Infant baptism--by immersion

Today at the Episcopal church Hugo and I attend, a couple's baby was baptized. This congregation baptizes infants by immersion, which is quite something to watch. They set up a big tub outside. The baby is entirely undressed and placed in the priest's arms. As the priest says, "I baptize you in the name of the Father..." she sort of sweeps the baby backwards into the water, just enough to immerse the baby's back. At "and of the Son..." she does another pass, this time deeper, usually with the result that water splashes over the baby's face, at which point he or she starts, um, voicing reservations, shall we say. With "and of the Holy Spirit," the baby passes entirely under the water, just for a second, and comes out howling in unknown tongues.

Immersing infants is very important to the priest here in order to preserve the death-and-resurrection symbolism of baptism. In her sermon today, just before the baptism, she talked about how in baptism we plunge into the life of Christ. Actually, she said something about how people "choose" to be baptized when they're ready to plunge into the life of Christ. Nicely put, I thought—and a great argument for why infants shouldn't be baptized. They're not choosing to plunge into anything.

I don't mean to be sanctimonious here. Back when I was at the MTC, they brought in some middle-aged man in a suit to talk to us; and one of maybe two things he said that stuck with me is that when he was on his mission, contacts would sometimes invite him to witness their child's christening, and he could never share their joy because he knew what the Book of Mormon says about infant baptism and the gall of bitterness. Then and now, I thought the guy needed to dislodge the iron rod he had stuck up his _____.

(Well, okay, I wouldn't have phrased it that way at the time I was in the MTC. The J.-Golden-Kimball-esque language and full-on disdain came later.)

Nevertheless, watching today's baptism, I was reminded of how traditionally Mormon my sensibilities are on this question. (Also Baptist—this is a question on which Mormons and their Baptist opponents would see eye to eye.) I understand the liberal theology that reads infant baptism as a way to welcome children into the church, the family of God. I understand that, sociologically, these events are an occasion for families to celebrate the newborn and to pass on tradition. And whenever I witness these events, I always think: A baby blessing could accomplish the same purposes. Save the baptism for when the child is old enough to remember the immersion experience and everything it symbolizes and to perform some modicum of self-conscious identity work and meaning-making.

Anyway. Wanted to get that little soapbox off my chest. In any case, the baby was cute, he got over the shock quickly (they generally do), it was a great moment for the family, and they served a fantastic cake afterwards. Chocolate cream frosting and raspberry filling take the gall of bitterness right out of your mouth.

Islamophobia

There was a strict command throughout all the churches that there should be no persecutions among them, that there should be an equality among all... (Mosiah 27:3)

As a historian, I should know better than to be surprised. I know that nativism is a recurring phenomenon in this country's history. I know that American Protestants have a history of rallying against religious Others, and I can even give you a sociological theory to explain why contemporary evangelicals do that. (It has to do with the way strong boundaries generate religious vitality.) I know history doesn't roll smoothly forward in Hegelian fashion, though I have faith the Spirit can make it do that if we're willing to bend as it blows.

Despite all that, I am wearily taken aback by the intensity of anti-Muslim sentiment that's been stirred up around the proposed Islamic center near the former World Trade Center. And it's not just that, of course, though the "Ground Zero mosque" has become the cause celebre, partly because opponents find it easiest in that case to squeeze away from the accusation of intolerance. (It's just about being sensitive; they have nothing against Islam in general, it's just that the location of this particular mosque is so provocative, etc.) But protests against the building of mosques and Islamic centers are going on in different places around the country. And now we've got this bigoted minister down in Florida planning a Qur'an-burning for the September 11 anniversary. ("You want religion, do you? I will have preachers here presently.")

I read in the news the other day that over 60% of respondents to one poll opposed the building of a mosque at Ground Zero. Language is key, of course: I've noticed that opponents tend to talk about building a mosque at Ground Zero, which has left me wondering if it's possible that there are people out there who actually imagine that the proposal is to erect a mosque on the site of the Twin Towers? Consider the sign that one person is reported to have been carrying at the meeting where the Manhattan community board voted to approve the project: "You're building over a Christian cemetery!"

If a statement like that reflects "sincere" ignorance, there's a chance of being able to communicate. But if the statement is sheerly an expression of Christian entitlement—I don't know if it's possible to communicate with that.

Don't misunderstand me: I'm prepared to believe that there are people out there who really aren't particularly Islamophobic but who believe that the "Ground Zero mosque" is unwisely provocative. I'm willing to read the ADL's opposition, for example, with that kind of presumptive generosity. (Though I still agree with the New Yorker columnist who called their opposition "shameful.") For me, this isn't even so much about the "Ground Zero mosque." It's about watching how the "Ground Zero mosque" debate is helping to bring out anti-Muslim sentiment all over this country, sentiment that gets expressed in ways which simply cannot be excused in the nuanced way that some people explain their opposition to the Islamic center in Manhattan. And the fact that you have people offering nuanced opposition to the Islamic center in Manhattan emboldens the people who are just plain bigots, because it makes it easier for them to imagine that their position is similarly sophisticated and respectable. It gives them a respectable language behind which to conceal their prejudice.

I am so angry, which does nothing to help. The anger is, rather, a symptom of how helpless I feel.

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God the Compassionate, the Merciful—

Through a latter-day prophet, Jesus says: "Do not be afraid."
I want to see the light of truth dispel ignorance.
I want to see prejudices broken up and swept away as with a flood.

I give thanks for the voices of reason who at this time are speaking up
on behalf of the constitutional principles which must be maintained
for the rights and protection of all.

(I thought my country's president was one of those voices,
but now I'm not so sure.)

Teach me what I can say
that will constructively help to change minds and hearts
of people in my orbit.

In Christ's name, amen.

A prayer of thanksgiving

Praise the Lord with a prayer of thanksgiving. (D&C 136:28)

I give thanks that the Deepwater Horizon well appears to have been successfully capped—and I pray it holds. I give thanks that the oil appears to be dissipating more rapidly than feared and hasn't spread far as it was originally feared that it might.

I don't mean to be sullen, but I just don't find it in me to feel very grateful about either BP's or the U.S. government's reactions to the spill. I'm sitting here, actually, having an epiphany about how much antipathy I feel toward Congress and the Obama administration, not just over this issue but in general.

I pray for people whose lives are still affected by the spill and its aftermath. I pray for the wildlife living in affected habitats.

I remember the dead. I was thinking of animals when I wrote that, but there are people to remember, too—those killed during the explosion.

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I give thanks for the federal ruling against the constitutionality of Proposition 8. There's no telling, of course, how this is going to end. But it's one hurdle past. A ray of hope.

I have been surprised—baffled, really, to the point where I would start talking about Providence if I didn't think that were philosophically problematic and prematurely optimistic—by what a poor showing the proponents of Prop 8 made in court. It's weird. I don't know what to make of that. Ineptness? Overconfidence in the strength of their case? (I felt "our side" had made that mistake when Prop 8 was challenged before the California state supreme court.) Possibly resignation? Did they figure they couldn't win before a gay judge, but the Supreme Court would save them? (Which it could.) Or even, perhaps, a sense of fighting a losing battle? Obviously I'd love to think the last, but who knows.

I'm grateful for the very important irony that none of the government officials named in the suit, including Schwarzenegger and the state's attorney general, were willing to defend Prop 8. I'd like to see there a lesson in the limits of populism: groups may be able to get what they want by passing propositions, but if you thrust such things on elected officials, they may not go to bat for you. This case has shown that gay marriage isn't so neatly a Republican vs. Democrat issue anymore, which is a good sign in terms of shifting public opinion. The fact the judge is, evidently, gay is also an encouraging sign of the times: Imagine back in the Sixties trying to defend racial segregation before a black judge. The kind of case that the religious right is accustomed to making against gay/lesbian equality really only works when you're talking about gays and lesbians as the menacing Other. When the person to whom you have to make your case is the Other . . . you've got a problem.

Of course, if/when this case reaches the Supreme Court, we'll be the Other again. No direct representation on the bench. So . . . we'll see. But for the moment, I give thanks.

Feast of the Transfiguration

Today was the Feast of the Transfiguration in the Western Christian liturgical calendar. Today was also the usual first-Friday Taize service, so I made the Transfiguration our theme. I used the scriptural readings listed for today in the Book of Common Prayer (they included a Gospel account of the Transfiguration, of course), and I wrote prayers that worked with themes from those readings.

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PSALM 99

Mighty are you, God of Zion!
You reign supreme over the nations.
Let all the peoples praise your name.
Holy are you!

Mighty governor, lover of justice,
you rule with equity.
You have executed righteous judgment
and established justice among your people.
You are worthy of worship and praise.
Holy are you!

Moses, Aaron, and Miriam were among those who served you;
Deborah and Samuel were among those who called on your name.
When they cried to you, you answered them;
you spoke to them from a pillar of cloud.
They carried out your instructions
and observed the law you taught them.

You answered them, holy God.
Though you decree judgment for wrongdoing,
yet you showed them you are a God who forgives.
You are worthy to be praised
and worshipped on your holy mountain.
Holy are you!

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2 PETER 1:16-19

When we told you about the coming of Jesus, the Chosen One,
and his power and majesty,
we spoke from our own experience,
as eyewitnesses.

For we were there when Almighty God gave him honor and glory—
when a Voice from out of dazzling glory said,
“This is my Beloved, on whom my favor rests!”
We ourselves heard this Voice from heaven
when we were with Jesus on the holy mountain.

Because of this experience,
we believe even more firmly in the words of the prophets.
So we urge you to take up their words
like a lamp in the darkness,
until the daybreak comes
and the light of the morning star shines in your own hearts.

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LUKE 9:28-36

Jesus went up on a mountain to pray.
He took Peter, James, and John with him.

As he prayed, his face began to shine,
and his clothes became dazzling white.
Suddenly two other glorious figures appeared—
the prophets Moses and Elijah.
They talked with Jesus about what was going to happen
when he journeyed to Jerusalem.

Peter and the other two had been dropping off to sleep,
but now they were wide awake.
They saw Jesus, shining in glory,
and the two prophets standing with him.

When the prophets began to leave,
Peter said to Jesus:
“Teacher, it is good that we are here!
Moses and Elijah don’t need to go—
we can set up tents, one for each of you...”
He was babbling.

While Peter was speaking,
a cloud appeared and enveloped them.
They were filled with fear.

From inside the cloud, they heard a Voice say:
“This is my Son. This is my Chosen.
Listen to him!”

As soon as the Voice said this,
they found themselves alone with Jesus.

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PRAYERS

Christ our God—
on the mountaintops of our lives,
in our places of retreat and our times of prayer,
you have revealed yourself to us,
sometimes in glimpses,
sometimes with a force that leaves us babbling or speechless.
We yearn for the experience of sensing your presence.
Open our eyes to recognize you in all the ways you come to us.

Response: Teacher—it is good that we are here!

Christ our light—
you have caused us to hear the voice of God:
through prophetic words and inspired writings,
through the voice of conscience,
through divine light shining in our hearts.
We hear, but at times we cannot see, or we are afraid.
Help us discern our Creator’s will,
and give us faith and courage to do it.

Response: Teacher—it is good that we are here!

Risen Christ—
we are eyewitnesses of your glory.
We know by our own experience
that you give light to those who seek;
that you are a God who forgives, heals, and comforts;
that you are at work in our lives.
Show us how to share your light
and to work blessing in the lives of others.

Response: Teacher—it is good that we are here!

Thanksgiving and remembrance

This week Argentina became the first Latin American country, and the second country in the Americas (O Canada!), to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. ("Viva!" to Mexico's Distrito Federal for legalizing it locally.) The LDS Church made what strikes me as a token effort to stir up opposition among its members in the vicinity of Buenos Aires. I'm not sure, actually, how to explain why they refrained from organizing a more assertive opposition, something more on the scale of Prop 8. Scared cautious by the Prop 8 backlash? Worried about a backlash from the Argentine government? A largely American leadership just not so invested in what goes on outside the United States? Who knows. Anyway, justice won, though I'd be more encouraged if it had won by a larger margin.

The morning breaks, the shadows flee;
lo, Zion's standard is unfurled!
The dawning of a brighter day,
majestic rises on the world.

The clouds of error disappear
before the rays of truth divine;
the glory bursing from afar,
wide o'er the nations soon will shine.

"Zion's standard" because one of the defining values of Zion is social equality and an end to discrimination (D&C 38:26-27).

Hope flickers on.

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It appears—fingers tightly crossed—that the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has been successfully capped. My feeling about that actually isn't so much gratitude, to be honest, as it is: About frickin' time. I still want to see heads on stakes. Well, no, I don't believe in capital punishment as a matter of principle. So let me revise my vindictive fantasy: I want every BP executive, and anyone else in that company whose job responsibilities make them accountable for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, along with every person at the MMS ever guilty of taking gifts or allowing oil companies to bend the rules, to be compelled to work in oil cleanup for however many years it takes until the job is done.

One can only dream.

The angel brought me again to the door of the temple;
and look! water flowed out from under the threshhold toward the east. . . .

He said to me:
These waters flow down into the desert and into the sea,
and when they come into the sea, the waters will be healed.
Then every living thing that moves will live,
and there will be great schools of fish,
because of these waters.
They will be healed, and everything will live.

(from Ezekiel 47: 1, 8-9)

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Yesterday was the three-year anniversary of my excommunication. I'm sitting here looking at the screen, with absolutely no idea what more to say about it than that. I'm not even sure what kind of scriptural passage to quote at this point. Well, no, this feels right:

I will ask my Father to send you another Advocate,
who will remain with you forever . . .
I will not leave you orphaned:
I will come to you . . .
Then you will know that I am in my Father,
and you are in me, and I in you.

(John 14: 16, 18, 20)

Taize service, July

I led the first Friday Taize service as usual two days ago. Here are the readings as I re-rendered them (working from the NRSV and the JTS translation of the Hebrew Bible). I took this set of readings from the Taize website; they weren't the readings recommended for this week but for a different week in ordinary time. When I chose them, I recognized that Psalm 103 and Isaiah 40 were being paired together, at least in part, because they both refer to being given power like an eagle's. But it didn't occur to me until we were in the middle of the service that the eagle metaphor resonated weirdly with the iconography of the Fourth of July. Since I'm not thrilled about alliances between American nationalism and Christianity, I think the resonance was unfortunate.

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PSALM 103:1-12

Bless the Lord, my soul!
All that is in me, bless God’s holy name!
Give thanks to the Lord, my soul,
and remember all God’s kindnesses.

Who but the Lord forgives all your sins?
Who but God heals your maladies?
Who pulls you back from the precipice?
Who encircles you with tender arms?
Who fills your life with good things
and gives you power like the eagle’s?

The Lord is a righteous judge,
administering justice to all who are oppressed.
This is the God who spoke to Moses—
who liberated Israel with wondrous deeds.

The Lord is merciful and kind,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
God does not treat us according to our sins
nor repay us according to our faults.
As high as heaven is above the earth,
so deep is God’s compassion for the penitent.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far does the Lord remove from us our sins.

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ISAIAH 40:27-31

My people,
why do you say,
“The Lord does not see me;
God ignores the injustice done to me”?

Don’t you know?
Have you not heard?
The eternal God,
who created the earth from end to end,
is endless in power
and limitless in knowledge.

In God, there is strength for the weary,
power for the powerless.
Beyond the limits at which the energy of youth is depleted—
past the point at which athletes collapse from exhaustion—
those who trust in the Lord will find their strength renewed.
They will soar upward as if with the wings of eagles.
Running, they will not become tired;
marching, they will not grow weary.

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LUKE 6:27-32, 35

Jesus said:
Listen, all of you—

Love your enemies,
do good to those who despise you,
bless those who curse you,
pray for those who mistreat you.

If someone slaps you across one cheek,
offer the other also.
If someone takes away your coat,
turn over your shirt as well.
Give to everyone who begs from you.
If someone takes what is yours,
make no effort to get it back.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

What is so virtuous
about showing love to those who love you?
It hardly takes a saint to do that much.

I am setting for you a higher standard.
Love your enemies;
do good, and lend expecting nothing in return.
That is how you will grow into the image of God,
who showers blessings even on the ungrateful and the wicked.

Moody

I'm feeling moody at the moment, so I'm taking a break from other tasks to do a little journaling. My moodiness is partly worry: Hugo's trapped out-of-town because of car trouble, and we don't yet know what the trouble is (or how expensive it will be).

My mood is also a carry over from last weekend. Two members of the Episcopal church Hugo and I attend here were ordained deacons as the next step in a journey which will end with their becoming priests. That was on Saturday at an old fancy church in Raleigh. On Sunday, there was an outdoor Eucharistic service at a campground where the two new deacons preached and assisted with communion, which was celebrated by a former member of the same congregation who became a priest a couple years back (the same person who created for me the Liahona icon you see on the top of this blog).

It was a homecoming, and the congregation was very happy, and I felt selfishly depressed. Watching these individuals, all of whom I know quite well, move into their vocations reminded me that I do not have a faith community that's willing to help me live out what I perceive to be my vocation. A few weeks ago, I was asked to orchestrate the reading from Acts at the Pentecost service, which in this congregation's tradition involves people reading in multiple languages. I organized something that hadn't been tried in previous years but that I hoped would enrich the spirit of the celebration, and afterwards the vicar asked me if I hadn't been gay, would I have become a Mormon priest. She was assuming that Mormons have a professional clergy, like the Christian groups she knows, so what she was saying was: You seem to have certain pastoral gifts; before you came out and had to leave the Mormon church, did you contemplate entering the ministry? It was a depressing question, and I was reminded of it again last weekend as I watched the new deacons exercise their new roles.

I don't think I've told this story on this blog before, so here goes: In 2001, I did a three-day retreat at a Trappist monastery. Doors that I'd thought had been standing open as options for my future had closed, and I was trying to figure out what God wanted me to do with my life. I had these loves and yearnings—to teach, to go back to the Dominican Republic, to do ministry, to explore new ways to tap into the spiritual resources of Mormonism. What was God trying to tell me about my vocation?

So at one point I'm walking down this snowy road, reflecting, and all of a sudden the question comes into my head: What would you ideally like to be doing, if you could do anything? And I knew immediately what the answer was: I would like to be a full-time missioner, like I'd seen in other denominations, working in the Dominican Republic, helping to build up the LDS Church, which in my imagination was more like a liberal Christian church. That, I thought, is what I yearn to do. That's my calling. And of course, it's a calling that can never be.

Whether I would actually have the skills and the stamina to do the kind of full-time missioner work I was envisioning is a whole different question—and working through that question is what discernment of vocation is all about. But the point of this story is: I realized at that moment that I yearned to do with my life something that I simply couldn't do because the possibilities just didn't exist. You might think that would be a depressing realization, but it was actually liberating. I didn't have to wonder anymore what these yearnings of mine were calling me to do. I knew—and I knew I couldn't have it. And I'm hardly the first person to live and die in this world yearning for opportunities they simply couldn't have. Think of all the women suffragists who didn't live to see the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Think of all the slaves who never obtained the freedom they dreamed of. Etc., etc., etc.

So the pressure's off. My task now is simply to find little ways to lay the foundation for a day when, hopefully, someone who wants the things I want will have realistic possiblities for achieving them. Maybe that day won't come. But the hope by which I live—as in "faith, hope, and charity"—is that God can somehow make the little seeds I sow grow into something else.

Which doesn't, however, stop me from indulging in a narcisstic self-pity about the fact that other people do get their wishes. Last weekend, I started a moody little prayer about my dreams deferred, but then I stopped and thought: Oh for God's sake, John-Charles, pull your nose out of your navel and pray for people whom life has really robbed.

My prayers are with Hugo, dealing with this mess with the car. One of my nephews was baptized this weekend. My mother continues to be slowly devoured alive by the tumors taking over her body. I derive an angry, dark, helpless satisfaction from the thought that when the resurrection comes, she will rise again, but the tumors will not. We may not be able to keep you from taking her down now, you s.o.b's, but someday we are going to take her back. Now is all you get.