I really like the Episcopal church, because it focuses on allowing its members to think for themselves in a way that I feel most other churches do not. Anne, the priest at St. Anne’s on Church Circle, once told me that God gave us our brains to use them.

Quakerism’s a better fit for me, but I’m glad you’ve found a spiritual home.

Thank you, this made for interesting reading. In particular, I think you got at (or helped me get at—it’s hard to tell when reading someone else’s words) the essence of what makese ritual good, when it is good.

Also, I can’t resist pointing out that one of my favorite bloggers is an Episcopal priest.

Tania: It’s interesting that many people, like you, feel that much of the church doesn’t let them think for themselves. This wasn’t really the flavor of my church upbringing.

In my experience, everyone wanted you to think for yourself, but they wanted you to think well enough to come to the right conclusions. If you disagreed with them, well—it showed how much more energy they ought to put into convincing you! This approach might be extremely annoying, certainly, but it didn’t strike me as being intellectually oppressive.

Its opposite, the idea that intellectual freedom involves indifference to the ultimate truth of a point of view, strikes me as far more horrifying. “We love you no matter what you believe, because what you believe doesn’t matter.”

Unfortunately, that’s the main vibe I got from Anne, with whom I had one unpleasant encounter. It’s also the aspect of Quakerism that worries me.

On the other hand, your blog posts seem to demonstrate some of the best possibilities of Quakerism. They demonstrate a careful concern about truth paired with a strong sense of caution about presuming to know more than one really does. This second part leads naturally to a better ability to live with and love those of different opinions.

ASA seems to have some of the same things: caution without intellectual laxity. Love without metaphysical mushiness.

Moss: Thanks for your comment. I was a bit embarassed after writing this entry, and almost didn’t post it — so I was heartened by your giving what is, in my opinion, the best possible compliment a blog past can get: that it was interesting.

As to “AKMA’s Random Thoughts”—to my Bloglines list he goes!

In my experience, everyone wanted you to think for yourself, but they wanted you to think well enough to come to the right conclusions. If you disagreed with them, well—it showed how much more energy they ought to put into convincing you!

Well, to me, it always felt like they only wanted me to think if I happened to believe whatever the prescibed “right conclusion” was. If I disagreed, and provided logical or reasonable arguments as to why I disagreed, they tended to give up on me. Or, at least, this is the feeling I get from Rob’s family, who speaks of “intellectuals” with a little bit of disdain.

Its opposite, the idea that intellectual freedom involves indifference to the ultimate truth of a point of view, strikes me as far more horrifying. “We love you no matter what you believe, because what you believe doesn’t matter.”

Well… the first part of that sentence I don’t see anything wrong with. One of the things I like about Quakerism is loving every other human because every other person was created from God. (Okay, the reasoning behind loving every other human can vary, but that’s the reason I believe in.) What they believe does matter, because it’s part of who they are, and part of what makes them unique.

If I am ever in your area, though, I think it’d be interesting to attend church with you two. And you’re welcome to come to Meeting with me, if you’re ever around and inclined.

The rector at this parish often refers in conversation to the church’s existence through time and space. One of the reasons I like the ritual at A&A is the connection it provides to the rest of the people who have thought about and practiced worship. But I think I like it most of all because it’s largely corporal. Modifying the state of our physical being, even as modestly as to cross oneself or take a sip of wine, has surprising effects on the thinking and spirited parts of the soul. It’s this moderate embrace of the body that really attracts me to the Catholic strain of thought, of which A&A is proudly a part.

as i read your post (and scour cable for red sox highlights), i’m reminded of a time when i thought “the church” was irrelevant to an individual’s pursuit of holiness and discipleship, too. i don’t think that anymore, partly b/c of what you mentioned about having living/breathing mentors, examples, saints around me. but as i become more sacramental, i’m coming to see that as a compelling reason not to forsake gathering together (heb. 10.25). the institutional church is just that: an institution, and, as such, it has its blemishes, even asa-style high-church anglo-catholicism (you like how i was able to string together 3 hyphenated word couplings?). but an argument can be made that the corporate body of christ, the church, is indispensable to maintaining the integrity of the deposit of faith and the right administration of its sacraments. you and i have probably established, in our relationship, that @ times i am not the soundest of thinkers, but i sense there a truth that is valid and must be maintained. the institutional church isn’t a visible indicator of who’s in and who’s out of the kingdom (wheat and tares do spring up together, after all), nor is it always necessary (think house churches in china or wherever), but it can be a force of great compassion and should itself be a sacrament of the kingdom of god in a lost world.

but it’s late, i’m tired, and my wife and kids are away for the evening — i could just be ramblin’. thanks for the post.

(I’m having comment problems too; next time I see you on AIM I’ll bug you abt them). In any case, I came to the Episcopal church by way of the Book of Common Prayer. I think that your comments (and hb’s) on the spiritual use ritual apply also to prayer. There is a real place for formality in prayer, artificial as it seemed to me at first. Not only can great prayers, (like great books) say what you have to say better than you knew how to say it, but there is a sense of participation with fellow believers and fellow God-interlocutors across the ages.

The book of common prayer is actually my current substitute for going to church regularly. As I’ve described on my blog, the experience of going to church here is very interesting, but I don’t yet have the strength of soul to draw much sustenance out of it.

I can’t really deal with church, or people in general for that matter, in what we might call a ‘civilized’ manner. As a result, I have made my peace with the institution through the following steps:

1.) Get hired on as the lead guitarist at a church where you know damn well every single member agrees with each other on music only insofar as they all hate what you like.

2.) Make sure you are a volunteer. This way you can tyrannize them by virtue of the fact that getting a professional would cost money.

3.) Bring all manner of crazy distortion and effects pedals and turn the dials on them until they won’t go any further.

4.) Complain loudly any time another instrument or a vocalist can be heard over your guitar.

5.) Go out with your buddies Saturday night and proceed to consume vast quantities of the only true rock and roll drink (whiskey on the rocks).

6.) Show up Sunday morning underslept, unshaven, unshowered, with a Hawaiian shirt opened three buttons down while clearly nursing a bitchin’ hangover.

7.) Commence rocking for Jesus.

While nearly foolproof, I did manage to improve on this a few weeks ago. I woke up Sunday morning without a hangover. But just as panic gripped my soul and I began to wonder if I would, heaven forbid, be fit to perform in public, I realized the truth: I was not hungover because I was still drunk from the night before.

Praise the Lord!

Dan: What email address do you actually use? Your directives are to either a) write me an email, or b) give me a call. The number’s ———-. (Someone remind me to erase this number before a week or so is up.) I’ve just been thinking for a while about coming out to California this fall/winter and wanted to see if any time might work for you.

Sammy & hb: Thanks for giving some thoughts on this. It’s interesting to hear some of the more specific reasons this church has really appealed to you, hb. Regardless of my own thoughts or opinions on the institution of the church, it’s been good to get this perspective — I wasn’t really aware that one could have this kind of incarnational view of Christianity without full-blown Roman Catholicism. (Heck, as I often point out, I didn’t even realize Catholics were incarnational in this sense until the topic came up incidentally with Michael Sullivan.)

Anyway, I hope (Sammy) you’ll put up with someone as well and thoroughly Protestant as I am hanging around anyway.

What a difference a “e” makes. Should of course be corporeal in my earlier entry, amusing though it is to think of a church being corporal in its modern usage.

Corporeal: 1. Of the nature of the physical body; bodily.

Corporal: 1. Of the human body; bodily.

This from (the newly redesigned and no-longer-godawfulugly) Dictionary.com… in other words, I think you’re all right. Certainly, “corporeal” is more precisely what you meant (“of the material world”), but corporal seems fine, really.

Are you thinking, possibly, of “corpulent”?

I think the problem is more that “corporal” implies either “spankin’” or “non-commissioned officer”.

I meant just to avoid the confusion that Martin pinpointed, since ‘corporal’ is largely used in those senses these days. A corpulent church would be more annoying than amusing (think of the many replaced altar rails).