“Divided by a deep narrow chasm”

I return.

I largely gave up blogging for Lent. The choice was deliberate, but brought on by near necessity—I have had much to deal with of late, both personally and professionally, and while I had many thoughts on matters spiritual in general and things Anglican in particular, the prospect of writing them down and editing them for clarity filled me with dread. I was, if not exhausted, then very, very tired of pondering the slow train wreck of the Anglican Communion. It was not ennui, but something closer to a kind of blogging accidia; not writer’s block, but a need for rest and perspective that only comes from enforced quietude.

I confess I was not consistent in my discipline. I commented on other blogs on a few occasions. But I rarely read the various Anglican news outlets that I had previously followed obsessively, such as Stand Firm. Also, I started following the political news very closely. It may seems strange to some that I would trade the ups and downs of the church for the daily back and forth of Republicans and Democrats, to exchange Titusonenine for First Read. But there was something refreshing in reading about the contests between Huckabee, Romney and McCain, or between Hillary and Barack. In the end, it is easier, at least for me, to treat politics like beanbag (pace Mr. Dooley) than the church.

But now I find that I have accumulated some things I want to say, as well as a bit of energy to continue with some earlier lines of thought. Heeding the warnings of The New York Times, I will try to pace myself. I will also continue to alternate my own comments with pieces from my reading. Right now, I have begun a long forgotten book by a mostly forgotten writer, The Good Pagan’s Failure by Rosalind Murray. The author was the daughter of Gilbert Murray, and her famous father is clearly the good pagan of the title, while she herself was an adult convert to Roman Catholicism. I plan to write more about the Murrays in the future. For now, consider this passage, which though written sixty years ago sounds quite contemporary . . .

The contemporary world is atomic in its outlook; dissociated ideas, emotions, sense impressions, are almost deliberately cultivated at the expense of continuous or long-distance considerations; cause and effect, dependence and relation are at a discount, and to the atomic mind the realization of such underlying unity is alien and distasteful.

In attemtpting to explain to ourselves and to each other the differences of which we are both aware, we find that we are handicapped at the outset by lack of common ground from which to start, a common language in which to speak; and yet we want to communicate with each other. It seems at times as though we were divide by a deep narrow chasm across which there is no bridge, by a thick veil through which we partly see, but through which we can never touch each other. That we should not be so separate and divided, we both in varying degrees agree, yet how to meet we neither of us know.

How strange that, in the sixty years since Rosalind Murray wrote those words, they no longer describe simply the gulf between the secular and sacred, but between those within the church as well.

“The Catholic Church is to be found where the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop are.”

See that you all follow the Bishop, as Christ does the Father, and the presbyterium as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as a command of God. Let no one do anything connected with the Church without the Bishop. Let that be considered a certain [βεβαια, "valid"] eucharist which is under the leadership of the Bishop, or one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the Bishop appears, there let the multitude of the people be; just as where Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic church [ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία]. It is not permitted with the Bishop either to baptize or to celebrate an agape; but whatever he shall approve of, that is well-pleasing alos to God, so that everything that is done may be assured and certain [βέβαιον].

—St. Ignatius of Antioch, c. 111 AD, Letter to the Smyrneans 8

For since I was able to establish such an intimacy with your bishop so quickly (an intimacy that was not human but spiritual), how much more do I consider you fortunate, you who are mingled together with him as the church is mingled with Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ with the Father, so that ll things may be symphonic in unison. Let no one be deceived. Anyone who is not inside the sanctuary [θυσιαστήριον, "altar," "place of sacrifice"] lacks the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two persons has such power, how much more will that of the bishop and the entire church? Therefore the one who does not join the congregation ["come together to the same place," ἐρχόμενος ἐπὶ τὸ ἀυτὸ] is already haughty and passes judgement on himself. For it is written, “God opposes the haughty.” And so we should be eager not to oppose the bishop, that we may be subject to God.

—St. Ignatius of Antioch, c. 111 AD, Letter to the Ephesians 5

At the center all Ignatius’ thinking, lies the Divine Eucharist. Coming together, epi to auto, is the usual expression to indicate the Divine Eucharist, and here it is quite clear that this is what it means. The Divine Eucharist is Ignatius’s passion. He advises the faithful to come together frequently to celebrate it. This insistence on Ignatius’s part seems to stem from his ecclesiology. The Divine Eucharist is the body of Christ, the very flesh of the historical Christ which suf¬fered and is risen. The unity of the Church should be not only spiritual, he says, but also physical. Through this physical unity which is realized in the Divine Eucharist, the local Church takes on historical substance. This is also why he identifies the local Church with the gathering for the Divine Eucharist, and not simply the local Church, but the “Church of God”: the deacons, being ministers of the Divine Eucharist, are ministers of the Church of God.

Both the local Church and the “Church of God” are expressed historically (in space and time) through the Divine Eucharist. We find ourselves confronted once again with the Pauline ecclesiology. The Church is the body of Christ. Ignatius is quite clear on the justification for this consciousness which he interprets fully: the Church is the body of Christ because the body of Christ is the historical Christ Himself and the historical Christ is the flesh of the Divine Eucharist. The local Church, then, is the whole Church for no other reason than because the whole historical Christ is made incarnate within her through the Divine Eucharist. Precisely because of the Divine Eucharist, the local Church can be regarded as the Church of God, the whole Church, and can be addressed as such through the epithets that we have seen. Because through the unity of the body of Christ, she “partakes of God.” This leads Ignatius to stress another element in this passage.

The Divine Eucharist is closely bound up with the Bishop as he is in turn with “the whole Church.” These elements are so deeply bound up with one another that they are not clearly distinguished in Ignatius’ thought. Thus, when he is talking about the Altar, he suddenly introduces the prayer of the Bishop and of the whole Church. And when he is saying that one who does not participate in the Divine Eucharist is showing pride, he immediately adds that in order to avoid pride we should be subject to the Bishop. He indicates the same connection of the Altar with the Bishop more clearly when he says that anyone who does something “apart from the Bishop and the presbyters and the deacons” is the same as one who is outside the Altar. This most profound bond between Bishop and Eucharist in Ignatius’ thought has as a consequence another, more striking identification: the Bishop is identified with the entire local Church. Thus, we reach the classic passage “where the Bishop is, there is the multitude . . . ” Judging from the whole of Ignatius’ theology, it appears that this passage does not have a merely hortatory sense—or if it has such a sense, it.is no more than an expression and affirmation of a reality which is understood ontologically. Ignatius does not hesitate to say that the whole multitude, i.e. the whole local Church, appears before him in the person of the Bishop. The “whole multitude” of the Church of Ephesus is present for Ignatius in the person of her Bishop Onesimus. This incarnation of the local Church in the Bishop - the result, as we have seen, of the connection between the Bishop and the Divine Eucharist - leads to further consequences for the position of the Bishop in the Church. In these consequences, the characteristics of the “catholicization” of the Church find their completion.

“Where the Bishop is, there let the multitude be,” because according to Ignatius the Bishop incarnates the multitude, the local Church. But the local Church is a full, complete entity, the whole Church of God, because the whole Christ is to be found in her and makes her a unity, the one body of Christ, through the Divine Eucharist. In consequence, Ignatius does not hesitate to go on to link the Bishop with Jesus Christ. The Lord is called “Bishop.” Whatever happens to the visible Bishop of the Church is transmitted to the invisible Bishop, Jesus Christ. The Bishop forms a “type” and icon of Christ or of the Father Himself, an icon and type not in a symbolic but in a real sense: “It is fitting to obey in no hypocritical fashion; since one is not deceiving this visible Bishop, but seeking to mock the One who is invisible.” This realist view of the relationship between the Bishop and the Lord allows Ignatius easily to interchange these two persons: when he is being led to martyrdom and is away from Antioch, the Lord is the Bishop of that local Church. Two different worlds are thus created: God with the Bishop, and those who are apart from the Bishop with the devi1. Unity around the Bishop is a unity around God and in Gοd. “For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ, these are with the Bishop.” In the same way, union with the Bishop constitutes union with Christ, and vice versa.

What we have said already sets out the essence of the “catholicization” of the Church. The further consequences of these statements are drawn out by Ignatius himself. The unity of the Church is not simply eucharistic, but because of the relation of the Bishop to the Eucharist it becomes hierarchical as well. The Church of the Philadelphians realizes her “oneness” when she is “with the Bishop and the presbyters and deacons who are with him.” Not only that, but the community cannot even be called a church without the clergy, i.e. the Bishop, presbyters and deacons: “without these, it cannot be called a church.”

The further consequences now follow naturally: whatever is accomplished in the Church is valid only when it is approved by the Bishop. The Bishop is not from men or through men, but from Christ. And unity around the Bishop is not the will of man, but the “voice of God.” The Bishop, in other words, is appointed as such by divine law, and unity around him is recognized as the will not of man but of God. Thus the “catholicization” of the Church leads to the sequence: will (gnome) of the Father - will of Jesus Christ - will of the Bishop. The Catholic Church, as the whole Church, is such by virtue of the fact that she has the whole Christ. But the local Church too is likewise catholic, because she has the whole Christ through the Divine Eucharist. The Bishop as being directly connected with the Divine Eucharist represents the local Church in the same way as the whole Christ represents the generic (katholou) or catholic Church. But given that both the whole Christ and the Bishop are connected with the Church in the Divine Eucharist, the kath’ olou or Catholic Church is to be found where the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop are. Thus the Bishop, as it has been most aptly observed, comes to be “the center of the visible and also the true Church,” and the local Church comes to be the “Catholic Church” herself.

Thus, neither universal consciousness nor polemic against heresies can explain the origin of the “Catholic Church.” Its presence in history follows the line which Ignatius presents to us in such a remarkably concise and comprehensive way, and which, curiously, has been overlooked by scholarly research: one Church, one Eucharist, one flesh and one cup, one altar, one Bishop with the presbyterium and the deacons. Thus, in conclusion, the “Catholic Church” is identified according to Ignatius with the whole Christ, and the whole Christ is to be found and is revealed in the most tangible way in the eucharistic synaxis and communion of all the members of each Church under the leadership of the Bishop. In consequence, the local Church is catholic not because of her relationship with the “universal” Church, but because of the presence within her of the whole Christ in the one Eucharist under the leadership of the Bishop. In this way, each local Church having its own Bishop is catholic per se; that is to say, it is the concrete form in space and time of the whole body of Christ, of the “generic” (kath’ olou) Church.

—John D. Zizioulas, from  Eucharist, Bishop, Church

The God Gap

I have been on break lately, as my last post indicated, and intend to continue to post infrequently during Lent. I have, however, been following the political news fairly closely (not, perhaps, the best way to spend Lent, but at least I can say it’s my civic duty).

Regular readers of this blog and of my comments elsewhere have a pretty good idea where my political allegiances lie. However, that is not the reason that I post the following links. Rather, I find them interesting on several levels, and think that you might too, whether you agree or disagree with the opinions expressed. They suggest to me some possibly interesting twists and turns in the political road ahead, whatever one’s point of view.

The New Republic’s website has several blogs, including one called The Plank. Three posts on a recent event in New York state politics may just spark some reflection. You may find them here and then here and then here.

A Lenten Pause

Lent came early this year, and as far as I’m concerned, not a moment too soon. Lent, of course, is a season of struggle, or what I like to call asceticism for every man. But it is also a season of rest, of focus on our interior, rather than exterior, demons.

I have been feeling a certain spiritual lassitude of late, what they used to call accidie. This has been brought on by several factors, only some of which I can identify. Some of them are spiritual, others more mundane. The pressures of work are high at the moment, for example. The last straw was the return of my annual cold, arriving in February just when I thought I would escape this year. I need a break, both physically and spiritually, in order to concentrate on what is truly important.

To that end, I am suspending any personal compositions for this Lent until Holy Week. Lent is a good time to hit the spiritual reset button. I hope to share with any visitors some of the reading I will be doing for Lent; right now I’m working on Zizioulas’ Eucharist, Bishop, Church, and I’m casting an eye towards Jeremy Taylor after that. We’ll see. So keep checking back and perhaps leave a comment—it’s always nice to know that someone out there is visiting—but with so much going on (Lambeth, GAFCON, CCP, etc.), I find that now is the time for reflection rather than hasty composition. I will resume posting my own thoughts on or about Palm Sunday.

“The Church hath observed this Paschal fast as from the Apostles”

Peter Gunning (1614-1684) was a Caroline Divine, a bishop and theologian in the Church of England of the seventeenth century, the era of “classical Anglicanism.” A royalist who lived through the civil war and the Protectorate, he flourished during the Restoration, ending up as the bishop of Ely. He is little known today, although in his day he was a prominent churchman, closely associated with men such as Jeremy Taylor. He argued for episcopacy against the presbyterian Baxter at the Savoy conference of 1661 and played a role in the revision of the prayer book that resulted in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. (In fact, those who now look again to the 1662 Book as a theological standard for Anglicanism might want to consider the published views of Gunning, at once representative of his age and yet a classic expression of the Anglican reliance on Scripture and Tradition.)

A major work by Gunning was The Paschal or Lent Fast, based on a sermon (enlarged to 300 pages!). The book displays a massive learning (as would befit someone who was both Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity at Oxford and Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge), and can still be used over three centuries later as a repository of patristic information on the development of fasting and lenten discipline. I have, for the sake of brevity and clarity, removed the extended quotations in Greek and Latin, which have the unfortunate effect of making the work seem forbidding to those not at ease with classical languages. The two portions quoted here, from an earlier and a later part of the book, do not show Gunning’s extensive learning, but they give a good sense of his method, which is that of classical Anglican divinity.

Reason; and experience; and the direction of all wise men in the Church of God ancient and modern, the house of wisdom: councils; reverend Fathers and writers; and our Church in particular; have directed and commanded us not to interpret Scripture in things of public concernment to the Church’s rule of believing and doing, but as we find it interpreted by the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church, as they had received it from those before them. For that the leaving of every man to make any thing of any text, upon any device out of his own head, to the founding any new and strange doctrine or practice, as necessary therefrom, or to the opposing of any constantly received doctrine or practice of the Church universal, (for in other matters they may happily with leave quietly abound in their own sense,) leaves all bold innovators which can but draw away disciples after them, to be as much lawgivers to the Church by their uncontrollable law-interpreting, as any pope or enthusiast can or need pretend to be; and hath been, and ever will be to the end of the world, the ground of most heresies and schisms brought into the Church by men who, departing from the teaching and stable interpretation of the Church, in their own instability and science falsely so called, pervert the Scriptures to their own and others’ (their obstinate followers) destruction.

Here therefore I first join issue, that the Church hath observed these days of the Paschal fast, (as it was called in the ancient Church,) or Lent fast, (that is, from the Saxon dialect, “Spring fast,”) ever since the times of these children of the bride-chamber, the Apostles of the Lord, and ever since the taking away of the Lord, the Bridegroom.

That the Church hath done this, hath observed this Paschal fast, as from the Apostles, grounding their practice upon instruction evangelical; and particularly also upon this text now before us, “The time shall come when, ” &c. “And then in those days they shall fast.”

For the Church’s visible practice from the Apostles’ times, if our brethren shall say, Shew us express example written in the following Scriptures, which may interpret this text so, or we are at liberty for the sense and practice; they must be told, what they cannot but freshly remember, that so said the brethren the Anabaptists: one express example of baptizing infants after that sanction and commission, whereby to interpret such sanction and commission. An express command, as the Church thinks, to “baptize all nations, ” would not hold them. So said the Socinians for their no-necessity of baptizing at all “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. ” Shew us one example in all the following Scriptures, acts, and letters of the Apostles of that form observed. A direct command as we would think it, could not bind up their liberty of interpreting it otherwise. The history of all the following ages of the Church after the Apostles is little to them, compared with the word of God in their own sense. All those following were but men, and these, in their giving out the sense of the Scripture, are more!

For our parts, we finding the Bridegroom, the Lord Himself, thus referring us to the practice of His known disciples, the children of the bride-chamber, “In those days they will fast, ” (not only they will teach on what days men should fast,) and the bride herself, whose cause is most concerned in it, declaring to us her practice, and assuring us she had received that her practice from those friends of her Bridegroom, and children of His marriage-chamber, the Apostles; that bride also being, as we know, the Queen standing at His right hand, the mother of us all; whose authority is above all mothers, (and yet each mother’s is from God over her children we, I say, joining in obedience with all those who have this Church for their mother, are assured that we obey and have God for our Father, and His Spirit not to leave her in her leading us, without certain conduct into all truth of necessary faith, or bounden practice, that is, certainly to secure her from every of the gates of hell never to prevail against her.

We have the Church our mother to hear; and as to the point we would hear of, Nos habemus talem consuetudinem, et Ecclesiae Dei, “We have such a custom, and so have and had the Churches of God. ” If any man against all this list to be contentious, we still have learnt not to let fall our appeal to the customs of the Churches of God; as St. Paul hath shewn us by his example (1 Cor 11: 15-16) that against contradictors it is best to do. Let our brethren, therefore, either shew some Church or age before their own of yesterday, where this was not the custom of Christian people, or else devise some other sense also of that text of St. Paul concerning the Church’s customs: or let them acknowledge it an apostolical note of contentious persons, (to whom he elsewhere saith belongs “tribulation and wrath, ” Rom 2:8-9) to oppose their interpretations and exceptions against such custom of the Churches of God, as this Paschal fast, or fast of Lent, in remembrance of the taking away of the Bridegroom of the Church, can manifest itself to be.

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Having thus cleared the consent of the generality of the Fathers, and the great number of undeniable witnesses by me produced in the first seven ages after the decease of the last of the Apostles, so uniformly witnessing that the Paschal fast of Lent was ever observed in the Church as from the Apostles and from evangelical instruction; I desire to know what is sufficient, if this be not, to prove a tradition apostolical ? If any shall hope to render the use of the Fathers useless, as to make any evidence herein, because forsooth they can allege that some one Father or other hath sometime called somewhat tradition apostolical, which indeed was not: I answer, It was the generality of the consent of other Fathers to the contrary, — at least the silence of all other Fathers therein, and many of those primitive ages of the Church knowing nothing thereof, — that lets us then know such not to have been tradition apostolical. Which in our cause is all otherwise; where, beside the uniform custom and solemn practice of the Church of all ages and places for some Paschal fast close upon the vernal equinox, which we therefore call the fast of Lent or Spring, the positive testimony of those Fathers hath been shewed so general and consenting, that perhaps themselves who oppose this will discern that they do full ill service to Christianity . . .

Eucharist and Church

Although it is evident from the whole content of this chapter [1 Cor 11] that Paul is speaking here about the assembly to perform the Divine Eucharist in Corinth, he nevertheless describes the assembly as a “Church”: “when you assemble as a Church I hear that there are divisions among you” (v. 18). Reading this phrase of the Apostle Paul’s, the Christians of Corinth might be expected to have asked, “What exactly does the Apostle mean when he talks about “coming together as a Church”? Aren’t we a “Church” whenever we meet, and even when we don’t come together in the same place?” This question, which seems so natural to twentieth-century Christians, did not concern the Christians of the Apostle Paul’s time. Indeed, from the passage it can be concluded quite naturally that the term “Church” was not used in a theoretical sense but to describe an actual meeting; and again not to describe just any sort of meeting, but the one that Paul had in mind when he wrote the words quoted above – the assembly to perform the Divine Eucharist. Paul does not hesitate in the slightest to call this assembly “the Church of God”: to despise the eucharistic assembly is the despire the very “Church of God” (v. 22). And going on to identify Eucharist and Church in a manner which is quite astonishing, he talks about the institution by Christ of the divine Supper, linking his reference to the “Church of God” with the subject of the Eucharist by a simple explanatory “for,” as if it were one and the same thing: “For I received from the Lord what I also delievered to you” (v. 23), namely the celebration of the Eucharist. This identification of the eucharistic assembly with the Church allows Paul to use the expression “coming together in the same place” (epi to auto) as a term having at once ecclesiological and eucharistic content. “When you come together in one place (epi to auto) it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat” (v. 20), because, by the way you behave, “you despise the Church of God” (v. 22). “So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another . . . lest you come together to be condemned . . . ” (vv.33-34). Thus, in the thought of Paul and the Churches which read his Epistles, the terms “coming together” or “coming together in the same place” (epi to auto), “the Lord’s supper” (i.e. the Divine Eucharist) and “the Church” (ekklesia) or “the Church of God” mean the same thing.

–from Eucharist, Bishop, Church by John. D. Zizioulas

Teaching Civ

Apart from today’s earlier, whimsical post, I have not written much for the blog lately. This is largely due to the pressure of work—teaching, committees, etc.—which is a bit above average this semester.

But along with all that, for the last two weeks I have been reviewing a world civilization text book manuscript for a publisher. This is one of those things that publishers ask academics further down the food chain (like me) to do from time to time, usually for a paltry sum. I’d done it before, and would not have done it again, except that it allows me to make certain Schedule C tax deductions and this time the particular publisher was offering a pretty good chunk of change.

I finished my review today and sent it off, and then wondered: how many people actually remember anything from their college civ classes? I have been teaching these courses—originally “western civ,” now “world civ”—for over twenty years, even though I never took such a course myself in college (Columbia’s core curriculum was centered around Great Books). Indeed, how many people remember anything from my courses? I have always found teaching such courses—all of human history from Autralopithecus Afarensis to W. in two semesters—problematic, an occasionally satisfying but often frustrating experience. At the same time, it is precisely because of the institutional requirement of such courses that I have a job and can do the other stuff, both teaching and research, that I enjoy.

So below is the first part of my review. It is a response to questions the publisher gave me concerning the teaching of civ. I will not name the publisher, nor will I give the actual questions (you can pretty much guess what they were based on my response). I will not give the specifics of my review of the manuscript. But I thought it might be interesting for readers to look over what I wrote about what and how I teach and compare that with their own experience, whether as students, parents, or perhaps educators themselves. I would be interested in any response on any related matter, whether it is the specifics of how I teach, or how well anyone remembers the material from such courses, or what sort of impact these kinds of classes have had on them or anyone they know.

My department offers a two semester World Civilization survey. The first semester covers from the beginnings of history to 1453 (the fall of Constantinople) and is only required for history majors, history minors and one or two other minor fields. We usually offer one or two sections of 80 students in both Fall and Spring, and despite being required for relatively few students, it almost always fills up. The second semester is required for all undergraduates (which is over 90% of our 16,000 students) and we offer many sections, usually of 80 students, in both Fall and Spring. I teach both courses.

We do not have a departmental requirement for the course; that is, there is no common survey text, and each faculty member is free to emphasize what he or she chooses.

My emphasis in both semesters, but particularly in the first, is cultural literacy, since I find that my biggest challenge, frankly, is ignorance. Most of my students seem to be starting from ground zero, and my goal is to help them make sense of their world. At the beginning of the first semester, I ask the students how many know or even recognize “Pyrrhic victory” or “as rich as Croesus” or “Let justice roll down like water,” etc. Almost none ever do. I hope that after the course, they should be able to see a movie, or read a newspaper, or go to a museum and find that these experiences make more sense.

The main textbook I use is [editorial excision]. It’s main strengths are that it is relatively easy to read, and the students like it (at least as much as they ever like a textbook). It is well illustrated, with copious clear maps. It has a common tone and approach, as a result of only two authors. It’s divisions of the material are traditional, which does not suit everyone, but which I like just fine.

It’s weaknesses are the same as the weaknesses of every civ textbook—it covers things I wish it would skip and leaves out much that I want to discuss. But that sort of thing is inevitable.

As for additional reading: in the first semester, my emphasis is on the religious and philosophical foundations that the ancient world has left us. Thus I have the students read Genesis, Exodus, Amos and Hosea in the Hebrew Bible; the Bhagavad Gita; selections from the Analects of Confucius; the Euthyphro and Apology of Plato; the Enchiridion of Epictetus; selections from Islamic philosphers; and a small portion (ten pages) of the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. I have also used Tacitus’s Agricola and Einhardt’s Life of Charlemagne. For the second semester, I shift to a more political focus, and usually include such works as Machiavelli’s Prince; Luther’s Freedom of a Christian Man; Jonathan Spence’s translation of the emperor K’ang Hsi; Rousseau’s Social Contract; the Communist Manifesto; and some of Gandhi’s political writings. But at times I will vary the diet and use Descartes’ Discourse on Method, or More’s Utopia, or Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, or some other such. I am always on the lookout for relatively short books of primary source material that I can assign.

I always tell the students that I will never include material on a test that is only found in the textbook and not at least mentioned by me. The textbook is meant to reinforce the lectures, particularly by giving the students a bit more context within which to understand the material, and to enable students who have missed a class to catch up. When students ask which is more important, the textbook or the lectures, I tell them to think of the lectures and the textbook as two speakers of a stereo system, and I emphasize that old college rule of thumb: two hours of work outside of class for every hour in class.

For lower division civ surveys, I use PowerPoint a lot. It helps a great deal in presenting a massive amount of material in a short space of time. (However, I hardly use it at all in upper division history courses.) I do not assign any online resources—I consider these distracting when the main thing students should be doing is encountering a text and considering ideas. I do not use WebCT or Blackboard—no one has ever explained to me (to my satisfaction, anyway) what is the pedagogical value of such tools. I do not have a web page or home page for the course, but am considering setting one up. I have never taught the course online and hope that I never will.

Bumper Sticker Anglicanism

The Brits are at it again. According to The New York Times, the government is trying to come up with a definition of “Britishness.” This has resulted in various sly suggestions for a national slogan, but the winning entry in a Times of London contest was “No motto, please, we’re British.” Read it all.

So how about the C of E? Or the Anglican Communion in general? “No doctrine please, we’re Anglican”? And there’s always that old standby, “Catholic-lite: all the flavor, but a third less guilt.”

I open the floor to suggestions. Come on, Rowan Williams and Katherine Jefferts-Schori need our help!

Brief note III: restoration in progress

Dear reader:

Thanks to the back-up provided to me by a generous reader (God grant him many years!), I have managed to restore almost all the postings for 2007.  Alas, for now the comments are still missing, but it is possible that they may also get restored gradually, as will postings for the entire blog.  Meantime, you can still see earlier postings on the original blog site, partially restored by the good people of CaNN after the vicious cyberattack their servers suffered recently. 

Slowly but surely, the blog is being rebuilt.  I’ll be adding to the blogroll to the right soon, since so many blogs have been kind enough to list me on their sites and it is time to return the favor.

Brief note II: an interesting exchange

See here and here.