Anglicanism? Why I've been Thinking of Leaving Roman Catholicism.

Update: Since I've wrote this post, and after much prayer and consideration, I have decided to stay in the Roman Catholic Church. It has been a long and painful journey, but I am joyful to find a place I can call home. You can read here my reasons for staying in the church.

For the past 2 years I have embarked on a journey that has been both painful and exciting. I have been thinking, praying and exploring other expressions of my Catholic faith that are not exclusively "Roman" Catholic.

In this process, I have deepened in my Catholic faith, but my disenchantment with Roman Catholicism continues to grow.

I have been exploring other streams of Catholicism and the most attractive one at this point is Anglicanism.

But before we go into Anglicanism, let's talk about what I mean by Catholicism.

Some people use Catholicism and Roman Catholicism interchangeably, as if the Church of Rome had a monopoly on Catholicism. Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is not the case.

Catholic means "universal". To be a Catholic is to affirm the 4 Ecumenical Creeds. To be Catholic is to have a faith that has apostolicity and a direct connection with the succession lines of the Apostles. To be Catholic is to have the Eucharist as the center of our worship.

Under this category, there are many streams of Christianity that are Catholic.

In fact, many protestants traditions, especially the mainlines, still recite that part of the Nicene Creed that says "We believe in the holy, catholic and apostolic church", affirming their connection to this ancient apostolic tradition.

Before there was a Holy, Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church there was the Catholic church. Catholicism predates Roman Catholicism.

This may be hard to believe for those of you who see Roman Catholicism as the One True Church that Christ instituted, as I used to.

Why leave Roman Catholicism?
There are many things why I'm contemplating the move. One reason is that, theologically and ideologically, I'm not perfectly lined up with Roman Catholic doctrines and ideologies. I'm sure that if someone went all medieval on me and put me through an inquisition, I will fail the requirements to be considered a "true" Roman Catholic.

Another reason is what seems to me the arrogance from the Roman Catholic church to still call and consider itself the "One True Church of Christ", and seeing all churches as imperfect members of the Body of Christ.

They get to dictate who is in or out. They get to say to heaven "this is so" and expect heaven to simply follow suit (and yes, I know the keys of heaven, the tie and untie verses they base this on), with little consideration of how the God of Heaven thinks of the situation.

They get to declare protestants ordained orders, even Anglican Holy Orders, as "null and void" because they didn't follow the "form and matter". or simply said, they didn't follow the ordination rites with  the same words they do, ignoring the fact that the apostles themselves never ordained people to the ministry the way Roman Catholics do, and yet they dare to say that their Eucharist is not really the body of Christ, as if they really knew this.

Do they really think that God is up in heaven thinking, "oh...wait, you didn't say the right words exactly as the Romans Catholics do to ordain this Bishop, sorry no ordination grace to you buddy"?

Can the distribution of Grace be given by God so arbitrarily? We are ministers of His Grace, not the owners of it, with the authority to say who God gives it to or not.

They get to close communion to those who believe in Christ, and yet not in everything the institutional Roman Catholic church says we must, making belief in the institution more important than belief in Christ.

They deny women to the ordained ministry, even to the diaconate, despite the early church's practice of it, and the biblical mention of deaconesses, and they starting doing so by saying that women "are imperfect members of the body" and inherently more sinful than men.

They also say that since women were not present at the institution of the Eucharist, they cannot preside over it. Only men were there, therefore, only men can preside over the Eucharist.

First, there is scholarly debate about this, some saying that women could, and most likely were present at the Last Supper.

But even if they didn't, following this logic leads to dangerous places. First, only Jews could preside over the Eucharist, since only Jews were present at the institution of the first Eucharist.

Second, only men could partake of the Eucharist, if not, how could you justify the dividing of the command to "take and eat" from "do this in remembrance of me"? Jesus made no distinction between both of these commands. Where, therefore, do we get the authority to say that women can eat the Body of Christ, and so obey Christ's command to "take and eat" but not to preside over the Eucharist, so they cannot follow the other command to "do this in remembrance of me"?

If we really followed this logic then only Jews could preside over the Eucharist, and only men could partake of it, since only Jewish men were present at the institution of the Eucharist.

There are many reasons more, but these suffice.

Why Anglicanism?
Anglicanism is a stream of Catholicism that cherish both Catholic traditions and protestants traditions. From my understanding of it, they don't consider themselves "the one true Church" but simply a part of the Catholic Church.

They celebrate both Catholic and protestant saints. In fact, they celebrated Archbishop Romero years before the Roman Catholic Church decided he was a martyr after all.

They would not frown upon my love of protestant authors and music, as I find many Roman Catholics do when I tell them about it.

Did I ever tell you about the time I was leading a choir for the youth group in my local Roman Catholic parish, and was told not to sing "Christian" songs anymore, but only "Catholic" songs? We sang some Christian songs because those were the youth's favorites!

Anglicanism also leaves me room to breathe theologically, without the demand made on me that I agree perfectly with all their traditions in order to be in.

Anglicanism allows for the ordination of women as well.

Why haven't I made the move yet then?
This is not an easy decision, and not one that I should make hastily. Sometimes I worry about the future of Anglicanism, worrying how long they can stay together with all their differing views.

Also, sometimes I feel like I'm betraying my faith and my community. Just writing this post makes me feel like a traitor.

This is not the time for me to make this decision in my life, as I'm getting ready to get married. This is just not my decision anymore. It will be my future wife's decision and mine.

Also, Pope Francis is just amazing. I never been prouder of my Pope. This seems like the worst possible time to leave. Can I still follow the Pope and not be Roman Catholic? I think so, but I'm still uneasy about it.

And so I am, in what it seems to be a long state of limbo. My mind and spirit is urging me to make a decision, to find a place to land after all these wanderings. I yearn to make a decision. And yet I must wait.

I am not to make a decision like this without prayer, and without the Lord's approval. Please keep praying for me.

The Importance of Recognizing Your Own Privilege

In last week's post I talked about how God's calling to men for leadership meant that men were called to give up their power and authority and serve as "the slaves of all", and how this makes sense in Jesus' pattern of humbling the powerful and uplifting the powerless.

This week I want to move beyond gender and their relation to power, and to the importance of recognizing our own privilege and power as followers of Jesus.

Why is this important? Isn't talk of privilege and power just another way of confusing liberal political values with the Gospel?

How Jesus deals with the powerful
Whenever we read the Gospels it is difficult to miss how he deals with certain people of power. We read about his encounters, debates and clashes with the Pharisees, and His rebuking of them.

We notice as well how he deals with the Roman authorities. In fact He doesn't really deals that often with them. He seems more occupied preaching the Kingdom of God to the poor and marginalized that He spends little time trying to convert the Romans.

In one famous encounter with the Rich Young Ruler, Jesus asks him to sell all he has, and give it to the poor. He is telling this to a man who has kept all the commandments! And yet Jesus tells him "one thing you lack". The one who had it all figured it out and had it all, so it seems, lacked one thing.

If we read carefully, we see that an undeniable pattern emerges in Jesus' encounters with people. With the rich and powerful He almost always deals in a negative way. With the poor and marginalized He almost always deals in a positive way.

Of course there are exceptions. But these exceptions do little to eradicate the undeniable pattern that emerges.

Why is it important, then, that we recognize our own privileges and powers?

It is important because if Jesus is the same today as He was yesterday, that means that His pattern of dealing with people of power, privilege and authority will most likely be the same now. This means that if Jesus is truly alive and risen, as Christians believe Him to be, His dealings with the rich and powerful NOW is most likely the same as it was THEN.

The Question really is, how do we want to be dealt with by Jesus?

If we miss to recognize our privilege and power, then we risk the danger of missing Jesus, or perhaps more accurately, Jesus missing us.

I believe this is not so much mixing liberal values with the Gospels, but this is most likely something that Liberals are correct about what the Gospels are telling us.

So how privileged are we really?
If you, dear reader, are living in the United States, or from another part of the "developed world", then you don't need me to tell you about our own privilege in terms with people of other poorer nations.

To deny our own privilege would be tantamount to being in a state of hopeless lunacy or unbelievable ignorance.

On a macro level, we are unbelievable privileged to live in a privileged and powerful nation.

On a micro level, we know that even in this powerful nation of ours, we still have people with less privilege and power. We will always have the poor among us.

We can recognize that minorities are statistically marginalized in this nation. People of color, undocumented immigrants, formerly incarcerated,  all of these are populations who we can recognize as underprivileged.

To deny this is to turn a blind eye to the statistics.

On a more personal level, I can recognize my own privilege. First, I am male. As a man, according to statistics, I am more likely to earn more money than women.

Yes, I am Latino and immigrant, and this has put me in a position where I lack power and privileges. I can tell you thousands of stories of how this has played out for me, but that is beyond the scope of this post.

And yet, within my own Latino community, I am privileged. I am college educated and have a great paying job with benefits. To deny my own privilege would be the definition of denial.


The Call of the Gospel
After we have examined our own power and privilege, then the crucial question, as followers of Jesus, is to ask ourselves, what is the Gospel calling me to do?

I believe the Scriptures are clear on this: we are to give up our power for the empowerment of others.

Whether we earned (or feel we earned) this power and privilege is irrelevant. Jesus rarely asks the rich and powerful how they earned their positions. Failing to see this can moves us to meritocracy, where we see ourselves as deserving and the poor as undeserving.

In my experience of living in the United States, I have time and time again seen how privileged people see themselves as deserving of this privilege, because they worked hard or because their families worked hard to get where they are.

While this may be true, failing to recognize your privilege often leads to a self-righteous perspective on the poor as lazy, not driven enough, and therefore undeserving of our sympathy, or worse, our help.

If this is our attitude to the poor, how can we reconcile our attitudes with Jesus' attitudes and dealings with the poor?

If Jesus is our example, shouldn't we imitate this undeniable characteristic of His ministry?

The calling of the Gospel is simple and yet terrifying: give up your power and use it not for your own comfort, but in service of others. If you can't identify your own power and privilege, then you won't be able to empower others as effectively.

It is hard to give what we ignore we have.

Rediscovering the Orthodox View of Male Leadership

[Mat 20:25-28 ESV] 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

[Phl 2:5-7 ESV] 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

[Eph 5:25 ESV] 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

OK, seriously, what is wrong with me? Am I going all patriarchal and Westboro Baptist on all of you? Am I suffering from some sort of ultra-conservative and temporary lapse of madness?

Before you declare me clinically insane, or worse, a conservative, I pray you read what I have to say!

I will base my theological musings on these 3 verses. These theological musings emerged from a conversation I had with my fiance about leadership in relationships, and she deserves half the credit for what is written here.

Before I start however, I want to say that there is a huge difference between being conservative and being Orthodox. Conservatives love to think of themselves as Orthodox, but their "orthodoxy" is so entangled with so many political assumptions and values that it is no longer Orthodoxy.

Conservatism is a counterfeit of Orthodoxy.

If only we would realize this, in my opinion, we would avoid many serious mistakes, like the exodus of Christian Liberalism from Orthodoxy, in the hopes of distancing themselves from the horrific mistreatment from conservatives of Orthodoxy.

Anyways, that's another blog post! Back to our topic!

I believe God calls us man to be leaders. Crazy huh?

This leadership, however, is so radically different from what the world views as leadership. They are diametrically opposed to the point that I am willing to say that male leadership does not equal patriarchy. If anything it is the subversion of patriarchy!

Say what?!

I know. But before you sent me to a medieval asylum, or before I get killed by an angry mob of radical feminists, let me explain my exegesis of these verses!

I believe that Jesus was trying to destroy patriarchy by transforming our notion of leadership.

What Jesus is saying in Mathew 20 is this: leadership does not equal authority! If we truly follow the logic of what He is saying, then having leadership is not having authority, but literally becoming slaves of all.

Now, we may read this and think, "this is just Jesus being poetic and cute, you know that hyperbole thing". I don't think so. I think He means what He says, and it is crazy.

First, He starts by asserting an undeniable fact: rulers lord it over others. This is our basic definition of authority. Authority over others means that your will dictates what others do. Plain and simple. And yet Jesus says "it shall not be so among you",

Crazy!

He is saying, you should not lead with authority! Why? This is more than just a lesson of humility. This is a lesson on Christian leadership. Lord it over others, I believe, is the way the world leads, and as a consequence, and by the simple command of our Lord, it is sinful for the Christian to lead this way.

It is sinful not because it is wrong, though a case can be done for its wrongness. It is sinful because it disobeys a command of our Lord and therefore misses the mark of Christian leadership: "it shall not be so among you".

If we lead, according to Jesus, then we must serve like slaves, or bondservants. I have said before that the word translated here as slave is from the Greek doulos.

If you had told a first Century Jew that slaves were full of authority and therefore leaders, they'd have laughed at you! I think the irony was not lost to Jesus' disciples, and His words were as perplexing then as they are now.

Now, this is not to say that all authority is evil, but an authority that forces and commands others to do as you will is definitely evil.

Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus "emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant". Here is that doulos word again! It is not that Jesus didn't have authority. That He has is undeniable to the Christian. But in order to lead, He had to serve, and in order to serve, He had to empty Himself!

In other words, in order for Jesus to lead, He had to empty Himself of authority, and lead as a servant!

Leading, therefore, is not a position of authority. Leading is a position of servitude.

See where I'm going with this?

The third passage from Ephesians commands man to "love your wives". How? "as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her".

How did Christ give himself to the church? By emptying Himself and serving, and giving His life as a ransom for her!

Now, leadership demands not that we have authority, but that we have initiative.

To lead is to have initiative, and to lead as a Christian is to lead in service, to take initiative in service.

Why is the task to take the initiative given to man, and not woman? Isn't that unfair? Isn't this more or less a more "gentle" form of patriarchy?

I don't think so, and here is why.

Man are asked to take initiative out of the simple fact that in society, historically speaking, and even true today, are the ones who have more power and authority. This was an undeniable fact in Jesus' days, and it is an undeniable fact today.

Women, sadly, are the ones whose society bestow less power to. This is unfair, and I'm not advocating for this.

Therefore, since men have more power given to them by society, it makes more sense to make the demand of them to lead, and by leading, to empty themselves. To lead is to give up voluntarily that power, and offer it to the powerless.

Crazy huh?

I think what Jesus is saying here is this: you guys are used to having all the power. Guess what? I'm asking you that if you want to lead, you must give it up and become a servant.

To ask women to give up what little power they had would be unfair. Therefore, it is the task of the men to lead, and by leading, to give up that power in service to the powerless.

This is not patriarchy. This is the subversion of Patriarchy, and it is beautiful.

The Pharisee prayed every morning what is called the three morning blessings, thanking God for not making him "a gentile, slave or a woman".

The Kingdom of God comes and subdues these blessings and declares: The Kingdom of God is also for the gentiles, requires its leaders to be slaves and to give and offer their lives to the powerless, including, in Jesus' days the woman.

Rev. Eric Law says that Jesus, in His encounters with the rich and powerful, preached the gospel of the cross, and to the poor and powerless, He preached the gospel of the resurrection.

This means that to the rich and powerful Jesus is asking them to give up that power and give it to the poor (sell all you have and give it to the poor) and to carry the cross and follow Him.

To the poor, He already calls them blessed (blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of God).

It would be wrong and unfair to ask the poor to give up their power and preach a gospel of the cross to them, for they are too familiar with the cross.

I believe Jesus is doing something similar here with leadership.

God calls the powerful to lead by giving up their power and become servants. If men were and continue to have more power then God will continue to ask them to give up their power in servant leadership.

Relationship and the sharing of powers
Lastly, how do all of this relate to relationships between a man and a woman?

Man, in a relationship, is asked to lead. This is how I interpret earlier passages of Ephesians 5, where man is seen as the "head".

This sort of leadership, however, has to be closely tied to Christ's leadership. If man is to lead, he is to do so like Christ, by loving his wife and giving himself to her like Christ did to the church.

In doing this, man becomes the servant, and by becoming the servant, he is "emptying" himself and sharing the power with this wife. This takes tremendous courage and vulnerability, for here they become vulnerable to their wives.

The wife, in return, honors this servant leadership and shares that power back to the husband, and an intimate circle of power sharing is created, where one doesn't "lord it over" the other, and thus obeying God's command, but where the man leads by serving and emptying of his power, and the wife "submits" by honoring the husband and sharing the power back.

In this vision, both man and woman share power by giving up power.

When we give up and share power, we are exalted. The Scriptures gives firm testimony of this. Christ, in that same passage of Philippians, is exalted above any other name, since He was willing to empty Himself.

The Virgin Mary in the Magnificat proclaims that He "casts down the mighty from their thrones, and lifts the lowly".

The mighty shall be brought down, and the humble shall be exalted. If we have power, whatever our circumstances, then we are called to give it up in service of others, and God will take care of the exalting.

Leadership is one way to do that.

The Root Sin of Christian Conservatism and Liberalism

This is an issue that has been brewing in my mind, one of which I am unmistakably passionate about. It is an issue that causes lots of disappointment and distress in my dealings with Christianity as a religion.

I am talking, of course, of the polarity of Christianity in the United States, where parties seem to gather around a political spectrum that, while influenced by Christianity, it is nonetheless unChristian.

From this polarity emerges the oddity of western Christianity and its many manifestation that are normally categorized as "Conservative Christianity", "Moderate Christianity" and finally "Liberal Christianity".

These 3 parties of Christianity seem to be at odd with each other, with endless rhetorical riots directed at each other, schisms and a good measure of tribalism to go along the way.

The irony of the matter is that they all are equally guilty of the same sin: adapting and ultimately confusing, Christianity with culture. It is idolatry, pure and simple. Christianity is constantly being sacrificed to the gods of our culture.

Profiles of Conservative, Moderate and Liberal Christianity

These descriptions are going to be caricatured to make a point, and I understand that most individuals don't fit neatly into any of these three categories, but more likely than not, have a share of these three profiles.

It seems to me that to be a "good conservative Christian" one must adhere to a package of beliefs that are far from Christianity: patriotism and patriarchy, nationalism and the support of wars, the defense of our borders, and the right to bear arms. Love of Jesus is proclaimed in one breath, and nationalistic and xenophobic proclamations at the next, all with the most comical and tragic ignorance to the contradictions.

The Kingdom of God in conservative Christianity is about "saving souls from damnation" and evangelism takes center stage. Social justice issues are often ignored.

To be a moderate Christian is simply to choose a middle of the way road, an almost uncompromising stance on issues, and cherry picking from both conservative and liberal values. The moderate Christian views the commitment of both conservatives and liberals as pure "fanaticism" and is repulsed by their passions. Lukewarmness is the rule of the faith.

The Kingdom of God for moderates is about "live and let other lives, do no harm to others and mind your own darn business, we are here to have a good time and God wants us to enjoy our lives, so chill"

To be a "good liberal Christian" there is also a good and intimidating long lists of issues: you must fight for social justice, care for the poor (while at the same time creating a lifestyle that leaves no space for the poor in their lives), creeds and dogmas are at best softened or at worst disregarded as "superstitious" and "medieval". Evangelism is neglected, and what I like to call "the idolatry of justice" is prevalent. To be a liberal Christian is simply to be an activist with some religious language and practices. There is an almost desperate need to transform Christian values and ethics in a way that conform almost perfectly with progressive values and ethics.

The Kingdom of God in liberal Christianity is about "transforming our world around us and bring about the Kingdom through social and political reform".

The problems with these parties of Christianity are manifold. The biggest issue is how much these parties align with our political values. Christianity then, is heavily compromised and adapted by the culture you feel most comfortable with.

The Answer: The Gospel and the Kingdom of God

My question is: Where is the Kingdom of God in all of this? Where does the culture and values of the Kingdom of God enter in? Is the Kingdom of God Democrat or Republican?

I am going to use a Scripture passage that conservatives love to use against liberals, even though they are just as guilty of it themselves:

[Jhn 18:36 ESV] 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world."

The Kingdom of God is "not of this world". As New Testament scholar N. T. Wright has pointed out, the best translation would be "My kingdom is not from this world". The Kingdom of God does not originate from this world, with all the diverse cultures and political values, beautiful as they might be.

Whenever we see the "Kingdom of God" being modeled by values of a particular political system, then it stops being the Kingdom of God and it starts being something from this world, with some religious values added to it for good measure.

This is not to say that the Kingdom of God is apolitical. If anything, it is extremely political. Otherwise, why would Jesus use political language to describe it?

What it is, however, is a culture not to replace all cultures, but by definition, a "counterculture" that is at times (but not always) in contradiction to our collective cultures. The Kingdom of God will never cease to be counter cultural. It is an endless revolution, and this revolution will one day be firmly and permanently installed at Jesus' return.

If the Gospel is not continually challenging conservative, moderate and liberal cultures and values, then it is no longer the Gospel. Making our values and culture bed partners to the Gospel is nothing short of idolatry.

Yes, Kingdom values sometimes resemble conservative and liberal values, but they do not originate from them.

We should care for the poor and social justice because we are Christians, and Christ cares for those things, not because we are liberals or progressives. We should care and do Evangelism because we are Christians, and believe Jesus is such a wonderful person that we can't help but share it with others, not because we are conservatives and duty bound to save others from hell. We believe the creeds, in Christ's incarnation, atoning death, and bodily resurrection not because we are conservative fanatics and irrational, medieval or spiritual neanderthals, but because we trust the witness of those who died to communicate this faith.

It is time for Christians to stand up and become what we are called to be: little Christs, imitators of Him, who offended both conservatives, lukewarms and liberals, and was at the same time attractive to them all.

It is time for us to die to ourselves: to our values and cultures, and be reborn to the counter cultural, always revolutionary, ancient and yet ever new, Kingdom of God.