January 23, 2006
Pretense
John “Honest to God” Robinson, the British bishop who brought such fresh air into the church in the 1960s, often said that the pulpit is too much already six feet above contradiction. These words come back today as we remember Bishop Phillips Brooks, one of the church’s outstanding preachers for whom pretense was poison.
Would that it were so for more in these times. Servant leadership, both in church and state, seems a thing of the past. Episcopal arrogance and the clones such posture raises up in the presbytery approaches pandemic stages altogether contrary to our Anglican collegial heritage. The notion of a presidency immune from the checks and balances so wisely built into our constitutional government must be debated in the Senate judiciary committee in the fear that it infect our whole system.
Brooks was said to be a moderate churchman, not given to puffery. A probably apocalyptic, but no less real story is told of an occasion when he was to speak at a parish fund raiser in one of his more “high-church” congregations. He arrived in the rector’s study attired in a dark suit, white shirt, and maroon tie. The rector lamented, “Bishop, I’d so hoped you’d wear your clericals on this occasion.” “By all means,” the bishop said. Then, opening his brief case and taking out a black tie, he promptly re-vested.