“Let the earth keep silent.” General Convention is coming.

June 3, 2024 By Frederick Schmidt

(With apologies to the prophet Habakkuk) Maybe it’s just the limitations of the average search engine. Maybe it’s user error. But interestingly when you search for the characteristics of dying institutions, even a bit of tinkering still yields the same result. Most of the articles you locate are devoted to dying in institutions, not the death of institutions. But the dynamic is everywhere you look today. There are serious questions about the relevance and reliability of our institutions. Crises of one... Read more

Baptism in a World without God

May 20, 2024 By Frederick Schmidt

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My wife and I just returned from vacation in France not long ago. We had a wonderful time. We ate too well. We drank our share of wonderful wine. In addition to seeing Paris again, we also got to see Bordeaux for the first time – which helps to explain the wine. And despite the airlines’ best efforts, we have managed to hold onto the delight of getting to see another part of the world again. That said, both of... Read more

When the Young Die

April 18, 2024 By Frederick Schmidt

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“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:1-6) Whenever someone dies at an early age, we inevitably want to know, “Why.” Why can life be so painfully brief? Why does a husband leave behind a wife — or a wife leave behind a husband? Why does a father or mother leave behind children? Or a parent outlives a child? And the longer we... Read more

The Actuality of the Resurrection

April 15, 2024 By Frederick Schmidt

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36While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ 37They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ 40And when he had... Read more

Revising the BCP: A Menu is not a Book

March 28, 2024 By Frederick Schmidt

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In How and Why Books Matter: Essays on the Social Function of Iconic Tasks, James Watts – along with others – explores the role that books have in the life of communities: Religious and secular communities ritualize some books in one, two, or three dimensions. They ritualize the dimension of semantic interpretation through teaching, preaching, and scholarly commentary. . . . Communities also ritualize a text’s expressive dimension through public reading, recitation, and song, and also by reproducing its contents... Read more

The Clergy Shortage and Congregational Survival

March 4, 2024 By Frederick Schmidt

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Recently a parish in Henderson, Kentucky, announced that it was looking for a Rector and candidly admitted that they had no applicants. People weighed in and offered advice: consult your bishop; don’t use the language – “hire”; change your profile; move to another state – yours isn’t safe; call a Lutheran pastor. I doubt that any of this advice was helpful, and some of it was obtuse. Their post, sadly, was a public acknowledgment of dynamics that parishes are already... Read more

Confronting Our Need for Mercy

February 28, 2024 By Frederick Schmidt

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Around the campfire, an ancient Jewish storyteller related the trials of Jonah the prophet. God had called on him to tell the people of Nineveh that they were in danger of judgment and Jonah ran. Thrown from the boat he had hired, Jonah had been swallowed by a big fish and in chapter two, the storyteller recites his prayer from beneath the surface of sea: “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of... Read more

Messengers of Mercy

February 23, 2024 By Frederick Schmidt

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Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea... Read more

Running from God

February 13, 2024 By Frederick Schmidt

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The Ninevites were the cruel kids in the ancient Near East. They were feared and hated. And they richly deserved it. Despite that reputation, God tells Jonah to let them know that they are in danger of judgment. The Hebrew literally reads, “A prophetic message from God came to be with Jonah…”[1] It wasn’t a whisper. It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t a nagging thought. It was a big, ugly certainty. And Jonah knew it. The story is also clear. ... Read more

It’s the congregation, stupid.

February 8, 2024 By Frederick Schmidt

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A recent article on conversations between the deans of Episcopal seminaries and others got me thinking about seminaries and about the future of mainline churches. The article itself was a fairly poor introduction to what actually transpired in those meetings. My online conversation about the article revealed, for example, that there were sitting deans involved in the meeting. So, I’m prepared to hope that the conversations were better focused than the article suggested. Based on what the article did say,... Read more