I like Will Meyer’s observation: “There is one principle that ISM clergy have never heeded well: simplicity of vesture. In the words of Mademoiselle Chanel: “Before you go out, always take something off”. In the ISM, perhaps the more appropriate statement is “The Infant of Prague is to be venerated, not imitated.” Lets all be honest – he is right. One need only make a cursory sweep through Indie websites and blogs to see an entire line up of “Infant of Pragues”. It may at first appear to be a superficial topic, however, there is a worthwhile conversation here. This is not purely about aesthetics – as Will’s post rightly points out it is about context, respecting the dignity of the moment. I also wonder if it is not an opportunity to expand on our understanding of what community is, and what it does.

Clothing is symbolic. If you think I’m joking take a moment and look at a collection of celebrity photographs. Pay close attention to the fashion labels and accessories in the image. Now, go do some people watching – where do you see those labels and accessories? How many market stalls are selling cheap chinese knock-offs? Take a moment and think about the conscious and unconscious “statements” people make, including yourself, about themselves, through the clothes that they choose to wear. Our clothing communicates social status, or aspired to social status, group affiliation, politics, and much more. Often this communication is so unconscious – because of the other choices we have made – that we assume, or take for granted the messages we project, and those that we “read” in others.

The symbolism of clothing in a liturgical setting is intensified because liturgy, by its very nature, is highly symbolic. The shape of the rite, the ritual gestures, even the ritual food, is a stripped down indicator of a larger conversation that we are all having with one another, and with God. When the priest is vested, he or she fulfils a particular role; one that is a step outside the ordinary. That slight shift in appearance can empower individual community members to step outside the ordinary with the celebrant and take in the fullness of the mystery.

Too often in our Indie context vestments become a distraction, rather than a compliment to the ministry and unity of the community. Here is where Will’s observation of the Infant of Prague comes into its own. I have over the years met too many clergy whose prized collection of vestments would put Imelda Marcos’ famed shoe collection to shame. I have seen priests scour the internet, and vintage shops for church chatchky bankrupting themselves (or their community) in the process. There is a sickness, a form of idolatry at work here. Acquiring, and then using more and more liturgical costume – sometimes even changing costumes throughout a liturgy – does not respect the dignity of the mystery. The focus shifts from the Gospel, to the individual celebrant, from we together as one, to “me” the pretty one flouncing about in satin and lace. The purpose of vestments – to shift one’s focus and step outside the mundane, is turned on its head, entrenching the community in the ordinary.

I’m a big fan of make your own. I’m lucky in that I have enough “skill” to get away with it. But if one does not, surely this is an opportunity to tap into existing creative skills within the community, and to cultivate new ones. Doing so is not about aesthetics, or vanity – it can open a door to real ministry, by taking what is learned in the process of that creative act, and shifting its purpose to serve a function outside the boundary of the community. The simple act of coming together to create, for example, a set of vestments, establishes a working bond, a creative skill set, and a sense of pride in being a liturgical community that does more than just celebrate liturgy. The idea of starting within, and then moving beyond with what one has learned, is not without precedent in Christian practice. Indeed it is exactly what the early ascetics and desert Fathers did. They retreated to locations beyond the city walls, achieved a skill in spiritual discipline, and then returned to share that skill with those inside the city – outside the desert. Drawing upon the skills to make beautiful vestments a community could then turn around and make functional items for the poor, the lonely, and the sick – but make them well, and bring some beauty and joy into the other’s world. I have seen more than one “exhibit” created by small groups designed to offer a moment of beauty and reflection for visitors. This is a gift of spirit that cannot be bought on eBay, or “worn” in multiple layers of lace and satin. This is a real community in creative action – doing ministry outside the expected boundaries of “mere” liturgy.

Blogging can often seem like a one way “broadcast”. The blogger writes up what interests him or her, posts it, and waits to see what happens. There are many posts, essays, books and articles out there advising bloggers on how to cultivate more engagement with their audience. I have even written a few posts encouraging other Indie bloggers. Indeed I have on more than one occasion argued that we need to be engaging with one another more in the OC/IC community than we currently do (or seem to do). There is however, a notable entropy in blog audiences. A quick survey of the overwhelming number of crackpot and thoughtless comments on the more lively blog comment feeds is enough to encourage any blogger to turn commenting off completely, and thank God for some peace and quiet.

Every morning I trawl through my various feeds and sources to look for interesting items that might be relevant to Indie life, or a snippet of an essay that inspires me to write a post. I enjoy this, don’t get me wrong, but this is still a one sided process. I am choosing things that interest me. There is therefore a bit of a bias, and perhaps because of it I’m not writing posts that could really be interesting not only for me as a writer, but also for you as the audience. I need to find a way to break through the one sided-ness of blogging, to make this less of a broadcast of my ideas and reflections, and more of a conversation with readers, whoever you might be. The basic idea then is for readers – yes, you – to “suggest a post”. I don’t care if you are a regular lurker who silently enjoys poking around the site, or someone who is merely passing by and wants to “see what’s under this rock”, I am inviting you to ask a question or suggest a topic for a post. Who knows, it could be your suggested topic that really gets a conversation going, and I believe that that would be a good thing.

Because successful blogs have a niche that they stick to, and because there are plenty of crackpots out there who just like being cyber-wankers (can I use that term in polite company?) this little project needs some structure, a few parameters to maintain focus and cultivate conversation. So when you are formulating your suggested post, or question please do so with the following in the forefront of your thinking:

• Keep it relevant: your suggested post or question will only see the light of day if it is relevant to Christian theology or practice, and it can be addressed or explored from an OC/IC ISM perspective.
• The importance of being Pith: If I need twenty minutes to figure out that there might be a question or suggested topic tangled amongst the morass of words, then it is unlikely that your suggested post will come into being. Keep your suggestions to three (3) sentences or less. This should be fun, engaging, and not painful for everyone concerned.
• Rudeness will be rewarded: It goes without saying that all thoughtless, rude and spurious suggested posts will be deleted, and you will be banned from commenting in future. Yeah, its harsh, but the goal is thoughtful conversation and not eating our young, or complaining about other communities.

If your suggested post is selected I will drop you a note and let you know when to expect it. This by way of pointing out that no anonymous comments or suggestions are accepted. Occasionally a suggested topic might be best answered by someone else – or by more than one person. When that happens I will reach out to that person and ask them to contribute a guest post (no guarantee that they will agree to it, but I will ask all the same). Generally I try to keep my posts short – between 300 and 500 words. As this post is already pushing 1000 words you can tell that the “ideal” is not always practical. If the answer to your suggested post is substantial I will do what I can to break it up into easy to read chunks. While the long-read movement in social media is gaining ground, I appreciate that many people are overloaded with posts, articles, and videos and aim to make posts here as easy and informative to the reader as possible (barring of course the limitations of my own skill, or lack there of, in writing).

One of the stated aims of this blog is to get the audience talking, and to encourage Indie folk to think and create outside the usual limited set of topics. I don’t want this to be a mere broadcast of my ideas and interests. Your suggested topic or question might be the spark that starts a very productive exploration of an idea or issue Indie folk generally don’t see or touch upon. If this trial run works then I will create a permanent page where you can suggest a post at any time. For the moment – at least once every two weeks I’ll “re-post” this post or reference it. While I am hopeful, I doubt that I shall be inundated with suggested posts. I will be happy to get one a month, happier if it is more, and ecstatic if it means that the actual posts results in a real conversation. Now its up to you, what would you like to read in a post here?

I’m a huge fan (read pusher) of home-grown scholarship in the Independent Catholic community. I’ve argued many times on this blog that we “appropriate” too much from other traditions without necessarily thinking it through in our own context. I also think that with the availability of modern technology it is now, more than ever before, more feasable to circulate Indie scholarship within the community and beyond – cultivating our own voice, rather than simply riding on the coat-tails of the voices of other traditions.

Recently I’ve been playing with a great new research tool called Zotero – it is a plugin for Firefox (and I think Explorer and Chrome) that allows you to archive articles from the web, take notes in them, sort them, and tag them. It also handles PDFs, pics, video clips and collects all the relevant bibliographical data so you can automatically create a bibliography when working in say Word.

Speaking of working in Word – Zotero makes inserting citations and your own notes a snap with a handy plugin.

I could go on and on about how useful this little program has been for me in my own research projects over the past two months; and cannot reccomend Zotero enough.

I have been doing some research with the aim of writing an essay on Apostolic Succession in an OC/IC context. I’ve been doing some reading in the 19th century background – on the theory that it set the tone for indie discussion and “use” of Apostolic Succession that we still (unconsciously) use today. I came across a “pamphlet” (a book really) by the Roman Catholic Bishop Ryan Vincent of New York published in the 1880s arguing, as you might expect, that the Anglican claim to Apostolic Succession is invalid. Ryan’s book is also interesting because in it he also responds to a pamphlet by an unnamed Old Catholic bishop (I’m wondering if this might not be Abp. Villatte?).

The following passage caught my attention: “In the whole history of the Christian Church, there is nothing more evident than this, that when a bishop or priest, or bishops and priests, revolt against ecclesiastical authority, or contumaciously err against faith, they were silenced, suspended, deprived of their faculties, deposed from their sees. The Church, which had commissioned them and given them authority, jurisdiction, a right to teach, and assigned them a mission in which to exercise their ministry, simply revoked their commission, recalled her grant of power, and annulled all license to act for her, in her name, or by her authority. Thus she acted towards the validly ordained and rightly consecrated heretical Donatist, Eutychian and Arian bishops; and who among our orthodox Anglicans or Episcopalians will recognise such excommunicated, deposed and deprived heretical bishops as successors of the Apostles? She holds the same principles today; schismatical and heretical bishops such as the bishops of the Greek Church, the Jansenist bishops of Holland, and even Reinkens, the itinerant Old Catholic bishop of Germany, even if validly ordained, have no share in the Apostolical commission . . .”[1]

There are a number of things we could play with here but what grabbed my attention is the idea that “The Church” – and in the opinion of Bp. Ryan the “only” authentic church, that is Roman Catholicism – is inerrant. The idea that “The Church” is inerrant is not new, and it is still (at least officially) held by a number of Christian bodies. It creates a nice, relatively neat, “lock” on the ultimate source of authoritative teaching and praxis. So – an errant priest or bishop can be declared heretical, or schismatic, have his faculties revoked, and thus be held to no longer participate in Apostolic Succession. Nice in theory – but as we all know it never really worked on the ground.

If we accept the idea that it is through discernment that the community recognises that the Holy Spirit is working through an individual – and therefore selects that person for a particular ordained service – then is it also possible to acknowledge that through a similar process of discernment that same community can recognise when or if an individual has lost the “confidence” of the Holy Spirit?

What if the priest(s) or bishop(s) challenging the teaching or praxis of “The Church” truly represent Gospel teaching – and that “The Church” is wrong?

Finally how does this idea of the inerrant church play out in OC/IC circles? In the early 90s there was a lot of discussion, even controversy across the Indie community about fleeing the “traditional”, “authoritarian” models of church. In some instances any attempt at establishing some order and consistency resulted in community breakdown, or at the least a great deal of upset. It would seem that we have effectively broken the link between Apostolic Succession and the authority of the ekklesia. How does this then affect our understanding of Apostolic Succession? How does it impact our interaction with the ekklesia; what is its function and value?

If as OC/IC believers we believe that somehow the idea of “the church” is an inerrant body then we’ve got an enormous mess on our hands that needs to be cleaned up. Alternatively, if we don’t believe that the church is inerrant – it does raise some questions about the reason for and value of Apostolic Succssion in our tradition because it means we need to have a very adult conversation about the nature of authority within the Indie movement – something that to date, in my own experience, very rarely happens.

I unexpectedly fell into this post, which led me to this post and it made me stop and think for a moment. Does blogging matter? Should “every” Christian blog?

I have been God-blogging now for four years (I have another non-theology blog too) and average just over 100 posts a year.

I would like to think that during this time I’ve passed through the novelty of blogging, into a tool, an arena of asking questions, and playing with ideas. I would also like to think that I’m not just talking out loud, or worse – to myself.

Throughout this experiment in thinking out loud theologically I think I’ve learned how to be more focussed. Though I am breaking the “custom” with this post; generally limiting my posts to around 300 words has helped me “stick to the point”. I think I’ve also become bolder expressing my thoughts on OC/IC issues more directly than I think I would have 10 years ago.

Do my “stats” reflect the hope that I’m not just talking to the empty ether? Do the stats actually matter? How much of what goes into the blog happens off screen so to speak? I average between 300 and 400 “unique visitors” per day who, on average stick around for 3 minutes – long enough to read the most recent post. I’m not entirely sure how to “read” that. At least 10% of that figure are un-desirables (I’d say the word but my “un-desirable” filter will go through the roof for the next four days – you know what I mean).

And what about the level of commenting? As with many blogs, understanding the nature of commenting is un-predictable. Blog readers tend to lurk. They have an arena of blogs they read regularly, but rarely comment. I know this because I read dozens of blogs a day and almost never comment. Sometimes I’ll have an exchange with someone and they’ll say: “Oh yes, you wrote something about that on your blog some months ago.” Clearly getting others to “join in” the conversation is harder than it seems.

But then, when you do get readers commenting you sometimes find yourself having to quickly get a degree in mediation and abherrant psychology! A quick look at un-moderated comment streams, will demonstrate this point nicely. Comments are a double edged sword.

So the numbers and off screen interactions say people are reading – even if there is not the river of comments you’ll see on some other sites. While the stats give a fleeting glimpse of what is happening they clearly don’t give the full picture, and as interpreting the numbers is a fallable exercise, I’m not about to waste time fretting over them one way or the other.

I could keep a theology journal and find that I’m becoming a better writer – I don’t “need” to blog. Indeed I only started blogging because I noticed other indie folks doing it! The numbers can only tell me that people are visiting, and even reading posts. It does not tell me that they are interested, engaged, or are in any way benefitting from my God-blogging. So, is my “talking out loud” contributing to the mix of OC/IC engagement? Does blogging matter?

At this point I think I’m going to refine the question: Does God-blogging matter in an OC/IC context? I think that on reflection the only answer can be yes, it does matter. Regardless of what I or others might think of the content of any one particular Independent Catholic blog – more OC/IC people ought to blog (and blog thoughtfully).

There are not enough thoughtful Independent Catholic voices in the public sphere. There is not enough awareness of, or active development of OC/IC theology and scholarship – only we can change that. Through blogging we meet other OC/IC folk, make friends, and begin the much needed and very important process of collaboration – building a continuity of short and long-term projects, as well as helping one another with individual projects. Blogging offers the perfect platform for our small communities to sit together and push the boundaries a bit, and develop and practice some awesome theology.

Blogging has the potential of making resources that are currently stuffed in drawers and boxes, resources which are all too frequently lost when the current holder or steward dies, available to the wider OC/IC community – to our researchers and scholars, as well as to a small but growing community of academics who are interested in the history and development of the OC/IC movement.

Blogging takes discipline, and it is a committment. Thus, the thoughtful blogger participates in ministry and outreach, sharing his or her experience of life in the OC/IC community.

Reuters reports (Wed. 10 Feb 10) that the Synod of the Church of England criticised broadcasters – the BBC in particular – for the steep reduction in “religious broadcasting”. Claiming that this actively marginalises religion and treats religious programming as “freak shows”.

I’m sitting here thinking about the report and a few things come to mind about this. First – what qualifies as “religious” programming? Is it historical/documentary? Is it an exploration of current theological trends? Is it a balanced presentation of the positions on a current issue from the perspective of different traditions? Or, is “religious” programming praise, preaching, and televised services?

I think it is very difficult to get the shape of a program right in both categories. The BBC recently offered Diarmaid MacCulloch’s excellent History of Christianity. But much of the “documentary” programming on historical and current religious issues falls into the realm of thoughtless agenda pushing, or mind-numbing “lets stick to the script” surveys. Both extremes neither inform, nor encourage deeper interest and exploration. Then we have the worship/service category – and the “flagship” show for this here in England is “Songs of Praise”. I don’t know about you but from the perspective of one in the sacramental/liturgical tradition this sort of programming . . . is simply awkward. When I lived in the States there were often channels that televised the Liturgy once a week. “Watching” the Liturgy is not the same as “participating” in the Liturgy – it becomes an anthropological exercise rather than a participatory experience. I think if I were a non-liturgical Protestant, it would be less awkward because preaching, prayer, and praise can easily be done regardless of the environment (though I suspect if that’s your devotional bent – it is still more comfortable to be in the presence of others, sharing the experience).

Aside from the occasional well designed documentary, or exploration of a particular topic within a given tradition, or among various traditions – religious programming is awkward. It seems to me that part of this freakishness is as much about context as it is about content. Simply televising a worship service, or liturgy is not good religious programming because it takes that “experience” out of its natural context and plops it in the viewer’s lap. Something else, something more tailored to the media is needed – and that almost never happens. Even Songs of Praise – which clearly makes an effort to do this – does not quite make it.

Something like 50% of internet users connect to their faith tradition on the web. Because the net is relatively “novel” individuals and communities putting the good material up are tailoring the shape and substance of their presentation to better fit the medium of the internet. The benefit of this avenue of presentation of course is that the material can be produced for different audiences, within the spectrum of a tradition, and not be pigeon-holed to suit the lowest common denominator so as to attempt to “make good TV”. The medium throws open the doors to better quality material, more in-depth exploration, and the possibility of graduating from the mere bullet points of an issue to a developed presentation of the finer points; allowing the viewer to stop and start as needed.

I’m listening to the newest edition of the ISM Network, a project of Mother Cait in Pennsylvania – another example of neat projects by indie folk – very cool. Over the past two weeks I’ve been listening snips of various episodes – the variety of topics and the thoughfulness of the participants has really been a joy.

If I’m reading the specs correctly – Mo. Cait puts out an edition once a week at 11pm Eastern Time – if you are out of that time zone, or not a night owl, each episode is archived so you can listen at your convenience.

We have been exploring the use of the net, and technology generally in an OC/IC context here for over a year now. But one thing that has not yet been mentioned (I think) is the idea of “media literacy” in OC/IC projects. This article by the Utne Reader – brings that idea crashing home.

The article highlights the issue of critical analysis of what we see on the web. How information is presented, and how we sift through it, assessing the veracity of that information, its accuracy, and its agenda. I suspect that when most of us were younger we were taught how to do this with “traditional” media sources – books, newspapers, magazines, journals, and film and television. But the nature of media has changed rapidly, and dramatically over the past decade – does this not also mean that the way in which we assess these sources must also change?

To my mind this is a topical issue on two fronts. Firstly – how we OC/IC folk using the net, assess those sources related to theology, history, spirituality, and religious news. How is that process affecting how we use the information both online and in our communities? Secondly – and I think I find this more important based on things we’ve been exploring here – how are we presenting our information online? Are we facilitating a sense of good critical analysis of who and what we are? Are we pointing to balanced source material? Are we presenting our message in such a way that the information-saavy will not simply click through, snorting “Quacks” as they do?

How can we help one another to make the web more of a tool and less of a novelty, or “basic” necessity in our various projects? One way might be to be helpful to one another. A bit of “peer review” amongst friends can make those seemingly minor changes that have a big impact in how our sites and vids are recieved, found, and commented upon.

We’ve often talked about the ideas and images of what constitutes “church” many converts to the indie life inherit or bring with them into the community. Tim Cravens has just posted a reflection on one aspect of this – the sense of embarrassment many indie clergy feel over not having our own buildings, salaried clergy and so on. Tim makes a good point that we need to not allow ourselves and our fellow ministers to become overwhelmed by this to the point that it inhibits our ability to be ministers in the here and now.

I tink part of the solution is to cultivate within each one of us, and within our communities, a confidence in our identity as OC/IC believers – or as I’ve said here before – we are not second class or second rate christians – we “are” the real thing.

One of Tim’s commentors pointed out, and I agree with her whole heartedly, is that there is a real need for cooperation, collaboration, and through that the cultivation of mutual support (i.e. confidence) within our movement. John Plummer’s phrase “we all need friends” in relation to relations within the OC/IC community are equally applicable here.

But that “friendship” must be deeper than merely, clicking the “lets be friends” button on our Facebook profiles – never to utter “Boo!” to one another again. Friendship – true frienship is deeper, and requires openness, and cultivation – it lifts us up out of the isolation we can sometimes feel within our smaller OC/IC jurisdictions, scattered as we are in the “Diaspora”.

Through frienship we can dissolve the barriers of suspicion and mistrust from within the community as a whole. Through frienship we can collaborate, and share, without the compulsion to create “larger” artificial organisational structures (every one of which that I’m aware of over the past 20 years of active OC/IC life has failed – with a body count!). Through frienship we might see an organic improvement in the quality of our communities, and the individuals chosen to serve and lead them (both lay and ordained). If for example, my friend Bishop X won’t ordain you – why the hell should I? If I trust Bishop X, if he/she is my friend – it would be disrespectful to undermine his/her judgement because he/she is my friend, and a fellow bishop.

But lets get back to Tim’s post – and his point that indie clergy are nearly always working in the world – holding down a job, running a household, having a life, and on top of that – doing ministry. Through friendship – through real collaboration – we can build a solid netowrk of mutual support to encourage, bring relief to, and cultivate confidence for our fellow ministers in the movement. Making the vocation of a “worker priest” (or worker bishop) that much more enriching both for the minister, and those he or she serves.

Through frienship we can radically change the dynamic of the way our OC/IC movement has dys-functioned over the past 75 years. And all it takes is a bit of openness, and a willingness to collaborate.

I read with interest this article by Dr. Murdo MacDonald Policy Officer for the Society, Religion and Technology Project for the Church of Scotland on that church’s stance on stem cell research. I then started asking about how this, and issues like it, are being explored in OC/IC communities. However, I have as yet, seen no discussion of stem cell research and similar issues in other OC/IC places (other than here) – have you?

Come to think about it – I cannot recall seeing many (read “any”) discussions of the interplay of science and religion, contemporary ethics, and similar contemporary issues in OC/IC settings – can you?

This leads me to ask: why? Why is it that in our forums issues gravitate towards the same, predictable, limited set: ordination of women, same sex marriage, ordination of LGBT, ritualism, and oh, lets not forget – the all holy “puppy pedigree” monster? Are we that . . . . intellectually, and spiritually “stunted” that we are incapable of intelligent discussion on other, more pressing, indeed more interesting matters?

I know based on knowing the backgrounds of many OC/IC folk, that we have a large cadre of highly intelligent, thoughtful, interesting, well educated people in the movement today – so why are we not enjoying the benefit of their insight, research, and expression of OC/IC ideas on a larger scale than a few clandestine phone calls, or quiet emails passed under the table?

What is interesting to me is the realisation that this narrow “set” of regularly regurgitated issues has a direct effect on how our members perceive this tradition, and how outsiders see us. Don’t you think it is time we make a concerted effort to speak to a wider audience, to cultivate voices of faith, thoughtful, and engaged with issues that matter? What are you, and your local OC/IC community doing to bring about a broader, more in-depth conversation about the OC/IC praxis of today (rather than that of a century ago)?