want to have church in your living room?
Or do you love the innovations?
Posted on August 16th, 2009 by fatherneo.
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Here’s a first person narrative from Ephesus based on Ephesians and Acts:
My name is Jason. I am from the city of Ephesus. I live under the reign of Emperor Nero. I came to find life in the person called Jesus Christ. On the day of the Sun, that which the Christians call ‘the Lord’s day,’ during the Jewish Passover, I and my sister Juila were baptized into this faith.I’d like to explain something about my family and why this baptism was the most radical of actions that took me from death to life, from darkness to light. I became a Christian, in part, because of two remarkable women, whom I will tell you about in a moment.My father was a fisherman. I remember days on end walking to the sea port to see him off. We would get up before dark while the air was still cool. We walked to the port everyday and after my father would sail away, the sunrise would shine off my face. Those were the fondest memories of my childhood.My parents had difficulty having children, and two of my sisters died in childbirth. My sister Julia, however, was born some 26 years ago. I was 9 years old. I’ll never forget the day she was born because my mother did not survive the birth. The priests of the Temple Artemis tried everything. They cut themselves and covered my mother with incense and silver coin images of the great goddess, but to no avail.The Temple of Artemis has provided much income for the city of Ephesus. We have the most advanced plumbing system in the world. We have no poor begging in the street. That does not mean that there are no poor people. We were. We found ourselves desperate when mother died. Who would take care of us? My father was becoming less and less able bodied, because of his many bouts with fever. So, the priests offered us an exchange. I was good with my hands so they put me to work for a craftsman named Demetrius, who made shrines and images for the Temple.My sister would then be dedicated to the goddess Artemis in her Temple. She would be raised by the holy women of the Temple and when she was old enough, would offer herself as a living sacrifice. I didn’t understand at the time what that meant, nor did I understand why that troubled my father so much, but it seemed like a fair arrangement.Later I learned what Julia’s fate would be. When she was 11, she was initiated to Artemis by offering her body completely, thus becoming one with her. Hence, any man who wanted to also feel this oneness, would pay for relations with Julia.When my father became too sick to provide income, 15% of Julia and my earnings went back to our home. We were desperate, but did what we had to do. Who was this great goddess? She certainly did not keep my mother safe in childbirth like she was supposed to. And it turned my stomach to see politicians and lawyers and teachers and philosophers walk into the Temple courts for visits with the holy women, knowing my sister was one of them. But we did what we had to do.My father died when I was 26. I became quite skilled as a craftsman, but because of our ‘arrangement’ we had a lifelong debt to the Temple. Therefore, I could afford food for Julia and I, but little else. She became reliant on the priest’s potions, which kept her sedated during the countless visits of patrons to the Temple. So, Demetrius allowed us to stay with him, so long as he had occasional ‘visits’ with Julia.Demetrius was a bastard, but taught me the skill of a businessman. He did not believe the Artemis tales anymore than I did. We offered our pinch of incense to her and the shrine to the emperor when we had to and kissed the hand of Rome because it was expedient to business. You were a good citizen if you paid homage to the gods and goddesses and as Demetrius said, ‘without the superstitious old ladies, we would be out of business, so make sure you can spin a tale of how this silver Artemis helped you get a girlfriend or brought you a great harvest, and that it is blessed by the high priest himself.’And so it went. At least until Julia’s dreams got worse. I say worse because she had them as far back as I can remember. She would wake up screaming and say there was someone in her room. We dismissed these dreams until ‘the someone in her room’ would leave bruises on her neck. She would wake up choking and the bruises would appear spontaneously. She could see the dark presence that we could not see. She became so engulfed by this presence that not even the priests’ potions would give her solace. Eventually, she could not move from her bed and had arguments with the unseen presence.I took her everywhere. To doctors, to priests and priestesses of all the gods. I even took her to a Jewish priest named Sceva, who helped a little, but insisted that I be circumcised before he continued. His sons ran in terror when they saw Julia. I decided to keep looking.About this time, I met a young woman named Hannah. She would visit the market outside of our shop. Two things drew me to her. The first was that she carried a young girl about 3 years old who had no hands. That was unusual to me since deformity is seen as the curse of the gods. We simply discarded those kinds of infants when they are born. ‘No one should be burdened by such a thing,’ so we said.The other thing that drew me to her was her face. She had long black hair (covered of course) and dark eyes. She was obviously Jewish but she would whisper things to the child about someone named Jesus. Some in Ephesus called these people ‘followers of the Way,’ others called them atheists and offenders against the order of things. Demetrius told me of some crazy man named Paul who visited a couple of years previous who started a riot and tried to put us out of business. Whatever Hannah was, follower of the Way or not, she was beautiful. There was a purity and serenity in her that I had never seen in a human being.Our first conversations were cordial and friendly. And, though she never went into our shop, and though I knew she was deeply against Artemis and the gods she said little to me about it. I came to like the little girl, Miriam, who was anything but a curse from the gods. Miriam belonged to Hannah’s community of the Way. She was discarded in the street at birth and the followers of Jesus took her in. She was sweet and playful and loved oranges.After a few discussions with Hannah, I told her about my sister and if any of the Christian priests could help. She said yes, but that Julia and I would have to walk away from everything associated with the Temple of Artemis. This was for our safety she said. I explained to her that we were indebted to Demetrius and the priests of the Temple. She said she would take me to see her presbyter about it. So she took me to meet Timothy.Timothy was a quiet man, only a couple of years older than me, but he had a piercing gaze and an authority that I had never seen in any kind of priest. He also had a gentleness of spirit that was totally disarming. To Timothy I explained my plight. He sat, asked a few questions and said something I could not believe and to this day still cannot believe. He said he would ask some of the wealthy among the community of the Way to pay the price of redemption to Demetrius and purchase Julia and I. If we were willing to walk away from Artemis, he said, we would be free, because ‘when the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.’I couldn’t imagine how high that price would be to assuage Demetrius. Twenty years of wages? Whatever it was, said Timothy, we will pay it.Julia had become unbearable to live with. She was at once being weaned from the potions and being harassed by the presence. It was no surprise, then, that Demetrius agreed to 5 years wages as our price of redemption, just to get the burden away from him.So the agreement was that we were to move to a house of a man named Alexander and his wife Persis. There were other Christians who also lived there. I was afraid of what they would do once they saw Julia’s condition, but it never got that far. After Demetrius told us to burn in the river Styx, we went to the ‘church,’ a house belonging to a widow named Phoebe, and met with Timothy and another visiting presbyter named Tertius. They said they wanted to pray with Julia.Initially Julia screamed and the presence said something about the servants of the most high God, but when Timothy and Tertius put oil on her forehead, signing with a ‘tau,’ the presence vanished. Julia’s spirit returned. She was like she was when she was a child, before the potions and the visits. The widow prepared a meal for her and Julia slept for at least two days. I rejoiced because this sister of mine was dead, and then alive again, she was lost and now was found.The day of my baptism Timothy ‘sealed me with the Holy Spirit, a deposit guaranteeing my inheritance’ in Jesus. Julia was also baptized and almost looks like Hannah now.That day we read some words from the ‘crazy man’ Paul. And they go like this:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
I don’t understand all of that completely, however, now I know what it is to be bought for a price, to be redeemed, because that is what the followers of Jesus did for Julia and I.I can hardly believe that we are not the possession of any greedy craftsman or perverse priest or goddess, or even an emperor, but that we have been chosen by Christ himself to live where he is. His Spirit fills us. We belong to him. He knows us by name. He lavishes us with himself. And we are free.
Posted on July 19th, 2009 by fatherneo.
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GC 2009
Not sure what to say. The many resolutions from TEC’s General Convention, convoluted and left-leaning as they are, leave no doubt as to where this church is headed. What is the answer for orthodox Anglicans in and out of TEC? I don’t think the Anglican schisms and break-offs have bore the fruit that they thought they would. Anglicanism will continue to thrive in the Global South, but what of the American (and European) expression?
The culture could care less what happened in Anaheim last week, and while the church appears more relevant than ever, there are fewer and fewer Episcopalians. Some bishops describe the actions as more ‘descriptive than prescriptive,’ but when bishops, priests and deacons live outside the bounds of Christian marriage, the prescription they write is to ‘do as you will and harm no one.’ Sounds like a familiar slogan.
The General Convention is a tired, expensive, non-Christian exercise whose time has long passed. It is barely Christian even in its decision making mechanisms (spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get votes on sexuality), and has made yet another hole in the bottom of the sinking ship called TEC.