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)?

The Irish politician Feargal Quinn has written in the Irish Times (27 March) that the EU must set a fixed date for Pascha. His argument runs that the movable date is inconvenient to parents and schools organising vacations, and time off. That it negatively affects the tourist industry, and causes inefficiency in other businesses attempting to market their Easter related products. The current system, asserts the Senator, is considered by many to be a hassle and needs to be fixed. The EU he points out is great at unifying and systematising things – so why not the date of Easter? Afterall, it would, he believes, be enormously popular since we all find the movable date of Easter so irritating.

First lets deal with the most obvious issue. As part of Quinn’s argument he attacks the Orthodox for, as he says, being the ones preventing the adoption of the WCC proposed unified date of Easter (never mind the fact that it would still be a moveable feast!). If the EU were to undertake the project, it is unlikely that the rest of the world will follow suit. Think about this for a minute, we need only look at developments in the Anglican communion over the past ten years to see that Nigeria and her sister churches would see this as yet another decadent, heterodox intrusion by the liberal homosexuals in Brussels. Now – we have three, no, four dates of Easter. I can imagine any number of churches in the US that would follow suit.

There’s another problem here too and that is – if the EU, a secular authority is to set the calculations for one religious festival, then for the sake of consistency, and fairness – it must set them all. So, what do you think of the new European wide Pascha-Ramada-Pesach? It would be efficient – Muslims, Christians and Jews would celebrate their major feast on the same day, making it easier for the tourism industry, soccer mom, and oh, of course lets not forget the all important businessman trying to make a living by hawking tawdry holiday crap at a time convenient for him.

Yeah, there’s a reason why it’s a religious festival and not a secular one. Our calendar is messy – true. But it’s got character, and history, and it makes the liturgical year have a sense of organic rhythm that it would most surely lose if we started pegging our movable feasts down – not for reasons of discernment, and good praxis but for “convenience”.

I’m all for a unified date of Pascha – it is, interestingly enough, the only festival that that ancient canons specifically state must be celebrated by the whole church on the same day. Other feasts have regional variations even now. But, it also took over 300 years to arrive at the decision for a unified date of Easter.

My own community, until recently, struggled with the problem of the two Pascha’s for over a decade – because we had both Eastern and Western rite communities and missions. Every year we would raise the spectre of debating the date, and every year we had to set it aside because neither side was happy to abandon its “traditional” date – and it must be said for some very interesting, and very well thought out reasons.

I raise this point not only to place this firmly within an OC/IC context, but to make the point that it is not a theological, or even a traditional reason that we should be concerned about a unified date of Pascha – but an ekklesiological one: that on this one day the whole Christian world confess “with one heart and one mind” our trust in the risen Christ, and to celebrate together our liberation from the fear of the dark places through which we must sometimes walk alone. Every year in our community as Great Lent arrived the old divisions between the two sides of the community emerged, and one side tried to push forward its own date. Every year we were reminded of how fragile a union we shared, and how, dis-unified in some respects we truly were as a “community”. Pascha is about our union with Christ, as much as it ought to be about our reaffermation to be in union with one another as community – locally, within our individual parishes and synods. If we can do that – then I’d venture to guess that we could learn to become a stronger “community” across the OC/IC movement.

Back in the 90’s there was a marked shift in religious life and thinking in the US. This lead many in the indie movement to speculate that this would bring more members into OC/IC communities. But did it – really? My experience was that it really made no difference at all – but perhaps this was due to the nature of where I was (DC) and the demographics of the people who came to our local parish.

The other question of course was did we really want disaffected Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics swelling the ranks of OC/IC communities? Again, experience suggests, that no, we did not, largely because we were not, at that time, strong enough in our own self identification to be able to not be overwhelmed by the psychological and spiritual baggage that this group presents when shifting denominational allegiance.

Over the past three weeks there have been a number of articles and studies released suggesting that religious belief, and denominational loyalty have suffered over the past decade in the US. I live in the UK where there is almost no Christianity to speak of – and what there is, is increasingly frightening in its radicalism and narrow mindedness. A number of articles have been even more “apocalyptic” speculating that within the next decade we will see the collapse of evangelical/protestant Christianity in the US, and an acceleration of splintering and radicalisation of the remnants of the faith there.

Not wanting to sound like the circling vultures I’m sitting here wondering how this might affect our communities? There is a suggestion in these studies, and earlier ones that the indie movement is seeing an upsurge of growth over the past ten years. A quick survey of the indie presence in my old stomping grounds in the states, while un-scientific to be sure, suggests this is true. There is also an increased probability of negative affects – just as in the shift observed 10 years ago, we might be overcome by issues and identifications of “other” traditions, which are incompatible with our own. Are we ready; are we stronger now in our sense of self-identification and “worth” than we were a decade ago? If not – what can we do collaboratively now, to lay the foundations for a better future?