Signs of Life. Rick Fabian
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Название: Signs of Life

Автор: Rick Fabian

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Религия: прочее

Серия:

isbn: 9781640652194

isbn:

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      Copyright © 2019 by Rick Fabian

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

      Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

      Church Publishing

      19 East 34th Street

      New York, NY 10016

      www.churchpublishing.org

      Front cover: Wedding Icon in St. Gregory’s Church apse, by Mark Dukes (photo by David Sanger); used by permission

      Cover design by Jennifer Kopec, 2Pug Design

      Typeset by Rose Design

      A record of this book is available from the Library of Congress.

      ISBN-13: 978-1-64065-218-7 (pbk.)

      ISBN-13: 978-1-64065-219-4 (ebook)

      For Donald and Ellen

      And for Leesy

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      Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

      —FRANK ZAPPA

      CONTENTS

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       Introduction

       1. Jesus’s Sign: The Welcoming Table

       2. The People’s Sign: Giving Authority to Christ

       3. The Church’s Sign: Baptizing the World

       4. The Sign of the Divines: Dancing the Mystery

       5. The Spouse’s Sign: Love beyond Death

       6. The Sign of Desire: Daughters and Sons

       7. The Seer’s Sign: Rivers in the Desert

       8. The Peacemaker’s Sign: Reconciliation

       9. The Hearer’s Sign: The Worship Year

       10. The Creator’s Sign: Beauty

       11. A Fitting End

       Conclusion: Grateful Memory

       Appendix: Hymns of Christ Coming in Our Worship Now, for the Eucharistic Procession

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      Komodo Island Dragon, or the Author at work

      Shutterstock

      INTRODUCTION

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      What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.

      —FRANCIS BACON, “OF TRUTH,” 16251

      How does it matter what Christians do in church? What harbor do they voyage for, and why in this company? How might more fellows journey there, and why should they choose to ? After six decades plotting one course through Anglican waters, I cruised parish ports seeking such answers. Yet even at friendly coffee hours, not many layfolk volunteered reasons. Worshippers told me how they chose this ship or ship line above others, but seldom why they sailed on a church craft at all, or would impress unchurched friends to come aboard. None claiming family tradition explained how that loyalty withstood the waves washing others off decks. Today conventional church charts seem to guide fewer journeymakers over life’s undersea mountains and trenches. Therefore this exploration will re-draw those routes, so that a wider spread of passengers and crew can talk and plan together. And here, as in much church life, lay people’s voices will have the last words.

      The lay teacher Origen of Alexandria (d. 290 CE) was the most influential Christian writer after Paul of Tarsus, and his theological map quickened nearly all later guides, orthodox or not. As the late Richard Norris taught, Origen set our course thirteen centuries before Luther rediscovered it: Christian theology is commentary upon scripture. The present book joins two nautical charts lately folded apart, hoping that our ships can sail together again before fresh breezes. Fifty years back, explorers like Benedict Green, CR,2 navigated both scriptural and liturgical criticism at once, while scouts brought fresh evidence aboard. But more recent Bible scholars steer off liturgical practice as a devotional morass, while liturgical writers row apart from shifting biblical swells. Some captain ritual renewal, and others, missionary innovation. Yet both navies must pilot among the currents of world faiths now, which no longer flow safely far away.

      Our flotilla can follow fresh pilot charts from Gregory of Nyssa, a creative Kurdish thinker. Bishop Gregory Nyssen led debates at fourth-century church councils, but for medieval ages his humanism and universalism made mystics his chief followers. Today those very virtues—and Gregory’s deep biblical learning—draw admirers inside church and out. He saw every created life as an endless ethical progress. Gregory’s final plea to put away rewards and punishments, and only become God’s friend, resonates in our era honoring personal expression free from social conformity.

      The Episcopal Diocese of California organized St. Gregory of Nyssa Church at San Francisco in 1978, to press further the liturgical renewal that had produced a new Book of Common Prayer. St. Gregory’s Church worship and government stress congregational participation, employing insights from modern social research as well as traditions rediscovered. Eastern Christianity has much to teach us from an unbroken history of vernacular popular worship. Indeed, learning from the East has been our Anglican tradition since medieval times. Critical scholarship is also СКАЧАТЬ