Sound familiar???

In preparation for my church history class on Wednesday, I'm reading a passage from John Jewel's An Apology for the Church of England, written during the English Reformation to defend the Church of England against the charges of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church.

As I read this passage where Jewel defends the Church of England by comparing the Roman Catholic Church's accusations against the Church of England to the erroneous statements about the early Christians by the larger pagan community -- both based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the community (either the Church of England, in Jewel's case, or the early Christians, in his historical example) was really about, due to lack of knowledge and understanding and interactions with the stated "opponents" -- I couldn't help but think about the situation of Muslims in America today, who are often accused of many things, erroneously, by those who simply do not understand their faith and practice but criticize from afar.

If you're familiar with this modern phenomenon, does any of this sound familiar?

18. And, whereas they pretend we have departed from the unity of the catholic church; this is not only odious, but though it is not true, yet it hath an appearance and similitude of truth in it. But, then, not only those things which are true and certain find belief with the ignorant multitude, but those things also which may seem probable; and so we shall ever observe that crafty and cunning men who had not the truth on their sides, have ever maintained their cause with the resemblance of truth; that those who could not dive into the bottom of things, might be taken at least with the show and probability of their arguments. Because the primitive Christians, our forefathers, when they prayed to God, turned their faces towards the rising sun, there were some that said they worshipped the sun, and that it was their god. And because they said, that, as to their eternal and immortal life, they lived on nothing but the flesh and blood of the Lamb without spot, meaning thereby our Saviour Jesus Christ, envious men, the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose only business it was to render the Christian religion by any means hateful, did thereupon persuade the people, that the Christians were impious men, that they offered human sacrifices, and drank man's blood. And when the Christians said, With God there is neither male nor female, that is, that, as to the obtaining of justification, there is no distinction of persons; and did salute one another commonly by the names of brother and sister; there were not wanting some who slandered the Christians thereupon, and said, they made no distinctions amongst them of sex or age, but acted like beasts. And when they met frequently in vaults and secret places, to pray and hear the gospel, which sort of private places and meetings had sometimes been made use of by conspirators against the government; there was thereupon a rumour spread abroad, that they conspired together, and had secret consultations about murdering the magistrates, and subverting the government. And because in celebrating the holy communion they made use of bread and wine, according to the institution of Christ, they were thought by many not to worship Christ, but Bacchus and Ceres; because those heathen deities were worshipped by the pagans with a like rite, with bread and wine. These things were then believed by many, not because they were true, for what could possibly be less so? but because they had a kind of resemblance of truth, and by that show of truth were fitted to deceive them.

The Bottom Dollar

In my Basic Christian Ethics class today, we discussed Anthony Trollope's novel, The Warden (1855). The story is concerned with a priest in the Church of England who receives a large sum of money for a position in which he actually does very little work, while the old men in the almshouse or hospital (modern equivalent: nursing home or assisted living facility) that he oversees remain in a basic level of poverty. The position was originally created by someone's will, who left a fixed sum of money to the men in the almshouse and decreed that the extra generated by the lands owned by this man should go to the priest in charge of the hospital. Only problem is, when the will was first established, the land was mostly farmland, generating a small income. At the time the novel takes place, it is 400 years later, and the land is now suburban land that has been developed and brings in a huge amount of rental income -- so the priest now receives approximately 10 times the amount of a normal priest's salary, while the situation of the men who are the beneficiaries of the will has remained unchanged.

Discussing this ethical situation has gotten me to thinking about the role of money and salaries in priests' discernment of their calling. Our professor informed us that the Church of England now has a system in which all priests are paid the same amount, and it's barely enough to live on. In the American Episcopal Church, however, the salaries of priests vary quite widely, from barely enough to live on in some smaller parishes to upwards of six-figure salaries in some of the wealthy and endowed parishes. So what happens when, as a priest, you are job-hunting and you find that there is a $35,000/year job serving as the rector of a very small parish in a poor part of town, where you will be the only staff member of the parish, or a $150,000/year job serving in a wealthy urban parish where you will be supported by a staff of 20+ people, including four other priests to share the load of priestly duties (celebrating Eucharist, preaching, visiting people in hospitals, leading adult education forums, etc)? Which position would YOU hope you would get, if they chose you? But what if God is actually calling you to serve among the poorer population, even if it means more work and less money? It seems to me it would be rather convenient to take the money question out of the equation -- if we had a system like the Church of England, where all priests were paid the same amount, we could focus solely on the job and the sense of calling rather than worrying about our salaries.

On the other hand, I could see this creating a problem much like the problem in the education system in America -- teachers are paid so low wages that no one is willing to take on the jobs for the amount of work they require. People always say of the so-called "helping professions" that "you don't do it for the money," and consider this to be a good thing, thinking that one's motivation is somehow more pure if money is not part of the equation. But there's also a problem if the people serving in these positions are not able to maintain a reasonable standard of living.

Thoughts?

Revival of the Blog

I first began this blog in 2006, during my Episcopal Service Corps internship year in Omaha, Nebraska (Resurrection House). The idea was to chronicle my year of vocational discernment there, and wherever that might lead me.

Three years later, I am a junior (first-year) seminarian at Sewanee: The University of the South, and a Postulant for Holy Orders (for you non-Episcopalians out there, that means I'm in the second of three stages on my way to ordination as an Episcopal priest). Somehow, in the midst of my actual discernment process for the priesthood once I moved to Atlanta, I stopped keeping up with this blog. It seems now might be a good time to revive it.

I will attempt to post fairly regular reflections on my journey to the priesthood, and God willing, once I am ordained, I will continue to use this space to reflect, since I will never NOT be "seeking the call."

For now, I will be posting lots of things retroactively. As I write this post on Jan. 22, 2010, I have not updated this blog since the fall of 2007. I'm going to attempt to "fill in the blanks" now and post-date the entries for easy recovery later.

Grace and peace be with you, and thanks for reading.