Do snails bore?

Buckland learnedly suggested something about snails which he discovered at the bottom of some extensive limestone borings near Boulogne. This led to a learned disquisition on snails, as to how they bored & where they bored, & why they bored & whether they really bored, or no.

Thought I, if they don't, I know who does.

Diary entry for this day in 1841, by Barclay Fox, from The Faber Book of Diaries, one of the books I picked up in Maine.

The book presents short entries from four centuries of English diaries, written by more than 100 people.

I didn't know who Barclay Fox (1817-1855)was, so I checked trusty old Wikipedia, and learned that he was a businessman, gardener, and diarist, a member of the Quaker Fox family of Falmouth.

So, exactly 168 years ago, an English Quaker was being bored by a learned acquaintance, and I can read about it today.

Something about all this reminds me of blogs, and blog postings, and how the things we jot down at random might have a life of their own of which we little dream. I sometimes think that the blogs of today will become a trove of information about people in our time for the historians and e-archaeologists of the future. What wouldn't we give now for a record of the daily musings and doings of some ancient Egyptian or Babylonian?

Historians of the future, if you are reading this, hello!

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Mara~earth light~

Average churches filled with non-average churchgoers

Great post on church membership statistics and how to interpret them, by Michael Bell guest-posting at Internet Monk.

It turns out that the average church is small (either about 75 people or 185 people, depending on how you count), but that the average churchgoer attends a large church.

How can this be? Well, that’s what happens when about half the churchgoers in the US are found in less than 10% of the churches.

Bell explains it very clearly and well – the post is a great demonstration of how to write clearly about a difficult topic like statistics.

As Bell points out, these facts have huge implications for denominations and for pastors. He poses the example of a denomination in which half the members attend a single church (not so unlikely), and asks:

“If half your denomination goes to one church, what do you do when it comes to denominational decision making? One church, one vote? You are then saying that half your people don’t really have any say. One person, one vote, or one pastor, one vote? Then one church wields an inordinate amount of influence within the denomination. And what happens if that one church doesn’t like the direction that the denomination is headed? If it leaves, you lose half of your denomination, half your support for your national office, half of your support for your missionaries, half your support for your educational institutions.”

How does this affect seminaries and pastors?

“. . . if these students [seminarians] come from churches in the same proportions as church attenders, then 50% of seminary students come from roughly 8% to 9% of the churches. Their life experience in church is with larger churches. If they are initially placed as an associate, they will be building on their experience in other large churches. Yet, 90 percent of senior pastoral positions are in churches less than 350 people, and 50 percent of senior pastoral positions are in churches less than 75 people.”

Very, very interesting stuff.

So during my year of visiting churches I was usually seeing average churches filled with non-average church members. Or non-average churches filled with average church members.

The crow paradox

OK, I found this story on NPR just fascinating. Crows can tell individual humans apart, and can hold a grudge against certain people, for years. But we can't tell them apart.

I took the test. On the first crow, I scored miserably. On the second crow line-up, I got it right the first time. On the third crow, I got it right after four tries. Not so good.

Photo courtesy Flickr user hashmil

Enter into the silence, part two

Matins begin at 8:30 am, and the Divine Liturgy at 9:30. I arrive a few minutes before 8:30, planning to see the whole thing. This is a large, attractive red brick structure with a big parking lot, in a very nice residential neighborhood. A sign in front reads “Happy birthday, America.” The odd thing, though, is that there are only two other cars in the parking lot.

I drive around the neighborhood a couple of times, but each time I return to the church there are still only the two cars. In the narthex, I see a table holding lots of thin yellow candles next to an offering plate. I put in a dollar and take a candle. There are two tables with shallow sandboxes on either side of the doors to the nave. Someone has drawn a cross in the center of each sandbox, and there are three lit candles stuck into the sand at the tips of the crosses. I light my candle from one of those, and stand it near the back of the box. I hope this is OK. It seems like the thing to do – or else I’ve messed up their display somehow. No one is around for me to ask about this.

I think I am supposed to venerate an icon before entering the sanctuary, but the idea is so foreign to me that I just make the sign of the cross, open the door and walk in.

The nave is a beautiful room, octagonal in shape, with a center aisle and rows of pews, and a gorgeous painted domed ceiling depicting Christ Pantocrator (ruler of all). There are stained glass windows all around, with representations of saints and of scenes from the life of Christ. (The nativity is shown as occurring not in a stable but in a cave.) The pulpit is really impressive – an elaborate carved wooden thing, with a matching carved canopy above. The iconostasion is enormous, stretching across the entire front of the chancel. It must be at least eight feet tall. I can just see an altar table behind the iconostasion, through the center door, which is partially open. I sit down near the back.

I am the only person in the pews, in a church that could seat at least 350. This seems odd. But there is some kind of activity going on. A young man is moving things up front. A woman brings out a silver tray with a cloth on it, and sets that on a table near the front. Two older men stand near a sort of raised reading stand on which several books have been placed. It’s like an upright lazy Susan – they can spin the stand to access different books as they need them. There is what seems to be an icon made of silver standing on a table off to one side, with a candle burning in front of it, and the young man venerates it at one point.

Then the young man brings me a book – an enormous book, titled Orthros 1994. It is opened to the prayers for the day, printed in Greek and English. I thank him and think, this is great, I’ll be able to follow along if I can at least transliterate the Greek.

The two older men begin chanting. They chant very loudly and very fast. Although they take turns, they have a system whereby one man starts before the other one has finished, so that there is no break in the sound – it’s one unbroken loop of chanting. If one person were doing this, it would be impossible to maintain – you’d have to stop and take a breath now and then. But it seems that two people can sustain this solid wall of sound indefinitely. The men are turning the spinning reading stand with practiced ease, moving from chant to chant. I try to follow along in the book I’ve been given, but constantly lose track of where they are in their rapid chanting.

The weekly bulletin is printed in two columns, English and Greek. There is no order of service in the bulletin, just a list of “The Propers Today” (apparently they call the readings propers), information about the ecclesiastical calendar (today is the Feast of St. Prokopios, the patron saint of marriage), and information about this year’s summer camp.

The priest, Father Emmanuel Pratsinakis, is doing something behind the iconostasion. At times I can see his back, and I can sometimes hear him chanting or praying quietly (I think he is miked). I am still the only person in the pews, and I am sorry to think that I may be disturbing these men, which is not what I wanted to do.

Some parts of the Matins celebrate the finding of the Holy Cross by the blessed Helena, and the finding of the Precious Nails. A woman enters the sanctuary, carrying a large silver platter, which she sets in a pew. She venerates an icon and leaves again. The young man who gave me the Orthros appears again, now wearing a black robe. He picks up the platter and sets it on a table near the back. He then begins a lengthy process of setting up a table with tablecloths, candlesticks, a cross, and an elevated platform for the platter. The priest disappears for a while and comes back wearing new clothes – a long white robe this time. He does more praying or chanting, with his back to us.

About thirty minutes into the prayers, a man and woman (separately) enter from the back and take seats in the pews. So now there are three of us. A few more people enter. We all stand.

Father Pratsinakis is wearing a different robe now, embroidered with red crosses! People are walking forward and venerating an icon. The priest walks around the altar, down the middle aisle, and through the vestibule waving a censer and wafting fragrant aromas. At the end of this ceremony we sit again. The chanting from the front has not ceased. I peek behind me and notice that there are now many more burning candles in the little sandboxes in the vestibule.

By 9:30 there are six women and eight men in the pews. At about 9:50 there are approximately twenty people in the building, and the priest announces that the service is beginning. The two men are still ceaselessly chanting. The priest is also chanting, behind the iconostasion, and at some point he switches from Greek to English. He manages to make the word God have seven syllables – Go-o-o-o-o-o-od.

An acolyte comes out wearing a gorgeous, gorgeous golden robe. The cantors are now reading in both Greek and English, still very fast. One reading is about the gifts of the Spirit. The priest goes back behind the iconostasis, entering through the Beautiful Gate (the various openings have names). There are readings from Romans 12:6-14 (we all have different gifts), and Matthew 9:1-8 (healing of a paralytic).

People continue to arrive and sit in the pews. Father Pratsinakis comes out from behind the iconostasion and stands in the middle of the aisle to deliver his homily. It seems to me that preaching from a pulpit is going out of favor in American churches – even though this church has a humdinger of a pulpit, it’s not being used.

The sanctuary is filling up now – there are probably well over a hundred people. I notice that the women are wearing dresses, and I’m glad that I wore a skirt to this service.

The homily begins with a tiny bit of bragging – it’s difficult for someone who doesn’t know Greek to appreciate the passages for today, because some of the words and phrases used in the original are not fully translatable. Luckily, in this church we know Greek. Father Pratsinakis has a terrific speaking voice, and no Greek accent at all. (I wonder if he has a New Jersey accent when he speaks Greek.)

The topics of the homily are friendship (the paralytic man was brought to Jesus by his friends) and faith, which cannot exist in a life of solitude. There is always a social dimension to faith. A third point is that Jesus told the paralytic to take heart – the priest tells us not to let ourselves slump into depression or be consumed by our problems. We have no reason to become depressed or to feel insignificant if we look to Jesus. The homily is about ten minutes long. When he finishes it in English, he does it once again, this time in Greek. He seems to be more animated and louder when speaking Greek.

Next is the Great Entrance. The priest brings out holy gifts (covered dishes), and the acolyte walks backward before him, swinging the censer. More prayers are said, in Greek and English. One of the prayers asks for “a Christian end to our lives, peaceful, without shame and suffering, and for a good account before God.”

It is 10:50, and people are still arriving. About this time they seem to be getting ready for Communion. Another surprise – this is the first time I’ve ever witnessed paedocommunion – the practice of giving the elements to children, even babies. It’s very interesting. The priest has a long-handled spoon, something like an iced tea spoon, and he very expertly flips a drop of wine into the mouths of the babies and children who are brought forward, without touching the spoon to their lips. One young man, probably about two years old, pitches a fit, and his mother has to wrestle him into an immobile position so that the priest can flip the wine into his very wide-open, loud mouth.

I can see why churches might have wanted to discontinue paedocommunion. Roman Catholics dropped paedocommunion after about the first thousand years of Christianity, around the time of the Great Schism, when the western and eastern churches divided. However, for the first thousand years of Christianity paedocommunion was common in most churches. Some of the Eastern churches in full communion with Rome restored the practice of paedocommunion after Vatican II. More recently, some conservative Protestant denominations have begun practicing paedocommunion.

I’m not sure if I’m seeing this correctly, but it appears to me that people are picking up some rather large chunks of bread (Orthodox churches use leavened bread) at the Communion table, and carrying them back to their seats in the pews, eating them as they go. These are big pieces, not the kind of thing you can swallow in one bite. Can this be what is really happening, or am I misinterpreting this? This is really the most unusual Communion service of all I have seen so far – and it may very well be the most traditional!

At 11:00 there is a little ceremony around the table up front that had been set up earlier with a platter, candles, and so on. It seems to be some kind of memorial service, but the whole thing is rather mysterious to me. The offering is taken next, using baskets on long poles. After that the priest stands in the middle aisle and people line up on either side. They kiss his rings, and he hands them very large chunks of bread (using both hands for both lines of people). Is this another kind of communion? Whatever it is, people are now coming down the aisle again carrying bread, sometimes handfuls of it. Everyone seems to be having a good time, and enjoying this part of the service, whatever it is.

There’s an announcement about how they need more people to bake for the upcoming agora ( kind of annual bazaar), and then everyone exits. People are standing around the vestibule, chatting and eating chunks of bread. I leave the Orthos that was so kindly provided for me in the pew, and stand in the vestibule for a while. No one says anything, so I ask if there is a washroom, and someone points me downstairs. (Can you tell that I've hit upon the technique of asking directions to the washroom at the end of every service to let people know that a visitor is in the building?)

I go back up to the vestibule and stand around some more, but no one says anything. They are really all quite busy talking among themselves, in Greek and in English, and many people are hurrying out to their cars. So I walk back out to the parking lot, where more people are standing around talking and eating chunks of bread. They are all having a good time being Greek together.

There was no chance for any follow-up, as there was no visitor’s card to fill out.

In October I did go back for the Agora, which is a huge event. I can see why it takes a year to prepare. Enormous tents are set up on the church grounds, and under them are places where you can buy icons and other artwork. There are several areas where you can buy food and drink (including ouzo), and tables at which to sit and eat. Inside one room of the building they have created a Greek deli, with cases of cheese and various prepared dishes. There are literally hundreds of people here in the middle of the day, and I think the big crowd comes at night, for the dancing and music. I bought raffle tickets to win a trip to Greece (didn’t win), and walked through the building.

Parts of it contain museum-like displays of traditional Greek clothing. Two nice Greek ladies were in the sanctuary, and they offered me some of those big chunks of bread I had seen people eating during the service. They said it is called the Bread of Fellowship. It’s slightly sweet, very good.

It seems to me that this would be a hard church to join if you’re not Greek; the assumption seems to be that if you join you want not only to worship with this congregation, but to become more involved with your Greek heritage. The church offers classes for non-Greeks who marry Greeks, so that they can assimilate.

Here's the thing that sticks with me - what's this idea about entering into the silence? This was several hours of unbroken sound!! (Must be a metaphorical idea about silence.)

Enter into the silence, part one

St. Thomas Greek Orthodox Church
Cherry Hill, NJ
July 8, 2007

The next week I was able to get back to my original ten slips of paper with names of ten churches to visit. I picked St. Thomas Greek Orthodox Church, and knew immediately that I had better do a bit of studying before I showed up in their sanctuary.

The church has a great website (UPDATE – the site has been changed quite a bit since I looked at it in 2007, but it was good both back then and now). I learned that summer hours were in effect, meaning Matins at 8:30 and Divine Liturgy at 9:30. Of course, I wasn’t sure what Matins and Divine Liturgy meant in this context, but that was a start.

The website was printed in both English and Greek, which was particularly interesting to me because I minored in Classical Studies, and was able to resuscitate my long-dormant skills in reading Greek letters, and a few Greek words. There is such a huge difference between ancient Greek and modern Greek, though, that I wouldn’t have been able to read the Greek text on its own, even if I had several dictionaries and months to spend on the task. The church runs a Hellenic language afternoon school.

The website has a very helpful explanation of the Greek Orthodox house of worship. Like most church structures, it is divided into three parts: the narthex (vestibule), nave (main section, where the people sit), and sanctuary (chancel and altar area). Like many people, I often use the word sanctuary to refer to the entire worship area --nave and sanctuary – but technically that’s wrong.

According to the St. Thomas website, the narthex represents the unredeemed, or sinful, world. When a worshipper enters the narthex, he or she should make the sign of the cross, place an offering in the collection plate, light a candle, and venerate an icon. Only then should the worshipper enter the nave.

The nave represents the transfigured world where God’s people gather. In the center of the ceiling is a domed icon of Christ the Almighty. To the left is the choir area and to the right the baptismal font. The chancel is an elevated area immediately before the sanctuary. It represents the place where the transfigured world and heaven meet. It contains the bishop’s throne, a reading stand, a pulpit, banners, lamps, and the iconostasion, or icon screen. The screen depicts Christ, the apostles, the Virgin Mary, saints, and angels, as well as a scene from the Last Supper.

The area behind the iconostasion is the site of the altar, and is almost always semicircular in Orthodox churches. It is called the apse. On the wall of the apse most Orthodox churches have an icon of Mary Theotokos with Jesus, as a reminder that salvation came through the incarnation. At St. Thomas, this icon rests on a depiction of six bishops who are considered the “pillars of the faith.” The altar table holds a tabernacle for the reserved Eucharist. From the ceiling hangs a votive lamp that burns constantly, reminding us of God’s constant presence.

Another interesting fact from the website: The fast rules of the Church require abstention from meat, dairy products, eggs, fish and olive oil, in accordance with the individual’s strength and ability, every Wednesday and Friday, during Great Lent and Holy Week, for the Apostles Fast in June, the Dormition of the Theotokos (August 1st to August 14th), Advent, and on other days as specified in the Church calendar.

That’s some pretty intense fasting – not just meat, but dairy, eggs, fish, and olive oil! And pretty darn frequently, too. These Greek Orthodox folks are tough! I notice also a photo of what might be a baby’s baptism, but it’s like no baptism I’ve ever seen – the child is naked, and a priest is holding the child high over his head, in what seems to me an alarming fashion. Unsurprisingly, the baby also seems to be bawling loudly. Perhaps I’m misinterpreting the photo, but if this is not a baptism I have no idea what in the world it could be.

One more thing I wanted to do to prepare for my visit – read something by a Greek Orthodox author. I decided to find something by St. John Chrysostom, using Wikipedia.

St. John Chrysostom lived from 349 to about 409, and was the Archbishop of Constantinople. He was born in Antioch, in what is today Turkey. In his early days he was a hermit, during which time he spent two years “continually standing, scarcely sleeping, and committing the Bible to memory. As a consequence of these practices, his stomach and kidneys were permanently damaged and poor health forced him to return to Antioch.” He became a very popular priest and preacher, and eventually the Patriarch of Constantinople. He is famous for his sermons, which led to his nickname Chrysostom (Golden Mouth).

Unfortunately for his later reputation, he preached a famous series of eight sermons against the Jews and Judaizing Christians, and these sermons were quoted extensively by the Nazis. (He’s not the only preacher guilty of this, of course. Vicious anti-Semitism stains the legacy of Martin Luther, and that of lots of other famous Christians.)

Some folks excuse Chrysostom’s anti-Semitism by claiming that it is anachronistic to judge him according to the customs and standards of modern religious rhetoric. True, but this is an excuse only up to a point. Religious folks use this claim far too frequently, in so many situations, to excuse the words and behavior of their own favorite –or embarrassing -- theologians and preachers. I mean, we are talking about eternal moral truths, aren’t we?

In addition to sermons, Chrysostom’s other lasting legacy is his edition of the Divine Liturgy, which is still used in Eastern Orthodox and most Eastern Catholic churches,
I chose to read one of Chrysostom’s writings from the links offered in Wikipedia: Homily 1 on the Gospel of Matthew.

Wow – if this is the kind of sermon Christians liked in the fifth century, I have to say that they were much more philosophical and erudite than Christians in the twenty-first century. This kind of preaching would not fill the seats in a contemporary mega-church. In fact, I think a steady diet of this might empty out most churches today.

But what a startling, different approach to the Gospel of Matthew Chrysostom takes. He begins by bemoaning the fact that we even need the written Word at all! The fact that we have this gospel is a sign of our fallen condition! (Sorry about all the exclamation points, but these ideas seem so amazing to me.) He argues that things were better in the days of Noah, Abraham, Job, and Moses, when God spoke to his people directly, without written words. Unfortunately, “the whole people of the Hebrews [fell] into the pit of wickedness,” and therefore they needed written words to convey God’s messages. Same thing happened to New Testament believers. God wanted to speak to them directly, through His Spirit, but the early church “made shipwreck, some with regard to doctrines, others as to life and manners,” which necessitated the New Testament.

He also makes note of something that is still a very popular meme among non-Christians – the discordance of the four Gospels. His response is that their disagreement in details is a proof of the fact that the writers did not collaborate.

He contrasts the gospel writers with Plato, “who composed that ridiculous Republic,” and other pagan authors. The pagans write endlessly about ideas such as justice, in such a confusing way that most ordinary people cannot understand them. But the gospel authors are clear and simple, and can be understood by all, even by servants, widows, and children, according to Chrysostom.
Then he asks some questions. Why does Matthew begin by tracing Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph, when Joseph had nothing to do with it? Why, in the genealogy, does Matthew fail to mention eminent women such as Sarah and Rebecca, but mention women who were harlots, adulteresses, and barbarians? Why did he omit three kings? Why does he speak of fourteen generations, but then change the number later? And how is that Elizabeth, who was kin to Mary, was of the Levitical tribe, whereas Mary was not?

Chrysostom doesn’t answer those questions in this first homily – these are just to get our attention. He promises to attend to them later, but first urges his listeners to quiet their hearts and minds: “Let us not therefore with noise or tumult enter in, but with a mystical silence.” The first homily ends here, after whetting our appetites for what is to come. I like it a lot.

Okay, armed with this tiny bit of knowledge, I am ready to attend a Greek Orthodox Church and, as the congregation’s website urges, “enter the silence.”

A love and thirst for justice that will bring you to your death

“ . . . any Christianity that is not on the side of the dispossessed against the arrogance of the powerful and rich is utterly untraditional. Dawkins and Hitchens write about Christianity and never link the words God, justice and love. That is either a sign of their obtuseness or a sign of the massive self-betrayal of the Christian movement. It has got to the point where intelligent people like them don't understand that Christianity is not about how many months you get in purgatory for adultery. It's about a love and a thirst for justice that will bring you to your death. There's nothing lovely about it."

Terry Eagleton, from an interview with Laurie Taylor in the New Humanist

And if intelligent people don’t understand that Christianity is about love and justice, Christians are to blame.

No miracles for you

Martin Luther Chapel
Pennsauken, NJ
July 1, 2007


My method of choosing churches by lottery (picking one of the strips of paper from my original ten choices) was disrupted again this morning. I needed to attend an early service on this Sunday, because I planned to drive to the airport later that morning, so I decided to find a church with an 8:00 service. I wanted to try a Lutheran church of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) flavor, having already attended a Lutheran church in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA).

The LCMS website is fantastic. It has a directory where you can search for churches throughout the country by city, state, district, or zip code. I chose New Jersey, and was then directed to a list, which gave me information about locations, whether or not a church has an associated school, and if the church has its own website.

Pennsauken was the location closest to me. Unfortunately, the LCMS church in that city has no website. [UPDATED: when I checked again, in 2009, I did find a website. Either it's new, or I missed it when I looked in 2007.] When I clicked on the church name in the denominational website, though, I was provided with lots of information, including the number of baptized members (471), confirmed members (374), the enrollment figures for the school, times for worship services (two on Sunday mornings, one on Wednesday evening), times for Sunday School and Bible classes, and weekly worship attendance (255). You can also use this website to find out lots of information about the pastor of each congregation - where they went to school, what they majored in, and how long they have been pastoring, for example.

There’s more. There’s a button labeled “Statistics,” which brings up an Excel spreadsheet with very detailed information for the years 1997 through 2006 in more than 25 categories, such as how many people joined through profession of faith (that means they are not transferring from some other church), how many transferred from another Lutheran church, how many from a non-Lutheran church, how many died, average attendance for each year (not too bad, considering overall church attendance trends in the U.S. – the numbers have risen from 219 to 255 in that 10-year span), and annual giving per confirmed member (also an upward trend -- $1079 to $2666).

This is just a sample of the kind of information you can find for each LCMS church. They also have graphs of trends. The LCMS website is a sociologist’s dream -- perhaps an example of German precision?

At any rate, I had the little bit of information I needed right now (address and church service times). I printed out driving directions from Google, and was ready to hurry on out to the 8:00 service.

The Google directions do indeed take you to the church. Unfortunately, they take you to the side of the church on which you cannot park, and since the church fronts a busy four-lane highway, I have to drive away from the building in order to circle back and try again. I don’t drive far enough on my second loop, and am again unable to find the parking lot. Eventually I find on-street parking a couple blocks away and walk around the side of the church. [UPDATED: again, if driving directions were available in 2007, I missed them. They are on the congregation's website now.]

I still don’t see a front door, but people seem to be entering via a plain brown door with the number twelve on it, so I go in that way, too. I have been really surprised at how often I've entered churches via side doors during this project.

An usher hands me a bulletin. It is only a few minutes past eight, and the preservice music is still playing. (I have missed the announcements, though.) I find a seat in a rear pew and check the bulletin. The pastor is away, serving as pastor-in-residence at a church camp, and a DELTO candidate, Jeremy Shears, will be preaching today. I figure a DELTO candidate is probably a seminarian. (The next day I Google DELTO and learn that it stands for Distance Education Leading to Ordination, and is designed to provide “contextual theological education leading to ordination for men who provide pastoral service to congregations, mission churches, or in situations where a full-time pastor or missionary cannot be supported.” Men in DELTO programs must be at least 30 years of age, and must be paired with a pastor-mentor while they complete the program.)

The other interesting thing in the bulletin is that, in addition to a pastor, the church has an Asian Indian Evangelist. I’m not sure what that means. I don’t see any Asian Indians in the congregation this morning (or else I don’t recognize them), although there are 2-3 African-American worshippers and 2-3 Asian worshippers in the mostly white congregation. It’s an interesting idea, though, and I wish I had followed up on it after the service by asking someone about it. There is also a bulletin insert inviting people to join a short-term mission trip to India or Sri Lanka, so maybe this church has some kind of burden for evangelizing Asian Indians.

One of the inserts is an impressively ambitious daily prayer guide for the week. It includes instructions for prayer and Bible readings for both morning and evening, with twice-daily psalms, brief or extended readings, an exhortation to discuss or meditate on the readings, a prayer for the week to use during each session, additional prayers (remember the sick, shut-ins, mourners, those with personal sadness, your own needs; our country and the nations; peace, the Church’s mission); an excellent, thoughtful Prayer for Our Nation, and concluding prayers. The morning prayer for this week is a selection from the poems of Christina Rossetti (it includes the heartfelt line, “Oh, find a place for me!”). If the members of this church follow this weekly prayer system with any kind of regularity, they are doing well indeed.

The building is modern brick. There is a central altar (composed of an interesting mottled wood or marble or something – I am too far away to tell), with pulpit and lectern on either side. The back wall is stone, in the center of which is a large gold cross. On either side of the cross are statues of Christ, crucified on the left and triumphant on the right. The sanctuary seats about 250-300, and there are about 85 or so people present for this early service.

During the Greeting of Peace, I shake hands with several people. A woman sitting in front of me hands me a page from the attendance register and asks me to sign in. The first reading is from I Kings. Elijah hears the voice of God not in a mighty wind or in an earthquake, or in a fire, but in a “low whisper” – the ESV translation of the much more famous “still, small voice.”

Next, a children’s sermon. Four kids come up front, and a lady asks them to copy her motions. Then she does some quick stepping back and forth, and of course the kids can’t follow her. She asks them why they failed, and they are completely silent, so she begins answering her own questions (as I’ve noted before, a common enough occurrence in children’s sermons). She tells them that they probably have lots of excuses for their failure to follow her steps precisely, just like we have lots of excuses for our failures to follow Jesus. Nevertheless, we should try to walk in His steps and not make excuses, and He will help us. She gives them each a paper footprint with a Scripture verse written on it, to put up in their rooms at home to help them remember to ask Jesus for help.

The sermon is titled “The Quiet Gospel.” Mr. Shears, wearing a plain white chasuble, begins by saying how much we all like big, showy things. We’d love to see God do some great miracles. But even if God did perform a huge outright miracle, it wouldn’t strengthen our faith (I think he might be wrong on this point, but it could certainly be argued). So, even though the age of miracles has passed, that’s not a bad thing.

How do we strengthen our faith? Through the Word and the sacraments. He holds up before us as examples St Augustine and Martin Luther, God’s gifts to the Church, who were strengthened through the Word and the sacraments. He observes that as Christians we can become the still, small voice of God to the noisy world; we can perform the ministry of bringing God to others by the example of our quietly godly lives. (This point in his sermon has a lot in common with the brief homily I heard at Our Lady of the Snows earlier in the week.) Though spectacular signs of God’s power are coming eventually (at the Second Coming and the Day of Judgment), right now all we need to do is keep close to the Word and the sacraments. The sermon is 17 minutes long, and is delivered in a clear, strong voice.

However, as the sermon proceeds I am becoming slightly depressed, thinking that there will be no more miracles. This is odd, considering that I haven’t been hoping for any miracles, and would likely be frightened out of my wits if I were to see one. Even so, to be told so firmly not to expect a miracle proves to be a bit of downer. Perhaps it’s like being told that you can’t have any ice cream. Before hearing this, you didn’t even want ice cream. Now it’s all you can think about. Suddenly I feel like a cranky child, whining about why I can’t have a miracle, too, just like my older brothers and sisters had.

We recite the Apostles’ Creed, and then two men and two women take the offering and collect the attendance registers. More prayers, a blessing, and the closing hymn, “Joyful, Joyful.” I think Lutherans usually have the Lord’s Supper at every service, but they probably can’t do that today because the pastor is out of town.

The lady who had given me the attendance register invites me to join the Bible study after this service, but I can’t go because I have to get home right after the service. This is the first time during my church visiting project that someone has invited me to stay for a group activity after the service (although the Bible Presbyterians invited me to come back again that evening), and I would have said yes on any other day. I stand around in the front lobby for a few minutes, and ask someone for directions to the washroom, but no one else talks to me. Everyone is heading toward either the parking lot or the Bible study. On my way out, I have a chance to see the real entrance to the church. It’s very nice.

A little more research after the visit. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) has about 2.4 million baptized members in the US, about half of them located in the upper Midwestern states. It has an interesting history as another of the country’s immigrant churches. In 1838 a German Lutheran pastor, Martin Stephan, led 1100 Lutherans from Saxony to the United States, seeking to practice their religion freely. They were seeking freedom from oppression from other Lutherans, actually – they didn’t like living under state-sponsored Lutheranism in Prussia.

More than 300 of these pilgrims died on the voyage, when one of their ships was lost at sea. The remaining 750 or so settled in Missouri, around St. Louis. Stephan became embroiled in charges of corruption and sexual misconduct, so he was kicked out and C.F.W. Walther became the leader of the group.

The Missouri group had a lively debate as to whether or not they were still part of the German Lutheran church, and eventually decided that they constituted a new one. So, in 1847, a group met in Chicago, founded a new church body, and made a magnificent contribution to the tradition of clunky denominational names: The German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States.

The group grew quickly over the next fifty years, largely because they worked hard to assist and incorporate the flood of German immigrants who poured into the US during the second half of the 1800s.

The second and third generations of churchgoers were often bilingual or even English-only speakers, in contrast to the first generation of German speakers. However, churches tend to be conservative, and services were usually conducted in German for a long time. (My father’s Lutheran birth certificate and confirmation certificate were printed in Michigan, but are written completely in German - he was born in 1896.) (I know that makes me sound incredibly ancient, but you have to take into account that he was 57 when I was born. Still, it does seem incredible that my father was born in the nineteenth century and my granddaughter may very well live into the twenty-second century. It makes me feel as though I could stretch out my arms and span four centuries, metaphorically speaking.)

The first World War brought strong anti-German sentiment to the US, which revolutionized the LCMS, at least in terms of language. Everything was “Americanized,” and membership doubled over the second fifty years. In 1947 they also shortened their name to the current version, LCMS.

One interesting fact about LCMS is that the denomination is officially creationist – all LCMS schools, kindergarten through university and seminary, are required to “teach creation from a Biblical perspective,” which for them means a non-Darwinian perspective. I was unaware of this; I had somehow assumed creationism came only from nondenominational, Baptist, or fundamentalist Presbyterian perspectives. Never put any Lutherans in amongst that group, but I see now that I wasn’t paying attention.

LCMS women wear the invisible hajib; that is, they are in submission to male authority in the church and home, and cannot hold any pastoral office. In fact, they weren’t allowed to vote in church meetings until 1969.

I once read an interesting point of view on the issue of letting women vote in congregational meetings. I don’t remember which denomination does this, but the policy is to let unmarried women, but not wives, vote in congregational meetings. (Men can vote regardless of marital status.) The reasoning is that giving married women a vote would be, in effect, giving all married men two votes – because of course a married woman would just ask her husband how to vote on any issue, and do whatever he said.

I didn’t receive any mail or calls from this church after the visit, but I always take into consideration the fact that my handwriting may have something to do with that. It can be difficult to get all the address information legibly into the small spaces allotted for them in Visitor’s Logs. And, anyway, I’m truly conflicted about whether or not it’s desirable to pursue visitors with phone calls and letters. It might be good in some cases, but in others it might be just as well to let the people who are interested in coming to your church pursue you.

Pearls before swine

Our Lady of the Snows Church
Woodstock, Vermont
June 26, 2007

One interesting thing I’ve learned about Roman Catholic priests since Neil became Catholic is that they are encouraged to celebrate mass every day. This means that Catholics usually have the opportunity to attend mass every day, and often have a choice of multiple daily services – a big difference from what Protestants are used to. Most devout Protestants attend church once a week, on Sunday mornings, and some have the option of attending an additional Sunday night service, and a mid-week (usually Wednesday night) prayer meeting or Bible study. In addition, lots of Protestants are members of some kind of “small group” – a weekly or monthly meeting, sometimes at a church member’s home, for prayer and Bible study and getting to know each other. But almost no Protestant goes to church every day, and some Catholics do – or at least they have the option.

Since Neil has become a Catholic he tries to go to church every day. Leslie and I attended this service with him. Still on vacation, I didn’t read or do anything to prepare.

Our Lady of the Snows is a very pretty little building with a very pretty name in a town that is billed in the tourist information as “the prettiest small town in Vermont.” So that’s a lot of pretty!

The sanctuary has white walls and lots of wood, stained glass windows, and a lovely barrel ceiling ornamented with gilt. There is a domed ceiling over the altar, and a small painted blue sky and dove within that dome.

The crucifix on the back wall shows a twisted, agonized Christ. To one side is a statue of Mary holding the infant Jesus, and on the other side what looked to me like a golden coffee maker in a niche (I later realized this was where they keep the elements for the Eucharist).

The sanctuary seats about 100 people; today 18 people plus our group of three are present, which seems to me like a very good turnout for a Tuesday morning.

The priest, wearing a white robe with a green garment over it, walks to the altar area, along with a man wearing ordinary street clothes. I assume the priest is Rev. Thomas Mosher, who is listed on the front of the bulletin as the pastor of Our Lady of the Snows.

A woman reads the Old Testament passage, which is about Abram and Lot dividing the land between them, and then leads us in a responsive Psalm.

The priest then reads the New Testament lesson. He is preaching through the instructional sayings of Jesus that week (Sermon on the Mount), and today’s passage is the one about not throwing your pearls before swine. He notes an interesting similarity in the etymology of the words pearl and holy, and makes the point that argument and dialogue are not the best ways to win souls – a better evangelistic technique is simply to lead a good and holy life. We do not evangelize through erudite arguments (casting pearls before swine), but through the witness of our lives. He speaks very well, and packs a surprising number of ideas into an extremely brief (about three minutes long!) sermon.

There is a moment of silence, and then Communion. Then another moment of silence, and the benediction.

It‘s a very nice, short service. Leslie and I discuss later how good it would be if Protestant churches were to make available brief daily services like that for people who want them. I suppose it will never happen, but it certainly seems like a great idea.

Penobscot Bay

Back from a lovely time in Maine -- I would say that everyone should get a chance to go there in the summer, but it seemed that half the country was already there!

Table of Condiments that Periodically Go Bad

Here. I love the footnote about vegemite.

This may be my last post for a week or so - off to New York and Maine for a week, starting tomorrow. Yay!!

Photo courtesy of Flickr user foodistablog

Little-known benefits of going to church

Most folks could tell you what the well-known benefits are, or are supposed to be. Salvation would be pretty high on the list – not that most Christians think that they are saved by attending church. No, most everyone would say that we are saved through Christ alone, no matter what the denomination or the cut of their theological jib. But regular fellowship with believers strengthens and upholds and increases our faith, and is a very great benefit to our lives as redeemed and saved people.

Cynical people think that church membership bestows some sort of career or financial benefit, by putting people in touch with others who are able to advance them. It’s networking, with a halo. I think this might happen once in a while, but the heyday of that sort of thing seems long past. Nowadays you might be more in danger of putting your job at risk by revealing that you attend church regularly, seeming to be an oddball or perhaps the type of person who tries to convert colleagues on lunch break.

Many churches tout themselves as cures for whatever ails you in the loneliness department. This seems to me a half-truth at best. Yes, if you join a church and take advantage of their programs you will be able to fill quite a few empty spots on your social calendar. Depending on the church and your own taste for getting out of the house, you might be able to get together with groups of other people two, three, or more times per week. These are groups that will not turn you down, so if you want to join the choir, join a Bible study or prayer group, join some sort of committee, take care of children one or more times per week, go on bus trips, and eat potluck suppers, you will have plenty of opportunities to do that sort of thing. Making friends, though, is another matter. That really depends on how good you are at making friends, and whether or not “friend chemistry” happens. I’ve known many people who have been actively involved in their churches for years, but haven’t made friends so much as long-term acquaintances. So I would say that churches definitely offer opportunities for being with people, which is no small thing. But friendship is by no means a certainty.

Now, here are a few benefits you don’t hear about so often:

The opportunity to sing with others in public. Human beings have sung together in public, often and regularly, for as long as we can remember. Not just in church, or during religious rituals, although those are a huge part of the history of public singing. We have work songs, drinking songs, camping songs, patriotic songs. All meant to be sung in groups. Until just the last generation or so, families and friends often sang together for their evening entertainment. I don’t think it’s good for people to suddenly give up something so powerful and mood-altering. Corporate singing (especially if you can do it loudly) makes people feel good -- real good.

Chaste and semi-chaste courtship opportunities. Folks have lots of opportunities to look for romantic partners today – the workplace, school, bars, classified ads, matchmaking ventures online and off-line. The problem is that, except for the workplace, these venues do not allow people even the pretense of wanting to get to know the other person in a safe, friendly way before jumping right to the sexual chase. I put even schools in the category of forcing potential lovers into a too-early sexualized relationship, because schools today are drenched in hormonal intensity. The clothing, the slang, the cultural references – it’s a supercharged atmosphere. This puts lots of shy or socially awkward people at a huge and uncomfortable disadvantage.

Churches are, of course, only semi-chaste, as anyone who has ever had anything to do with a youth group will recognize. But most of them do offer opportunities for people to meet and do things together in a much less sexualized atmosphere, and sometimes romantic sparks are kindled in these circumstances. So, shy people who do not have any opportunities to make romantic connections at work MAY have a chance if they are part of a large, active church. MAY HAVE – romance is no more a given than guaranteed friendship, but at least it’s a possibility.

Special holidays. Everyone, religious or not, celebrates some kind of Christmas (or Hanukah, or Eid) holiday, even if it’s cast as a simple winter vacation, and all religious observance has been stripped away. But only churchgoers get to celebrate Trinity Sunday, Pentecost, Rally Day, the last day of Vacation Bible School, Choir Appreciation Sunday, the first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Women’s Circle Annual Luncheon, Ascension Sunday, and St. Blaise’s Day. Not every churchgoer celebrates every one, but all churchgoers get a much bigger choice of special days and rituals to mark the passing of the years and to provide reasons for reflection, celebration, and special food than non-churchgoers. We like to make fun of these special days, but I’ll bet every one of them has a place in the heart of someone somewhere, and adds a little extra zest to life. Holidays are good, especially the odd ones. Frankly, I’m always looking for more of them.

There are probably quite a few more little-known benefits of going to church.

Photo courtesy Flickeruser Hamed Saber

Littlefoot

Cobalt and undulant rocking of lake swells and waves,
Long runners and smooth slatch of the seas,
Creek hiss and pond sway,
Landfall and landrise
Like Compostela at land’s end.

From Charles Wright’s Littlefoot

I could spend a surprising amount of time thinking about these few lines, part of the book-length poem Littlefoot, described on the dust jacket flap as “an extended meditation on mortality.”

For one thing, the first line quoted above, “Cobalt and undulant rocking of lake swells and waves” is as musically perfect as a line from Milton. Then, the surprise of “smooth slatch of the seas.” I thought at first that Wright might have coined the sword slatch just for this poem, but it turns out that slatch is “a momentary lull between breaking waves, favorable for launching a boat.” So now I envision those long waves and the smooth slatch between them.

I’ll just mention here that the alternation between all the sibilants and the percussives in these lines is very reminiscent of the sounds of waves alternately running smoothly up to the shore and then smacking it sharply.

Next we move inland, to consider the less dramatic movement of creeks and ponds (Creek hiss and pond sway), and back to sea again to consider landfall and landrise. Landfall is a common enough term, meaning the first sighting of land from sea, but I think Wright has coined a complementary term in landrise, and both are compared to “Compostela at land’s end.”

So we have landfall, landrise, and land’s end – a cycle of setting out and coming home? Or, being at home and then setting out past land’s end, for unknown parts?

What is Compostela? It turns out that it is the capital city of Galicia, in western Spain, and has been a city of pilgrimage for hundreds of years. The folk etymology of the name is “field of stars” – this might be incorrect etymology, but it’s very evocative in terms of Wright’s poem, in which he constantly searches the starry skies for meaning as he contemplates death. The likely true etymology of the name is even more apropos – “burial ground.”

Compostela is famous as one of the oldest sites of Christian pilgrimage; for over a thousand years pilgrims have traveled there to visit the supposed bones of St. James. And in Celtic legend, Compostela is the place where the souls of the dead gather to follow the sun across the sea.

Apparently the speaker is thinking about launching into the smooth slatch, following the route of all the souls who have gone before him.

Normally I’m not willing to look up words and references while reading a poem – but I love the poetry of Charles Wright so much, and I know the results will be rewarding. It’s very nice when every word and every syllable work together.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Tony George

Your brain operates on the edge of chaos

“Have you ever experienced that eerie feeling of a thought popping into your head as if from nowhere, with no clue as to why you had that particular idea at that particular time? You may think that such fleeting thoughts, however random they seem, must be the product of predictable and rational processes. After all, the brain cannot be random, can it? Surely it processes information using ordered, logical operations, like a powerful computer?

Actually, no. In reality, your brain operates on the edge of chaos. Though much of the time it runs in an orderly and stable way, every now and again it suddenly and unpredictably lurches into a blizzard of noise. . . . Hovering on the edge of chaos provides brains with their amazing capacity to process information and rapidly adapt to our ever-changing environment, but what happens if we stray either side of the boundary? The most obvious assumption would be that all of us are a short step away from mental illness.”

Fascinating article, “Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the brain,” by David Robson, in the June 29 2009 issue of New Scientist.

I’m neither a new scientist nor an old one, but this article makes me think about that peculiar but enjoyable state of mind one has on the edge of falling asleep, when unrelated images and ideas float in and out of the mind with astonishing rapidity. Perhaps falling asleep makes the neurons pop off at random.

Next up in the Church Visiting series

Argument doesn’t save souls
I attend a midweek morning service at Our Lady of the Snows Roman Catholic Church in Windsor, VT, where I hear a sermon about the futility of casting pearls before swine.

No miracles for you
I attend Martin Luther Chapel in Pennsauken, NJ, where I am told not to expect God to perform any miracles today.

Enter into the silence
I attend St. Thomas Greek Orthodox Church in Cherry Hill, NJ, where I am the only person in the pews for the first hour, see paedocommunion for the first time, and discover that Greek people really, really enjoy being Greek.

Don’t worry; this is in no way an ecumenical event
I attend Covenant Presbyterian Church in Cherry Hill, NJ, where I learn about an upcoming meeting among Christian and Muslim women and hear a sermon on divorce.

Joys and concerns, part three

After vacation I was able to do a little more research about the churches I had visited in Vermont. St Francis of Assisi is staffed by the missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, of whom I had never heard, so I started there.

La Salette is a small village in France where two children saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1846. First they spotted a beautiful lady sitting on a rock, crying. She wore a rather unusual crucifix: it featured, in addition to the body of Christ, a hammer, a pincer, and a skull and crossbones. She was also wearing a yellow pinafore, “more brilliant than several suns put together.” I love that pinafore! It made me wonder, for the first time, about the possibility of fashion in heaven.

The lady stood up and gave the children a message to deliver to the world. It mostly consisted of warning them against sin and threatening them with punishment if they persisted in evil. She told them that she was trying hard to hold back her Son’s arm, but it is very heavy and she might not be able to protect them much longer. (By the way, I dislike these depictions of the Holy Dysfunctional Family.)

In addition, the Virgin predicted that the next harvest would fail, which it did (European famine in 1847 led to the death of more than one million people). Finally, she confided a secret to each child before she disappeared.

One thing that always puzzles me about Marian visions is that Mary seems to be the only unhappy person in Paradise. These visions often feature a sobbing Virgin, which seems unfair. She suffered enough during her earthly existence, and ought to be enjoying some beatific peace now.

News of the apparition spread quickly, and pilgrims began trekking to the spot. People began to report miraculous healings. In 1847, only one year later, 50,000 pilgrims celebrated the anniversary of the vision. An investigative commission was set up to look into the situation.
The children wrote down their accounts of everything they had seen and heard, including the secrets Mary had communicated, and these documents were sent to the Pope. In 1851 the vision was officially approved by the church. A sanctuary was erected at La Salette, and in 1852 the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette were established.

However, there were doubters. Some French priests and bishops denounced the vision as a hoax. The controversy became entangled in French politics, and following the ins and outs of the controversy is quite difficult unless you understand a lot more about French religious and political history than I do.

In the meantime, Melanie, one of the two children who had had the vision, grew up and became a Carmelite nun. She lived for a while in a convent in England, where she wrote down the secret given to her by the Virgin, and sent a copy to Pope Pius IX. Unfortunately, the text seems to have become lost in the Vatican archives, and has not yet been rediscovered. However, that doesn’t seem to matter, as other written versions of her secret were circulating. In fact, gradually various accounts of the secret(s) proliferated.

The secret given to the other child who had the vision, Maximin, was that England would convert to Catholicism during the final phase of the apocalypse. But the real bombshell was Melanie’s secret. After the First Vatican Council, in the late 1960s, Melanie revealed the secret once more. I guess either she expressed it more clearly than in the past, or else it was the first time a version was made public, because this time the response was more heated. She said her secret was that “Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.” As you might imagine, this was disheartening news for lots of Catholics. There ensued a kind of war of the secrets, in which people began to investigate all the stories about the secrets, as well as the various versions that had been printed over the years. (There are at least ten different editions of the secret, nine preserved and one lost in the Vatican archives.)

The Superior General of the Missionaries of La Salette wrote to the Pope about this latest publication of the secret. He noted, in a tremendous example of understatement, that “it has not pleased the Holy See that the above mentioned work has been released to the public,” and asked that every copy be withdrawn from the hands of the faithful. The Vatican agreed, and put the secret on the Index of Prohibited Books. However, recently many of the documents related to the vision were released from the Vatican Secret Archives.

When I read that, I was momentarily taken aback. Secret Archives? On the one hand, that sounds incredibly cool. On the other hand – huh?

The rationale behind the Secret Archives is actually pretty mundane. Plenty of organizations have time restrictions on when their documents may be read by the public. The Vatican has a general policy of not making any documents available until 75 years have passed.
The Archives are enormous – more than 52 miles of shelving – and the oldest document goes back to the 8th century. (By the way, there are special, more secret archives within the Secret Archive, including the Apostolic Penitentiary, which contains records of indulgences, absolutions, and excommunications. These are never released to the public, of course. It is interesting to think about old files containing the sensational confessions of kings, queens, and emperors – a kind of repository of really, really good historical gossip.

Well, I didn’t expect my first visit to a Roman Catholic church during this year of church visiting to open up such a fascinating bit of history. The story of Our Lady of La Salette seems to me a cautionary tale about endorsing visions of young children who might grow up to become troublesome adults.

Of course, belief in visions are not required of Catholics; they can believe or not, as they choose. I should mention that many notable Catholics have been devoted to Our Lady of La Salette, including Jacques Maritain and at least six popes, so even though this story doesn’t seem particularly edifying to my Protestant sensibilities, there is likely something here that I’m not getting. (A whole lot that I’m not getting, I’m sure Catholics would say.)

The fact is that you could pick out a piece of the history of any denomination that sounds just as odd as this bit of history about Our Lady of La Salette sounds to me. I’d hate to have to defend the entire history of any church group, and the Catholic Church happens to have a whole lot more history, in terms of years and numbers of adherents, than anyone else in the church business – so it makes sense that they would have more wild and colorful stories, like these Marian visions, than anyone else. But peculiarities are probably fairly evenly distributed, per capita and over time, among the entire church. Heck, last week I visited a group that believes that an angel named Moroni appeared to a nineteenth-century New Yorker and told him where to dig up golden tablets full of prophecy, and then visited a group that is responsible for the Left Behind books.

Next I tried to learn a little more about the Congregational Church.

The distinctive belief of congregational churches is that each church runs its own affairs independently, which would seem to make it difficult to make blanket statements about the denomination.

Congregationalists tend to believe that the church operated as local congregations without central authority for roughly the first thousand years of Christendom, although bishops in Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Byzantium, and Jerusalem constantly tried to bring local congregations under their influence. At some point around 1000 AD the bishop of Rome had gained control of most of the western churches, and the Patriarch of Constantinople had gained control of most of the rest of the world’s churches, according to this line of thought.

By the 16th century, though, reform movements in Europe championed by people like Martin Luther, John Hus, John Calvin, and John Wycliffe (were most men named John at that time?) gained momentum, and independent, congregational-style churches were once again, gradually, able to survive – although many of them had to operate as underground, semi-secret societies, and suffered quite a bit of persecution (from both Catholics and Protestants).

Congregationalists are very important in American history. About 35 of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower were Congregationalists fleeing persecution, and this group became known as the Pilgrim Fathers. Jonathan Edwards, often thought to be the most influential theologian in American history, was a Congregationalist (I found this surprising; I had assumed he was Presbyterian, possibly because one of the first things Neil and I did when he entered Princeton Theological Seminary was visit Jonathan Edwards’ grave in the Princeton cemetery).

In 1931 groups came together to form the Congregational Christian Church. They had various styles of worship and some differences in belief, but were united in a belief in local autonomy and rejection of creedal authority. It seems a shaky basis for union, to me – let’s unite as people who agree not to have to agree on anything!

There were a few other shifts in organization; a more conservative group of churches set up their own organization in 1948. In 1957, the Congregational Christian Church merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church to form a new group, the United Church of Christ.

In the United States today the United Church of Christ has a little over a million members, and about 5,500 congregations. It emphasizes freedom of individual conscience and local church autonomy. Although it doesn’t require belief in the traditional creeds, the United Church of Christ “looks to” confessions such as the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, the Heidelberg Catechism, and Luther’s Small Catechism.

The denomination gained a little bit of notoriety in 2004, when it aired (or tried to air) some commercials that showed a “bouncer” admitting a white family into a church but refusing entrance to an African American woman, a Latino man, a gay couple, and a person using a wheelchair. After this, the text on the screen read “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we.” There was also a commercial in which people are shown being shot out of church pews equipped with ejector seats: an African-American woman with a crying baby, two men holding hands, an Arab-American man, and a man using a walker. The tag line for that commercial was “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we.” (UPDATED: The commercial is on YouTube.)

I don’t remember ever seeing these commercials. They sound a little silly to me, though, because I’ve never seen a church refuse entrance to anyone (such places may very well exist, but I’ve never encountered them). It would take something awfully extreme to get churches to refuse to let someone in the door – brandishing a knife and shouting obscenities might do the trick, but short of that there’s not much you could do to get kicked out. I know of more than one urban congregation that welcomes some bad-smelling, delusional street people into their High Church liturgical services week after week, even though these people are disruptive and sometimes downright alarming. And yet every week the regular members greet them, talk to them after the service, and sit near them. (True, the nearness is precautionary, so that someone will be at hand to intervene should the visitor lose control of his or her shaky hold on reality.)

Of course, the ads were designed to illustrate churches metaphorically turning people away, but even then I’m skeptical. I’ve read that old saying about Sunday morning being the most segregated hour in America, but it doesn’t seem to be so true anymore – at least, not in the churches I’ve seen, and certainly not in the ones I’ve been visiting over the past few weeks.
And though I’m sure there are churches where openly gay couples aren’t welcome, there are also quite a few where they are more than welcome. As for churches turning away people with crying babies – most churches positively cater to young families (even if they prefer that you take noisy kids to the well-equipped nursery during the service). And refusing entrance to people who use walkers – good grief, that group forms quite a substantial bloc in most churches!

There’s one other thing about the Congregational Church that I noticed after my visit. Barack Obama was, until the big controversy over his pastor’s statements in mid-2008, a member of Trinity United Church of Christ. That church was established in 1961 (only four years after the denomination itself had been created). Trinity first met in a school gymnasium, with the goal of founding an integrated urban church – they planned to later merge with a white church, and have two co-pastors, one black and one white. However, this never happened (because of disinterest on the part of local white congregations, according to most observers). Trinity’s congregation languished, reaching a low point of about 250 members (100 of them active) in 1972.

At that time Chicago was a center for militant black religious groups such as The Nation of Islam and the Black Hebrew Israelites (many members of this group considered themselves the only authentic Jews, another surprising take on religious identity). Militant groups tended to argue that Christianity is “the white man’s religion,” and that proud black people should have no part of it. Trinity’s leaders felt that their quest to be a black church within a mainline white denomination was rather quixotic in this environment. Also, they wanted to let people know that it was okay to be both black and Christian.

The interim pastor in 1972, Rev. Reuben A. Sheares II, coined a new motto for the congregation: Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian. (Again with the church slogans! But this one is pretty interesting.) Theologian Martin Marty has weighed in on this slogan, noting that being “unashamedly black” does not mean being “anti-white.” Rather, it is a repudiation of the debilitating legacy and shame of slavery and of segregation in church and society.

Jeremiah Wright interviewed for the position of pastor on December 31, 1971, and got the job. Church historians report that he saw a main part of his job as convincing people that Christianity is not inherently racist, and not for whites only. He wanted to adopt some of the positive aspects of the Black Power message that was attracting so many adherents at the time, but at the same time reject its ideas of separation and of black superiority. The church flourished with Wright as pastor, growing to more than 8,000 members.

It’s a fascinating story. Like most white Christians, I’m not sure how a person gets from trying to show that Christianity is not inherently racist to proclaiming “God damn America” from the pulpit (the video clip that was shown repeatedly when the Jeremiah Wright story broke during the 2008 primary season). But I don’t know the whole story.

What I have been thinking about, though, while doing this little bit of poking around into the history of Our Lady of La Salette and the Congregational Church, is how weirdly often people start out with one goal in mind and end up doing something, or proclaiming something, that seems utterly at odds with their original intention. Those pious children in the French countryside and their supporters surely wished to strengthen and promote the Church, not to create a public relations nightmare for it. And a church founded with the explicit purpose of promoting racial harmony became a symbol of racial strife.

It’s almost enough to make a person believe in some version of those French literary theories about how there is a layer of meaning under each text that runs contrary to the author’s conscious intention. Every text contains its own opposite, and every sign points to its negative doppelganger.

Churches are certainly heavily loaded with signs and significations. Most of us see or hear these signs every Sunday in a sort of uncomprehending fog, partly because there is so much going on there that we just can’t take it all in. According to some theorists, we would also be absorbing the reverse messages at the same time.

Hey - applying this half-formed half-thought to myself, are my efforts to visit and understand and empathize with many strains of Christianity a sign that I’m not very tolerant?

Nah – that’s crazy talk. Couldn’t happen. I’m the most open-minded person in the world.

I just like some ideas and places more than others.

Really.

No prejudice here. Nothing to see on that score.

Let’s just move along.

Photo courtesy Flickr user cogdogblog

Joys and concerns, part two

Old South Church is only a few blocks away. Neil drops Leslie and me off in front of the church, and drives down the street to find a coffee shop where he can wait for us. Old South is a Congregational church affiliated with the United Church of Christ. Although I was confirmed in a Congregational Church, this is another one of the denominations about which I know very little, and I know I will need to look this up later.

The church bulletin, though, is quite informative. Old South Church was founded in 1768, and was the home to the first legislature of the newly formed State of Vermont in 1768. The original building must have been destroyed at some point, because the building in which we are now meeting was erected in 1798. This building is the “oldest church on its original site in continuous use as a house of worship in Vermont,” according to the bulletin.

It’s a lovely edifice, with white walls and a blue ceiling, nice old woodwork, and unusual and very beautiful stained glass windows. What makes them unusual is that the stained glass is built into shutter-like panels, so that they can be opened, as they are on this morning. Behind the stained glass windows are clear glass panes. So we have both the clear glass windows letting in the light of God, and the lovely stained glass turning our hearts to heaven – a sweet combination of the two main theories about church windows!

There is a central pulpit, and an interesting old pipe organ behind it. I wonder if it actually works, it looks so old. The church can comfortably seat about 200 people, and there are probably a little over 100 in attendance. They have a great bulletin -- very clear, informative, and easy to follow.

The pastor, Rev. Amanda Lape-Freeberg, walks around and speaks to people before the service. She greets Leslie and me, and thanks us for coming. When the service begins, with a welcome and announcements, I am surprised to see a man walking around the sanctuary handing everyone who has something to say a cordless microphone to speak into – the sanctuary isn’t very large, and this doesn’t seem to be a particularly high-tech service –why the mike? Later I learned that the services are recorded for shut-ins, and everyone who talks speaks into the microphone so that the shut-ins won’t miss anything. I came to think of this (the desire to capture everyone’s comments) as one of the truly representative aspects of this church, as will become more apparent later.

The Introit is done as a round – the congregation is divided into two groups for singing “Be Still and Know That I Am God.” It goes off amazingly well, considering that we seem to be your average group of not particularly gifted singers.

The service continues with prayers, a hymn, the confession, moment of silence, and assurance of forgiveness, the Gloria Patri, and special music (a vocalist accompanied by a pianist). Then the pastor calls the children up for the children’s sermon, which they call, in the bulletin, Simply Speaking.

There are seven or eight children, and they sit in the first pew with their backs to the congregation. Rev. Lape-Freeberg asks them to imagine how God might have created the world. She uses three props – a lamp, a water pistol, and a CD player – to illustrate things coming into being. She says “Let there be light,” and someone plugs in the lamp. She says, “Let there be water,” and a confederate sitting in the pew directly behind the children squirts them with the water pistol (amazingly, this does not cause any screaming, just some giggling). She says “Let there be music,” and someone turns on the CD player.

It goes off very well – the pastor is natural and enthusiastic, no one is frightened by the water pistol (which seems to me like the most obvious place for this to fall apart), and the children are attentive and interested. The whole thing takes about five minutes.

Children’s sermons are popular with many churchgoers, but not often with pastors. They are difficult to do well. You have to keep them short, so they must be very well planned. If you get a group of kids who all want to talk, they can go on endlessly (and unintelligibly).

But the more common problem is that children freeze in front of all those staring eyes, and refuse to respond to any of the pastor’s increasingly desperate questions – “So, can anyone think of something God gives us? Anything? Anything at all? . . . . How about food? . . . . How about parents? . . . . . Do you think God gives us friends? . . . . Can you think of anything God has given you? I’ll give you a hint . . . . . . .”

To add to the pastor’s discomfort, children’s sermons are the prop comedy of homiletics. Many adults in the congregation seem to expect the equivalent of Kids Say the Darndest Things, and eagerly look forward to amusing or heartwarming bloopers.

So, someone giving a children’s sermon has to speak and manipulate objects, while simultaneously interacting with a group of children in front of a group of adults. Plus the whole performance has to convey some sort of actual gospel message. It’s no wonder that some pastors dread them.

The sermon is titled “God the Creator.” Rev. Lape-Freeberg lets us know that she will be referring to God using masculine words and pronouns, and apologizes if that offends anyone. Her point is that most of us believe that God is neither male nor female, but we have to use language to speak about God, and sometimes it is just very awkward to do so without using gendered pronouns, and gendered terms such as “Father.”

I know plenty of good Christians are angry and/or dismissive of attempts to deal with the issue of gendered language in any way whatsoever. Some of them, of course, do believe that God is male, so any attempts to conceal His maleness through language seem to be outright efforts to emasculate Him. He is our Father, they argue, so what’s the deal with gender-neutral language?
Some people think that God is not a sexual being in any sense we can imagine, and therefore neither male nor female, but still would prefer we just stick to the traditional language, because it is customary, beautiful, and inspired. I thought the pastor’s response was reasonable – I’m sorry if my language offends you, but it’s too hard to use any other language in the context of the first chapter of Genesis. Of course, there are people who would be offended by her apology – one of the sorry lessons of pastoring is that you’re almost always bound to offend someone whenever you open your mouth.

The point of the sermon is that we should have a sense of wonder when contemplating God’s power of being able to call the world into being from nothingness.

During the offering there is a musical production – “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” performed by three men (clarinet, saxophone, vocalist) and the Director of Music on the piano. They have what jazz musicians call a train wreck near the beginning of their number, so they simply stop and begin again.

I admire their willingness to perform in front of friends and neighbors, and I truly admire and enjoy the music. You know, we are incredibly fortunate in regard to music. If we lived in any other era except for the recent present, the opportunity to hear a wide variety of great music performed by great musicians would be something quite rare – even for the wealthy and powerful. But now, because we happen to live in this amazing age, we can hear the greatest and most accomplished musicians in any genre whenever we want, wherever we happen to be, just by popping a CD into a player, or turning on a computer or MP3 player. This is a staggering thing.

However, what we can’t hear, most of the time, is ordinary people making music. To me this seems like a bit of a loss. I like hearing amateur musicians. I like it when they perform well, and I sympathize and still enjoy it when they don’t do so well. In this particular case, these men stumbled during the first few bars, recovered with grace and dignity, and played and sang for us – a gift from them to us.

The service is obviously winding down – the only part left before the benediction and final hymn, according to the bulletin, is the Joys and Concerns, which is in many churches a quick listing of good or bad events occurring to the congregation during the week. At Old South, though, as I soon realized, Joys and Concerns are in some ways the heart of the service.
The man with the microphone comes out again, so that everyone can be clearly heard and recorded. People share for at least fifteen minutes, and more than one person speaks with tears – tears of both joy and sorrow. The kinds of things they mention are the stuff of ordinary life – children going away or coming home, sickness and recovery, jobs lost or found, people going on mission trips, etc. It somehow doesn’t strike me as soppy, in spite of the occasional tears – people are just talking about their lives, and they are setting before the congregation their hopes and needs. This would be a hard thing to accomplish in a large church, but it’s one of the strengths of a small church.

The pastor asks Leslie and me where we are from when we shake hands going out the door. This church is accustomed to the occasional summer tourist.

Photo courtesy Flickr user bobw235

Joys and concerns, part one

St. Francis of Assisi
and
Old South Church
Windsor, Vermont
June 24, 2007

We vacationed in Vermont the last week of June – me, Neil, and Neil’s sister, Leslie. So this turned into another two-church Sunday. First we all attended the 9:00 mass at St. Francis of Assisi, and then Leslie and I went to the 10:30 service at Old South Church. I wasn’t able to do any preparatory study before going to these churches (no Internet connection where we were staying), so I just walked through the doors and worshipped with some Vermonters.

St. Francis of Assisi is a modern red brick building. Inside the sanctuary, folding chairs are arranged to seat about 200-250 people and there are probably at least 175 people present. There are few windows, but a large skylight admits light directly over the altar, which is a lovely, dramatic touch. An organ and piano sit to the left. The large crucifix affixed to the back wall features a fully robed, risen Christ holding up his arms in blessing. As is often the case with depictions of Christ, this one is really skinny; he would stand about 7 feet tall and weigh about 130 pounds if he came to life.

The priest, in a white robe with thin black stripes, processes up the aisle at the beginning of the service, along with two sweet young girls wearing white robes and flip-flops, and three women in ordinary clothing. I assume the man is Father Paul Belhumeur, listed on the front of the bulletin as the pastor of this church. A pianist, along with two men and two women, leads the congregational singing. I have my usual trouble finding hymns and readings in Catholic services, but I am not the only person who isn’t singing, and the other people who are not singing seem comfortable just standing there listening.

The priest reads the passage from Luke about the birth of John the Baptist, and tells us that today is the Feast of John the Baptist. He points out that this day comes immediately after the summer solstice, and that Christmas is the Sunday after the winter solstice. Thus, the yearly cycle of the sun and the ministries of John and Jesus correspond to John’s saying, “I must decrease, but he must increase.” Neat.

The priest reads a quotation from Patricia Sanchez, and says that today is a good day to reflect upon our own vocations – like John, we are called to announce Jesus. (Hey, I’m thinking about vocation on vacation!) His 12-15 minute sermon is very Christ-centered and clear.
People bring their children to the front with them when they go forward for Communion, and the priest lays hands on and blesses the children who are too young to partake, a very nice custom.

There is a closing prayer and then a closing hymn, but most people walk out in the middle of the hymn. (I later noticed an article in the parish newsletter titled “Why do some people leave Mass early?” Apparently there are Catholic churches in which large numbers of people arrive late and then exit immediately after taking Communion. The article said that this habit arose out of a misunderstanding of pre-Vatican II teaching, and that people should stay until the recessional hymn.) There is a small area in the rear of the sanctuary set up for coffee and refreshments, and I pick up a quick mini-muffin and some literature before leaving.

Photo courtesy Flickr user PhilipC.

The Legos Bible

Finally, what we've all been waiting for: the Bible illustrated in Legos.

You know you want to see this!

Five pounds of bread, Lord?

Community Gospel Chapel

Voorhees, New Jersey

June 17, 2007

Lucky indeed. Just a couple blocks from the LDS church I find the Community Gospel Chapel, which has an 11:00 “Bible Hour.” (Later, after I’m home, I realize that I never would have found this church by looking through the yellow pages, as it is not listed.)

As I enter the parking lot a little before 11:00, I wonder if perhaps the sign out front was wrong; there are only six cars in the parking lot. But I see someone entering the front doors, and I follow.Inside, framed Bible verses hang on the walls of the vestibule. Some very friendly people greet me and urge me to come down to the basement fellowship area, where people are eating. I am invited to eat with them. They are having what looks like picnic food - barbecued chicken, potato salad, and fruit salad.

This is a small but very racially balanced group (white, black, and Asian), and everyone is quite welcoming. I am introduced to just about everyone present. The food is from a church get-together at someone’s home yesterday, and it seems that everyone had a great time.

As people prepare for church, I notice that the women are donning head coverings, mostly black or white lace scarves. I inquire about this, and the woman who first greeted me says that she keeps extras for visitors, if I’d like to borrow one, and I say fine, that would be great. She’s very nice about this; she waited for me to ask, and made a point of noting that I was welcome to borrow the scarf, but certainly not required to wear it.

We go upstairs for the service, and the woman who gave me the head covering sits with me in a pew near the front. The sanctuary is small (seating about one hundred or maybe slightly fewer, I think). The walls are painted a crisp mint green, and darker green curtains hang at the sides of the clear glass windows. The platform features a center pulpit, and American and Christian flags on either side (I haven’t been keeping track of this up till now, but I suddenly realize that almost every sanctuary has two flags up front – usually the American flag and the Christian flag, but sometimes other combinations).

There is an organ on one side of the center platform, and a piano on the other, and a screen has been pulled down in the center, behind the pulpit. An overhead projector beams the words of the hymns onto the screen, but the copying is fuzzy, so the words are a little difficult to see. There is a bulletin of sorts. It is not really a program for the service, but rather a compendium of general information for the month. It tells me that Community Gospel Chapel has a Breaking of Bread service at 9:30 am, refreshment and fellowship at 10:30 am, Sunday School for children at 10:45 am, Bible Hour at 11:00 am, and then a Bible Ministry Meeting at 6:00 pm on Sundays. So I must have entered at the end of the refreshment and fellowship time. There is also a 7:30 pm Hour of Prayer every Wednesday, followed by an Elders’ Meeting, and there is a Men’s Business Meeting the third Wednesday of every month.

There doesn’t seem to be a pastor at Gospel Fellowship. Instead, speakers are listed for each Sunday. Interestingly, the speaker two weeks ago was a man named Wali Ahmad – a Middle Easterner? Today’s speaker will be a man from this congregation. In addition, two people have been named as Emblem Passers for the month. Various women of the congregation are responsible for the refreshments each Sunday.

Something about all this seems tantalizingly familiar, but I can’t place it. Gospel Chapel, Breaking of Bread, Bible Hour, Emblem Passers, the framed scripture verses, no paid ministers, no offering, head coverings – what denomination is this? I ask my hostess, but she tells me that they are not members of any denomination, just Christians. That also sounds familiar.

A black man leads us through some old-fashioned hymns; we are accompanied by an older white woman on the organ and a young black man on the piano, who seems to be the son of the song leader. Later the young man does a nice solo on the organ.

The sermon is delivered by a man who tells us that he is 75 years old and owns a plumbing business. He is wearing an American flag tie. He takes us through a large number of Bible texts – this is a sermon in the “Bible aerobics” style, where the congregation is asked to follow along by lifting a heavy Bible onto their laps and then flipping rapidly back and forth among dozens of verses. Almost everyone has brought his or her own Bible, and many are enclosed in those big leather or plastic cases that are popular with many Christians.

The almost weightless scarf on my head is astonishingly heavy; I’m constantly imagining that it has slipped off or gone awry, and reaching up to twitch it imperceptibly closer. For the first time in nearly forty years, I wish I had a bobby pin – and suddenly realize that I haven’t so much as seen a bobby pin in almost forty years. Do they still exist? They were ubiquitous in my childhood; every woman and girl had supplies at hand, in the bedroom, bathroom, and stuffed into purses. All vanished now, at least in my world.

In addition, I seem to be hyper-aware of the lacy black film on the edges of my peripheral vision, and have to consciously avoid checking the position of this apparition, which seems to shimmer and appear and disappear, depending on how my eyes are focused. The weight of this mini-hajib is much greater than I had expected, at least psychologically.

I’m sorry to report that I am not entirely sure what the point of the sermon is. It is long (about 40 minutes), and covers lots of territory. I have found this rambling style typical of non-professional preachers, so this is not surprising. At any rate, what really gives me pause is that at one point the speaker mentions that he was saved at the age of eight, and baptized by MacKintosh. He pauses at this point, and says, “Not the famous MacKintosh – I’m not that old! – but I think it was his son.” Aha – this is a Brethren church, I bet!

Early in our Christian lives Neil was very interested in the Plymouth Brethren. He even owned the complete works of John Nelson Darby, the Plymouth Brethren preacher who first came up with the doctrine of the Rapture. (The Rapture teaches that Christians will be whisked off the earth and into heaven during the end times, just before the Great Tribulation. This is the basis for the popular Left Behind series of books.) I didn’t read nearly as much theology as he did, but I absorbed a good bit of information about the Brethren.

No offering is taken - another characteristic of Brethren churches. At the end of the service I return the head scarf to the woman who lent it to me, and she urges me to come downstairs and take home some of the leftover food. I follow her downstairs, where a man is packing up the supplies, and he loads up a plastic bag with whole wheat and whole grain breads and muffins, and insists that I take it. I leave the church amid many friendly wishes and good-byes.

My impression of the group is that they are a happy, dedicated, close-knit bunch. Even though they wouldn’t agree with much of the theology of, say, the Bible Presbyterians, they share other qualities of that group, such as their determination to lead a life that is “in the world, but not of it.” (Until you’ve tried doing this, on any level, you don’t realize how difficult and yet rewarding it can be.)

In the last eight weeks I have experienced various modes of following Christ’s command to eat the bread and drink the cup. I’ve had thin round flour-and-water wafers, pieces of ordinary white bread, and pita bread. I’ve drunk wine and grape juice. I’ve taken Communion via intinction. I’ve gone up to the altar, and I’ve had the elements served to me as I sat in my pew. How many different ways can the church re-enact this sacrament? (Brethren would not use the word sacrament, by the way.) If God is trying to say something to me via the symbolism of the bread, I’m ready to listen. But what is it? All I know is, I’m driving home with five pounds of bread (five pounds, Lord?), and thinking about these very foreign and yet very familiar Christians with whom I’ve just spent the last hour.

At home, I checked the entry for Plymouth Brethren on Wikipedia. Plymouth Brethren originated not in Plymouth, England, but in Dublin, Ireland, around 1827. But they first became well known in Plymouth, and that’s why the name stuck. There are two main distinctions among Brethren, the Open Brethren and the Closed (or Exclusive) Brethren.

As you might guess from the names, Open Brethren let anyone attend their meetings, and Closed Brethren tend to have a members-only system, although the differences can seem small to an outsider. For example, Open Brethren might say it’s fine for anyone to attend a service, but outsiders cannot take Communion (which is just like plenty of other churches). A few Exclusive Brethren congregations might forbid outsiders from attending any part of their service, but others operate pretty much the same way as the Open Brethren churches in that regard. Open Brethren groups are usually autonomous, whereas Closed Brethren groups have stronger connections with each other. One of the main practical results of this is that a member who has been “disciplined” by a Closed Brethren group might find it difficult to take Communion with another Closed Brethren group, which will honor the decision of the first group and refuse to let the disciplined brother break bread with them.

Another difference is that some Open Brethren groups will cooperate with other churches; for example, they might allow their youth to participate in a youth group event at a conservative evangelical church. Closed Brethren groups are much less likely to participate in ecumenical activities. All the groups look askance on symbols, and would be unlikely to have a cross displayed in their meeting halls. They would be really, really unlikely to display a religious statue or picture. The only “decoration” that is viewed favorably is framed Bible verses, and you’ll find these in Brethren meeting rooms and homes. I’ve cross-stitched and needlepointed my share of Bible verses for just such purposes.

Like the Mormons, Brethren do not believe in a paid clergy. Instead, assemblies are governed by groups of elders (men only), and some groups even worry that the title of Elder sounds a little too much like clergy, and just call the people who make decisions “leading brothers.” Other groups have found it necessary to find someone who can be paid to take on full-time preaching and teaching duties, but even in those cases they call such men something like a “laboring brother” or “full-time worker” rather than something that sounds more churchy, such as pastor.

Brethren place tremendous emphasis on the Lord’s Supper, and celebrate it every week, usually in a special one-hour service, sometimes called the “Breaking of the Bread” or “Remembrance Service.” They typically call the bread and wine emblems. I find it quite interesting that this group, which probably places more emphasis on the Lord’s Supper in terms of time within the service devoted to it that any other group, also holds strongly to a non-sacramental view of the elements – that is, they are memorialists, who believe that the elements (or emblems) are symbols of Christ’s sacrifice and not actual conveyances of His presence.

Folks on the other side of the question (who often self-identify as believers in the Real Presence) usually think that memorialists hold a less exalted, less respectful, and just generally less worshipful view of the Lord’s Supper, but in actuality you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who emphasizes its importance more than Brethren congregations.

Remembrance Services are usually arranged much like Quaker services; there is no formal liturgy. Rather, men (women are usually not allowed to speak) will speak, quote Scripture, pray, or begin a hymn (with no musical instruments allowed) as they are moved by the Spirit. Toward the end of the hour someone will pray over the bread, break it, and begin passing it around. The quiet, prayerful congregants break off pieces and eat them individually. The same system is used for the wine. (Brethren tend to use wine rather than grape juice, but they might allow grape juice for someone who has had problems with alcohol.) I hope this congregation will allow me to observe their Breaking of Bread service at some point in the future, when my year of visiting churches is over.

The influence of the Brethren has been quite disproportionate to their tiny numbers and relatively recent arrival upon the religious scene. It’s rather difficult to estimate numbers, as most Brethren fellowships do not keep membership rolls; in fact, in many cases you can’t actually “join” a Brethren church; you just show up and fellowship, or you don’t. They are famous for support of foreign missionaries, and a surprising number of Christian leaders have Brethren roots. Then, of course, there’s that whole end times/Rapture thing, which has influenced huge swathes of the evangelical world.

I found a Plymouth Brethren discussion forum on the Internet, and poking around there I learned that they seem to be concerned about the same things as most other churches. For example, there are predictions that the group will be out of business within another twenty or thirty years, due to dwindling numbers. Roy Hill, a chronicler of Brethren history, notes that in the 1950s there were about 1800 Brethren assemblies in the United Kingdom, with around 100,000 or so attendees. By 2003 there were only about 1100 assemblies and 40,000 attendees. There’s a bit of lively discussion on the forum about why women are not allowed to speak in assembly meetings. For example: “There have been times I have been moved at a Breaking of Bread service to share a song or even just to read a scripture and I can't share because I lost the lottery in gender. Yet I get to listen to men who have no idea of what they speaking of.”

So it happened that I visited two very different types of restorationist churches on this Sunday, an LDS church and a Brethren church: one denomination big and famous, the other small and obscure (and also adamant about not being identified as a denomination). I’m becoming increasingly glad that I am visiting all these churches. This project is turning out to be more interesting than I had imagined.