Peripatetikos

We wonder how many already know (How many times do we have to tell you?) that the majority of Tennessee's Episcopate Searchers, Standing Committee, Bishop and Council (and too many of our parishes and Diocesan Convention delegates and General Convention deputies) are either members of or fellow travelers with the schismatic ("sizzle," not "skizzle") organizations -- American Anglican Council, Anglican Communion Network, Forward in Faith, et cetera, and just might be curious how their decisions might affect the immediate outcome of us all? Why don't you just ask them? And also where do they get off voting in an Episcopal Convention and running for office therein? In the meanwhile, hold on to your escrow or equity or whatever.

The Continuing Episcopalians of Tennessee (CET) must be an inspirational group. For lo and behold before not only manger scenes, but, as well, the newly-formed Traditional Episcopalians of Tennessee (the TET offensive) who've recently come along to say, "Me, too."

The practice of "concelebration," the one where two or more priests gather around the altar and choreograph their hand movements on and over the elements, is altogether without justification. It implies some sort of "magic" power in the ordained ("hocus pocus" is the Latin for something or other that happens here) as opposed to the presider being representative of the whole assembly of lay and clergy alike all celebrating together. I hope the next Book of Common Prayer gets that straight and stops calling the president the celebrant. We're all the celebrants who give the president the authority to wave the wand.

Another pet peeve is the practice of invoking the Trinity before preaching as if it were someone and not only a doctrine, albeit with legs. It is pretentious to a fault. Seems to be more appropriate just to ask God for permission for what the preacher is about to do, if it has to be done at all. Even so, it just might be an imposition on Herself. The sense of the Eucharistic liturgy implies the preachment is of a part with the preceding gospel about to be interpreted and the following creed just in case for any necessary corrections and realignments to what has just been proclaimed.

We commend the collection of essays, Gays.... et cetera, reviewed in this issue, to Tennessee's bishop and GenCon deputies the better to prepare them for the informed decisions they're sure to be asked to make this summer as they seek faithfully to implement our and their polity. Integrity, Memphis (Diocese of WTN), has already presented their bishop and deputation with copies. Atlanta Bishop Neil Alexander's This Far by Grace (Cowley 2003) could also help with their shaping up.

Sewanee undergraduate Gene Robinson (BA '69) and erstwhile bishop of New Hampshire a couple of years ago has yet, so far as we know, to receive the University's obligatory and honorary doctorate reserved for all its graduates making it to the purple.

Just in case your Covenant "hard copy" doesn't last all that long, you can find this and a few previous issues at www.covpubs.org should you choose. There is also archived there a couple of years of Out of Nowhere (aka OoN), an almost daily essay on all manner of things.

[COVENANT, Number 22, January 2006]