The parish that supported me for ordination was a wonderful, lively little church called the Church of the Advocate. The Advocate was a mission parish, born in 2003 out of the sense that it was time for something new in the Episcopal landscape of Orange County, North Carolina. My husband and I were part of a church we loved, but we were energized by the opportunity to be part of something new, to build church from the ground up. So we became part of the founding congregation – the group of 40 or 50 folks who became the Church of the Advocate.

Phil and I were ideal candidates for something like this – young, childless, energetic, with no investment in doing things the way they’d always been done. And many other members of the founding congregation were in their 20s and 30s, as well. But among our numbers were also a few elders – like George and Mary Esser. They were in their 80s, and had been faithful members of one of the established parishes in the area for decades. But they believed deeply in the need for a new mission. And when the Advocate got started, they didn’t just send a check and support it from the comfort of their familiar pew. They joined up – Mary wheeling George’s wheelchair into our borrowed meeting hall, week after week.

By the time our son Griffin was born, George and Mary were in an assisted living facility and weren’t getting to church as regularly. But they remained as involved as possible. They asked Phil and I to visit – they wanted to meet the baby! So we brought Griffin to meet them. They admired him, and gave him a book of classic children’s stories, and we chatted. I remember thinking that I should hold this moment in memory. I had heard a little, here and there, about who George was and what he had accomplished, with Mary at his side, and I knew we were bringing our son to be blessed by two of our local saints. Mary and George are both gone, now – gone to join that great fellowship of saints that watches over us with love and prayer.

Gone, but far from forgotten. Just two weeks ago, while back in North Carolina for a visit, I learned a lot more of George Esser’s story. A documentary called “Change Comes Knocking” was screened at the Episcopal history conference I was attending. The film tells the story of the North Carolina Fund. Launched in 1963, the North Carolina Fund was a five-year initiative to fight poverty statewide, by creating community action agencies and supporting experimental projects in education, health, job training, housing, and community development. The Fund was created by the visionary young governor Terry Sanford, who recruited a bright young lawyer named George Esser to head the initiative. Esser and Sanford believed that disadvantaged people had to be involved in anti-poverty work – that the ultimate goal was to empower communities to change their own circumstances. So they recruited a racially- and economically-diverse board, and solicited applications for project funding from around the state, eventually funding eleven projects in different areas.

For the first two years, the Fund’s main mission was to send out teams of college students to spend the summer in communities around the state, helping with local anti-poverty initiatives. These teams were integrated, men and women, white and black – they were both inspiring and threatening in their very existence. They were sent out rather like Jesus’ disciples, in pairs, as lambs in the midst of wolves, with few tools besides their good spirits and their determination to change the world. In one photo from these years, a young white woman stands with half-a-dozen young children – boys and girls, black and white – laughing together at the antics of a penguin in a zoo. A simple, sweet picture, and yet deeply controversial in the still-segregated South.

The racial integration of the Fund’s board and its student teams threatened the established racial order of Southern civic life. And as the Fund continued its work, its leaders learned that they couldn’t simply dispense with racism by acting as if it didn’t exist. Fighting poverty meant addressing powerlessness, and addressing powerlessness meant tackling racism. The Fund’s work was rocking the boat – and it attracted more and more anger from the white leadership in the state. It was accused of funding revolutionaries and threatening the social structure. A local politician once stuck his fist in George Esser’s face and told him, “You are destroying the Southern way of life!”

Esser’s greatest battleground was Durham, North Carolina, a city with a large poor black population. The Fund’s project in Durham was called Operation Breakthrough, headed by a young black community organizer from Chicago named Howard Fuller. Fuller gathered community members to decide together how to improve their circumstances, and they chose to tackle the issue of substandard and unsafe housing, often owned by white absentee landlords. The newly-mobilized community leaders sought help from the Durham Housing Authority, but that body was dominated by the slumlords and negotiations broke down. Protests followed, with black men, women, and children walking the streets of Durham holding signs calling for safer homes and lower rents. Then Fuller gave a speech about the need for black empowerment. This was very frightening for racist white leaders, and the NC Fund came under pressure to fire Fuller and distance themselves from the growing activism in Durham and other communities.

Instead of firing Fuller, George Esser promoted him, to coordinate community organizing statewide. The Fund made the courageous choice to side with the grassroots, to stay committed to the democratic mobilization of the poor. They hadn’t set out to support marches and protests, but three years into their work, they understood that the patterns of racism and injustice were so entrenched that politics as usual wasn’t going to change anything. And Esser’s faith in Fuller was justified. Even in the hot summer of 1967 when there were race riots across the U.S.,  even in the summer of ’68 in the terrible grief and anger following MLK’s assassination, Fuller kept the protests in Durham peaceful. Durham never rioted; Durham never burned.

It took great courage for George Esser and his family, and the other leaders at the Fund, to face the anger and fear of the white establishment in North Carolina. It took even more courage to keep up the struggle within their own church. George and Mary were lifelong Episcopalians, always active and committed. In 1967, the Episcopal Church’s General Convention set aside $9 million to fund anti-poverty and social justice initiatives, including some of Howard Fuller’s work in Durham. The Diocese of North Carolina was sharply divided over this. The vestry of the Essers’ parish passed a resolution opposing this funding. When George and Mary heard of this, they requested a hearing with the vestry and spent three hours trying to change their minds. They only changed one vote; the resolution stood.

George remained involved with civil rights and anti-poverty work in North Carolina and beyond, throughout his life. But the North Carolina Fund closed its doors in 1968, as planned from the start. However, many of the organizations and projects it had supported lived on, and still live on. North Carolina has the best community development infrastructure in the nation, thanks to the Fund’s work. The Fund had a nationwide legacy as well – in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson decided to tackle poverty nationwide, his advisors looked to North Carolina for ideas. So the Fund’s work endures in North Carolina and beyond – a remarkable legacy for George Esser and his equally brave companion, Mary.

I’m proud to have known George and Mary, saints of our country’s struggle with poverty and racism. But remember the song – The saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too! The lives of godly and courageous men and women call us to examine our own times and our own lives. . Paul advises the church in Galatia – and, across the ages, the church in Hopkinton: Bear one another’s burdens. Do not grow weary in doing what is right… and whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all. Where is God calling us to struggle for what is right, to work for the good of all?

At the history conference, one speaker described George’s work with a quotation from ancient Greece: Patriotism is worthy competition with one’s ancestors. True patriotism is not unthinking loyalty, but loving your country enough to work to make it better.  For us as Christians, the lens through which we view our country’s blessings and failings is the lens of the kingdom of God. America is not yet a place where a seed once planted can grow freely without being choked or starved – not yet a place where all who come to the table are fed – not yet a place where gender, race, creed and status cannot divide.

When you look up at the altar here at St. Andrew’s, you see it flanked by two flags – the American flag on one side, and the Episcopal flag on the other, with the cross between them. I invite you to read these symbols from right to left – Episcopalians following Christ and striving to do his work, as citizens of the United States of America. On July 4, Independence Day, we celebrate what is good and worthy in our nation’s history – including the work and witness of saints like George Esser. However you celebrate this day, with parades, watermelon, and fireeworks, never forget that our country always has need of more people of courage and principle, to help us live more deeply into the great ideals of our founding. And never forget that God is always ready to put more saints to work.

Miranda K. Hassett

St. Andrew’s, Hopkinton – July 4, 2010

The shirts will have the logo & the church’s name on the front. On the back, I think they should say something attention-getting. Something funny or clever or poetic that also contains some truth about who we are. Time for some brainstorming! Read on, & share your ideas.

Lots of Episcopal churches have done “Top Ten Reasons to Be an Episcopalian” on the backs of T-shirts. This is fun, and I feel particularly entitled to use it, because I was part of a youth event planning team way back in the early 90s that first brainstormed such a list. (It’s often attributed to Robin Williams. No idea whether he plagiarized us at some point, or whether that’s completely fictitious.)

Here’s a sample 10 – they could be tweaked: 10. No snake handling. 9. Pew aerobics (sit, stand, kneel…) 8. Free wine. 7. We can believe in dinosaurs. 6. All of the pageantry, none of the guilt. 5. Church year is color-coded. 4. No matter what you believe, there’s bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you. 3. You don’t have to check your mind at the door.  2. Male and female God created them, male and female we ordain them. 1. All are welcome – NO EXCEPTIONS.

Cute, yes? My hesitations – some of these are a little snarky for an interdenominational context; and the very concept of a Top 10 list feels kind of dated to me. Very 90s. (Is Letterman even doing that anymore?) Hmm.

Some other directions – Snippets from hymns? “Forgiven, loved, and free”, in big cool letters, from Brian Wren’s wonderful Communion hymn “I come with joy to meet my Lord”? Or – I like this – “For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too!” With the last phrase nice and big. Simple bits of text like this can be made eye-catching with good design.

Snippets from Scripture? Maybe something from the Epistles, which have some wonderful passages about Christian community? (Good friends of mine once spotted a church group at a fast food restaurant who were all wearing T-shirts that said “Arise – Kill – Eat” on the back. A paraphrase of Acts 10:13, evidently – but it seems like an odd summary of the Christian message.)

A snippet of something we say often – in our liturgy, in our common life? For example: “All are welcome… no exceptions!”

I don’t think it should be anything too mission-statement-y. Mission statements a) take a while to develop, b) tend to be wordy and c) tend to use insider language. This isn’t the right space for that. On the other hand, there may be another, catchy way to describe ourselves. My sponsoring parish in Chapel Hill has three words that sum them up well: “Compassion – Justice – Transformation.” That’s catchy. Could we come up with something comparable for St. Andrew’s?

Other ideas? All thoughts welcome – this is brainstorming, after all!

On Saturday, April 3rd, the day before Easter Sunday, St. Andrew’s hosted a new event presenting the Easter story for children. Drawing on Gretchen Wolff Pritchard’s work on presenting Gospel stories for children, we told and enacted the story at the same time. Five youth and several adults assisted (thanks, Noah, Quincy, Carly, Peter, Josh, Tom, and others!). About fifteen children came and participated. I think we all really enjoyed the occasion, and it certainly helped me get into the Easter spirit! Here are some photos.

We chose to have Iona baptized in a manner roughly following the practices of the early Church. Easter Vigil, the great and ancient service of the night leading into Easter, was the time when all new Christians were baptized during the first centuries of Christianity. After a long period (sometimes years) of getting to know, and be known by, the local Christian community, those seeking baptism would enter a period of intensive instruction during the season of Lent, and be baptized in time to participate in the Easter Eucharist. Baptism at Easter highlights the paschal meanings of the sacrament – baptism is a rite of death and rebirth, modeled on Christ’s death and resurrection. When, just after the baptisms, we should out, “The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” – we are celebrating not only Christ’s resurrection, but the newly-baptized rising to new life.

Iona was baptized naked,with plenty of water – and we dressed her in her white baptismal gown (first worn, we think, by her maternal grandfather!) after the baptism. In this, too, we followed the ancient practices of the church. Back then, everybody was baptized naked – men, women, and children – in a large baptismal pool. Of course, they also lived in the Mediterranean, and it probably wasn’t so chilly on a spring night! As Christianity moved into the colder climes of Europe, this ancient practice of baptism was replaced by the more familiar rite of dribbling some water on the head of a (fully-clothed) child or adult. You don’t want all the newly-baptized catching pneumonia!

We chose to approximate the ancient practice with Iona (and our son, who was baptized in a similar fashion when he was a baby) not because we believe the oldest practice is always the best – there’s a lot of richness in rediscovering the practices of the ancient church, but a lot has changed in 2000 years and we can’t or wouldn’t wish to do everything exactly the way they did it!

Instead, we are attracted to these practices because they make the symbolism of baptism so clear and powerful. Dunking a baby in water, or even pouring a lot of water over a baby’s head, is a little scary – and it should be; baptism is about death. A naked, screaming, wet baby reminds us of the moment when a child first emerges from the womb – and it should; baptism is about birth. The white frock gets dirty and crumpled instantly, but when first put on, it’s clean and crisp and shining – just like the purity of new life that we celebrate at every baptism.

I am so grateful that wherever life leads us, Iona will always have been baptized at St. Andrew’s – will always have been welcomed into the fellowship of Christ by this warm and loving community. Thanks be to God!

This Sunday’s lessons drop us right into the middle of one of the biggest and stickiest questions for people of faith. Why do bad things happen to good people? For that matter, why do bad things happen to ordinary people, neither particularly good nor particularly bad?

Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, thinks he has it figured out. Bad things happened to the Israelites because they worshiped false gods – indulged in immoral behaviors – and complained when things weren’t going well. And if we act the same way, we should expect the same outcome – sudden and violent death.

Jesus, speaking in Luke’s Gospel, complicates this a bit. Those Galileans murdered by Pilate’s men? They weren’t worse sinners than any other average Galilean. And those people crushed when that tower fell – remember that? – they weren’t worse sinners than anybody else living in Jerusalem in these days. The victims of sudden and violent death aren’t especially evil or sinful. They are likely to be just like everybody else.

But then, what explanation can we find? Why do bad things happen to ordinary people? Why do bad things happen at all? And how can we believe in a good and loving God, when the world is so full of suffering?

The bad news is, there’s no tidy answer. The good news is that struggling with this question can lead us deeper into faith,  and give us a clearer vision of God’s nature – and God’s love.

Helen Oppenheimer, an Anglican theological writer, tackles the problem of suffering boldly in her book Helping Children Find God (Morehouse Publishing, 1995) – which is really about helping adults work through their doubts and theological struggles, so they can feel more confident talking about faith.

She begins by setting out the problem: “If there is a God who is maker of heaven and earth, God is responsible for everything in heaven and earth: for earthquakes and viruses and human weakness, as well as for flowers and sunsets and human love.”

Why does God let the bad stuff happen? Why is Concepcion, Chile, in ruins?  Why are there mass graves outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti?  Why… ? You fill in the blank.

A big part of the problem here – Oppenheimer says, and I agree – is the concept of Providence. That’s an old-fashioned word – something from 19^th century pious literature. But if the word is fading from our vocabulary, the mindset of providence is very much alive. Simply put, Providence is the notion that the way things are is the way God intends them to be. If you are wealthy or poor, healthy or ill, if you suffer tragedies or live an untroubled live – it’s all in God’s plan.

It’s hard to question this belief in Providence. It can be surprisingly ingrained in us, even those who don’t believe we think this way at all. And many people take great comfort in their belief that God controls and directs every moment of their lives.

It’s easy to believe in Divine Providence your life is going well, because look how good and gracious God is to you! The shadow side of that belief is the idea that others who live harder lives must please God less.  As Oppenheimer puts it, “Gratitude [for our own blessings] slips easily into smugness.” (48) Our examples of Providence at work  can be thoughtless and downright cruel, when other believers live with the sorrowful knowledge that their heartfelt prayers seem unanswered. (49) I give thanks for the blessing of carrying and birthing two healthy children. But I can say with great certainty that I did not obtain this outcome by praying harder, or being a better person, than friends who have faced prolonged infertility, pregnancy loss, and children with chronic illnesses.

It’s also tempting to believe in Divine Providence when things go wrong. Because we’re desperate for meaning in the face of crisis. But here belief in Providence can become deeply damaging. The natural question is, “Why is God doing this to me?” That question has no good answer – no healthy answer. It can lead to guilt – “I must have done something terrible.” It can lead to rage at a God who must after all be cruel or arbitrary. It can lead to loss of faith.

Yet the reason that question has no good answer is because it’s the wrong question – founded on a fundamental misconception about God.

Living a good life does not mean everything will go well for us. God does not reward piety with a happy, healthy, uncomplicated life.  Oppenheimer says, “The world is not run for the benefit of the devout.” (49) The Bible never said it would be. Jesus never said it would be. They never promised us a rose garden. Where did we get this idea? …

Perhaps we arrive at this notion because we’re trying to honor God – we feel it would be unfaithful to suggest that God is not in charge of every little thing. But it’s not a question of God’s power; it’s a question of God’s character.

We believe, rightly, that love is fundamental to God’s nature – but God loves us too much to control our lives. God, in the act of creation, did not want Barbie dolls in a dream home. God wanted free creatures, capable of thinking and feeling, choosing and acting; and a free world, with its own patterns and powers, beautiful and sometimes terrible. God’s love was so great that God created us free, in a free world – even though that means that God’s great purposes are constantly being challenged by human actions and human choices. In Oppenheimer’s words, ours is “a God who gives creatures space to be themselves, even to the point of taking risks that things may go wrong.” (58)

We recognize God’s hand at work, now and then – certain events glow with holiness so that we say with conviction and joy, “This is God’s doing!” We must also have the courage to say sometimes, “This is not God’s doing.” Plenty of things happen that God does not will. When we let go of that conviction that everything happens for a reason, we have a much better chance of discovering the reality of God’s help and God’s grace.

Bad things – terrible things – happen. The 1979 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, full of the hubris of modern medicine, expunged funeral rites for children, which had been in previous books. In the decades since, people have realized that in spite of the best modern medicine can do, children still die. Funeral materials for children have been re-issued in a separate volume. People are killed in car accidents – struck down by cancer in their prime. Crushed in their homes in an earthquake. How cruel to let anyone believe that God intends these deaths.

Yet the Bible – and Jesus himself – do encourage us to trust God. Fear not! say the angels, the prophets, the saints. God longs to bless us, we are told, again and again – God’s will for us is good. If we’re not trusting God to keep us safe and make our lives roll easy, what are we trusting God to do? If God doesn’t control everything, then how does God act in the world?

Oppenheimer writes, “A responsible Christian faith takes seriously the likelihood that the course of events is often contrary to God’s will… What Christians believe is that God knows the dangers even better than we do, and will always be one step ahead. The Christian hope is that the God who raised Jesus from the dead is able eventually to bring whatever happens to good.” (63)

Our hope as Christians is not in providence, but in grace. Grace is not a vague, watered-down version of Providence, but a true and solid foundation for faith. Grace can be a difficult concept to unpack – as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once famously said about obscenity, “I know it when I see it.” We know that our Sacraments are “means of grace” – but that simply means that they are ways that God makes Godself available.  Likewise, in prayer, we make ourselves available to grace – to work within us, and through us.

Grace isn’t found only in church – it’s the whole fabric of God’s relationship with humanity.  Grace is simply God, present with us, loving us, and always, always working evil into good – sometimes with big flashy works of power that seize our attention, but more often subtly, gently – urging, guiding, comforting, strengthening, speaking softly in our hearts. In John Donne’s phrase, God’s grace knocks, breathes, shines, and seeks to mend. The tragedy isn’t God’s doing – but when we realize, in time, that moving through the tragedy has made us wiser, or stronger, or kinder, or more appreciative of our blessings, that’s God’s grace at work.

Grace can be elusive. Catching God at work in the world can be a matter of corner-of-the-eye glimpses.  There are good reasons for God’s grace to be unobtrusive – God made us free and honors our freedom; God does not wish to orchestrate the world. One of the best things we can do for each other, in a community of faith, is share our stories of when we’ve glimpsed God’s grace – hearing others’ stories can heighten our senses, fine-tuning our ability to perceive grace at work in our own lives – and to respond to it.

For grace demands response, where Providence invites passivity. Instead of butting up against God’s prefabricated plan, as people of grace we may discover that God’s purposes can also become our purposes – that God calls us to join God in working evil into good. We are honored with the responsibility of being God’s agents.

Trusting in God’s grace, we can face crises in the world without a crisis of faith. Knowing that however much we grieve, God grieves more – knowing that however much we yearn to help, God yearns more. No evil, no tragedy can alter God’s will to do good, and we are invited, always, to be healed, and to join the grace-filled work of healing others.

Miranda K. Hassett

March, 2010

People want to change and people don’t to change. People profoundly want to be made new, and people profoundly want to be clothed in Christ, to be born again. And they profoundly want to cling to everything old – about the world, and about themselves.

The thing is, that church, as it’s set up, is not usually a way to change; it’s a way to cling to the way things are. I just read an article about a set of emerging renewed churches, two churches, actually, and one synagogue. And it was all about how we’re making churches that aren’t like those old-fashioned ones, they’re places where we can feel comfortable. But of course that’s the impulse shared by members of the most conservative old-school parish, where you just mumble your way through the mass. Church is a place where you’re comfortable. And it’s a place that certainly replicates class structures and racial structures. You go where you feel you belong…

Of course I understand that people want to feel at home…. You want a place that feels authentic and real and where you can be yourself. But what I see over and over again is this inability to tell the difference between tradition and nostalgia.

And so, whereas I think there’s incredible power in trying to recuperate tradition and reflect on it and consciously appropriate it, there’s also this individual and social psychology of clinging to tradition, and “if we just keep doing the same things over and over again we’ll be okay.” Which is, of course, idolatry.

I was part of the planning team for this event last fall, before my maternity leave, so baby Iona and I went along. Here are some photos to tell the story of our 24 hours together.

After we gathered and ate dinner on Friday, the Rev. Kurt Wiesner (All Saints’, Littleton) showed us an episode of the Simpsons, and then a U2 video, and led us in a conversation about the religious content of each. It was fascinating – the youth really enjoyed that session! We talked about it in small groups for a while, then gathered again to learn about the history, meaning, and practice of labyrinths from Lucy Crichton (of St. Andrew’s, Hopkinton!).

After that, we left the cozy lounge and walked the paths cleared through the snow – under astonishingly bright stars – down to the chapel, a big A-frame building and the perfect space for walking a labyrinth. Lucy had set up her labyrinth here, and each of us had a chance to walk it – another wonderful experience. The chapel isn’t heated, but the camp staff built us a big fire to keep the chill off!

When we returned from the labyrinth, we had some evening playtime for board games, art, and a little worship planning. The camp staff made us chocolate “lava cakes” with ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup at 10pm – wow!

Some of us had one lava cake… some had two… some had more.

We ended the evening with a simple Compline, then headed to bed. After a good night’s sleep, we had pancakes and bacon for breakfast. The Rev. Grace Burson (Grace Church, Manchester) brought her two-year-old son, and his toys were popular with the big kids!

In the morning, Grace and I (that’s the Rev. Miranda Hassett, of St. Andrew’s, Hopkinton) led a conversation on how to live out our faith in light of all the troubling issues in today’s world – the damage to Creation and the difficult circumstances in which many of our brothers and sisters live, around the globe.

Grace quoting chapter and verse to us, with her son on her hip!

After our small group conversations, we had some free time for outdoor play. The weather was PERFECT – sunny, clear, and just below freezing. There was much snow play….

And a snowball fight, which was very positively rated on our feedback forms. We’ll make sure to include one in next year’s program.

Jim Sims, of St. Andrew’s, New London, was our Music Guy for the weekend. He provided gentle background music for the labyrinth time, led us in many songs, and shared some songs of his own that fit our conversations. We were blessed by his presence and his gifts!

Lunch on Saturday. We were blessed, too, by the hospitality of the team at Sentinel Lodge. We couldn’t have had kinder hosts, and they fed us very well!

After lunch, we talked together about vocation – the idea that each of us is called by God into particular tasks and paths in life. Several of the adults – Kellie (Denoncourt, youth leader at St. Paul’s, Concord), Jim, Lucy, Grace – spoke about how their life paths have led them to what they’re doing now, and how God has been part of those journeys. After that, we spent some time in silence – drawing, journaling, listening to music – to invite God to speak into our hearts.

One thing several folks worked on during the silence was our cross. Over the course of our time together, everyone had a chance to decorate one or two of the spaces on this big wooden cross, to commemorate our time together by creating something beautiful.

When all the spaces were filled, we took off the tape separating them, to reveal the finished cross.

I have no idea what the joke was here, but it was just one of many moments of silliness and fellowship!

At last, time for the closing Eucharist. The Rev. Susan Langle (Trinity, Claremont) led us in worship, and Jim led us in song. I offered a participatory homily – looking at the list of roles in the church that Paul offers in our reading from 1 Corinthians 12, what other roles would we like to add? Who else does the church need, besides teachers, leaders, healers, etc.? Many answers were voiced – a few I remember: Children. Elders. Artists. Musicians. People with questions. Organizers. Listeners. …. Each of us; all of us.

Sharing Communion, around the circle…

After the Eucharist, we piled our belongings into various cars, said goodbye to Camp Sentinel, and headed home through a beautiful winter afternoon.

Thanks so much to everyone who supported this event. After such a successful time together this year, we’re looking forward to gathering a bigger group next year for an even better time!

Professor Mark Jordan of Harvard Divinity School recently wrote a short piece  that tackles this way of describing our divisions. He points out that a lot of the progressive views that have emerged in the past century, like anti-racism and women’s rights, have been advocated by Christian leaders re-reading our tradition and finding new light there. Moderate and progressive views can be just as faith-filled as “traditional” views – and moderate and progressive people of faith should claim that ground.

What’s more, the definition of “tradition” itself is pretty open-ended. When we talk about the “traditional” way of doing things, are we thinking of the 1950s? the 1500s? the 300s? Those different historical touchstones are associated with very different mindsets and practices, so “tradition” is not at all clear-cut.

Much to think about here! Take a look (don’t worry if you don’t know who Peter Steinfels is; I didn’t either – and it’s not necessary to understand the article) and share your thoughts.