From the latest piece from The Embassy - Do You Believe in Miracles?

An Excerpt …

When it comes to the paranormal, the extra-terrestrial, unexplained phenomena or UFO’s … we are a bit conflicted. We want there to be more, we hope we are not alone, we want the believe there is a truth that is out there, while we have a hard time actually believing in any particular piece of evidence. The recent release of data related to UFO’s (inexplicably renamed UAP’s - unidentified aerial phenomena), has peaked interest, but has mostly disappointed.

Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster was the founder of Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles at the Abbey of Our Lady of Ephesus just north of Kansas City. Sister Wilhelmina, who died at the age of 95 in 2019 was known for her “devotional poetry, her sense of humor and her fierce piety.”

Four years after burying Sister Wilhelmina, the order’s founder, in a simple wood coffin in a corner of the property, the sisters decided to move her body into a customary place of honor inside their church.

When they opened the coffin, expecting to find bones that could be easily cleaned and placed in a new box, they instead found what looked and even felt remarkably like Sister Wilhelmina herself. Her face was recognizable, even after years in a damp coffin, and the sisters said that her beloved habit was “immaculate.”

For the Benedictines of Mary, this immediately signaled that Sister Wilhelmina may be an “incorruptible,” a term the Catholic Church uses to describe people whose bodies — or parts of their bodies — did not decompose after death. Believers in the phenomenon say there have been more than 100 examples worldwide, mostly in Europe.

Michael O’Neill, who hosts a national radio show called “The Miracle Hunter” on the Catholic station EWTN, said that the case of Sister Wilhelmina, who was Black, was especially distinctive. “There’s never been an African American incorruptible; in fact there’s never been an American of any sort who’s an incorruptible,” he said. “So this is big news.”

A Miracle in Missouri? The Nun Who Put Her Abbey on the Map. - The New York Times

I believe in miracles. I believe that God intervenes in His natural order in various ways. People who take the bible as generally more literal and actual than merely figurative tend to believe in miracles. We believe that Jesus walked on water. We believe Jesus turned water into wine. But even for those of us who believe in miracles, we are confused by some of them. We may even be embarrassed by some of them. Why would God preserve the body of a Sister in Kansas City? I don’t know. I am not Catholic, so I wouldn’t say her body was preserved because her theology was more correct than everyone else. I guess that isn’t the standard. Huh. At the same time, I am not looking for some other explanation, necessarily. This could be an act of God. I’ll assume that it is unless I see some reason to doubt it. “This is impossible” or “that can’t happen” or “God doesn’t usually do that” or even “I don’t know why God would do that” are all poor reasons to believe that God didn’t do that. Only if you believe there isn’t a God capable of such things can you rule it out - and that is where many people rule miracles out. If this is a work of God, I am not sure why He chose this work - but I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. Lots of acts of God, some of them interventions in the natural order, surprise me. Even those of us who believe in miracles can look at a couple of them sheepishly. Maybe even this one (if it is one).

Links

A Miracle in Missouri? The Nun Who Put Her Abbey on the Map. - Ruth Graham, The New York Times

(excerpts from the written piece - In Spirit and in Truth - theembassy.substack.com)

I get it. I understand the search for meaning in community, in ritual, in spiritual experience. I just think that is a search in the wrong place.

Jesus had a memorable conversation with a woman who went to a well in the middle of the day. She was a Samaritan, and the Samaritans had their own way of worshiping God. She seemed to try to justify their manner of worship to Jesus. Jesus replied that her people worshiped what they did not know.

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Jesus - John 4:23-24

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. Both things. Worship is the truest of spiritual experience, but we are taught here that we don’t get to make it up. True spiritual experience that can transform, console, redeem, restore corresponds to the truth of the actual spirituality we are in. And it is practiced in the Spirit. That is capitalized to indicate Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit - a particular, unique, personal Holy Spirit. (Those are statements of doctrine - but any statement about these words is a statement of doctrine - I don’t think we ever get away from it, but that is probably a different article.)

I don’t know what comes from, using the words of Jesus “worshiping what we do not know”, but I can’t believe it is good. I am fairly certain it cannot redeem or transform in any Christian understanding of those words or be transcendent in any positive sense of that word.

I get it. I really do. But I don’t think people will find what they really need to find there. I think what people are looking for can be found on the terms that the God who is worshiped in the Spirit and in truth has given us. He wants to be found. In his grace, He may choose to appear on other places and settings, of course - he is not bound to my confines. But He does seem normally to bind Himself to the instrument He has ordained for His worship. I think that is through His people, in the community He has ordained (however mysterious or befuddling we may find that), in the church that is His body.

Links

In Spirit and in Truth - Mike Sherman - The Embassy

Leaving the Church and Being the Church - Mike Sherman - The Embassy

Having the Form, Denying the Power - Mike Sherman - The Embassy

The School of Life - Alain de Botton, Founder

Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion - Alain de Botton

Can You Find God in a Bikini? - Olivia Reingold - The Free Press

Burning Man Project - burningman.org

Religion Without Dogma? - C.S. Lewis - God in the Dock

Susan James and I talk about “Barbie” and “True Detective”. Really we talk about men, mostly.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (Jesus - John 15:12-13)

Links

Men and Petite Maman are polar opposite fairy tales - Ross Douthat, National Review

The Church in a Time of Gender War - Samuel James, Digital Liturgies

Gender War, Technology, and De-Centering the Self - Samuel James, Digital Liturgies

Men are Lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness - Christine Embe, Washington Post

Transcript: The Crisis of Masculinity - Christine Embe and Richard Reeves, Washington Post

The data are clear: The boys are not all right - Andrew Yang, Washington Post

Of Boys and Men - Richard Reeves, Brookings Institute Press

The Masculinity Issue - Politico

Why Ken and Barbie Need Each Other - Ross Douthat, New York Times

The Struggles of Men are a Problem for Everyone - Jeff Haanen, Christianity Today

On Culture is the podcast of The Embassy - this episode is based on this latest piece from The Embassy.

Take

Tish Harrison Warren is an Anglican Priest who has written a weekly Op-Ed column for the New York Times over the past few years. She is leaving that post and shared, in her last column, some of the reasons why. I’ll quote her at some length, and I recommend the whole piece. I think there is something here for man

For this and many other reasons, it was a tough decision to leave. And as with any tough decision, my reasons are varied and complex, but one is that writing publicly about God each week can do a number on one’s soul. Thomas Wingfold, a character in a novel by the Scottish minister and poet George MacDonald, said, “Nothing is so deadening to the divine as an habitual dealing with the outsides of holy things.” Holy things, sacred topics, spiritual ideas, I believe, have power. Dealing with them is a privilege and a joy, but habitually dealing with the outside of them is inherently dangerous.

The “outsides” of holy things, to me, describes the difference between speaking about divine or sacred things and encountering the divine or the sacred directly. To be sure, we need more and better religious discourse in America. In my very first newsletter for The Times, I wrote that “we need to start talking about God,” and I still believe that. I believe that religion and, more broadly, the biggest questions in life are the driving forces behind much that is beautiful, divisive, unifying, controversial and perplexing about our culture and society.

Yet there is danger in becoming a pundit, particularly on matters of faith and spirituality. It can be deadening. I plan to continue to write about faith, to explore its impact on politics, study it sociologically, think about its metaphors and claims of truth. But for any person of faith, public engagement must be balanced with times of withdrawal, of silence, prayer, questioning and wonder beyond the reach of words. Otherwise, faith with all its strange and startling topology becomes a flat and sterile thing, something to be dissected, instead of embraced. And typically once something is fit only for dissection, it is dead. I bring this up because it is a temptation for all of us now. Social media and digital technology have made us all pundits. We are faced with a constant choice: Every experience, belief, feeling and thought we have can be shared publicly or not. In a single day, we can take in more information and ideas than was ever possible, yet at the end of the day we can still lack wisdom.

Constant connectivity empties us out, as individuals and as a society, making us shallower thinkers and more impatient with others. When it comes to faith, it can yield a habitual dealing with the outsides of holy things, fostering an avoidance of those internal parts of life that are most difficult, things like prayer, uncertainty, humility and the nakedness of who we most truly are amid this confusing, heartbreaking and incandescently beautiful world.

Tish Harrison Warren - My Hope for American Discourse - New York Times

Links

Lots of Americans are Losing Their Religion: Are You? - Jessica Grose - NYT

Christianity’s Got a Branding Problem -  Jessica Grose - NYT

Why Do People Lose Their Religion? - Jessica Grose - NYT

The Largest and Fastest Religious Shift in America is Well Underway - Jessica Grose - NYT

What Churches Offer that Nones Still Long For - Jessica Grose - NYT

My Hope for American Discourse - Tish Harrison Warren - NYT

Among evangelicals on the right (which is by far most of them), the share among those who never attend and who believe that religion is somewhat or very important is 38%.

So almost 40% of these evangelicals on the political right who never attend church believe religion is important. They believe it is important while they do not practice it in a form recognizable in the New Testament. Doctrine is vital. Doctrine without practice is a contradiction and will soon lead to bad doctrine to justify the bad practice or non-practice.

Doctrine is vital. Doctrine without practice is a contradiction and will soon lead to bad doctrine to justify the bad practice or non-practice.

Links

The Garden - City of God - Tim Keller - Gospel in Life

Religion as a Cultural and Political Identity - Ryan Burge - Graphs About Religion

The Cooperative Election Study - Harvard

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Matthew 5:9

Peacemaking, here, is a practice for God’s children to take up. His blessing does not name those who try to achieve their own inner peace, nor those who receive peace from God, but rather those who make peace with and for others. Theologian Justo Gonzalez calls this ‘for-otherness,’ the everyday habit of the kingdom of heaven, whose end, ultimately, is shalom. Peacemakers are often called children of God because, in likeness with God, they are the reconcilers who mend relationships and heal wounds in our world.

Christa Ballard Tooley - Comment

Links

Making Peace, Making Worlds - Comment - Christa Ballard Tooley

Christ and Culture - H. Richard Niebuhr

The Embassy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The background for this episode of On Culture is this piece from The Embassy - Lost Without Translation.

Here is a small excerpt:

Paul illustrates an uncomfortable picture of what biblical connection, at least in part, looks like.

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

(1 Cor 9:19-23)

Sacrificing the freedom to live apart, safe in our bubble, we are to “become like” those around us - outside of our bubble. Instead of reveling in what makes us culturally different, we are to find a common place to share. To the religious, the irreligious, the lawless, the weak … we are to, in order to connect, to communicate, to translate - in order to carry the truth and grace of the gospel into our world, we are to “become like” those around us. We are to do this without withdrawing (putting our light under a bowl, in Jesus’ words), and without becoming indistinguishable (losing our ‘saltiness’ or savory distinction, in Jesus’ words). Being authentically us, we are to find a common place to connect to the authentic them. In this way, we translate our faith by truly hearing and responding to those to whom we would translate it. We are able to understand, because we have “become like” - and because we are in touch with what it is supposed to mean for Christians to be “authentically us”.

Being authentically us, we are to find a common place to connect to the authentic them.

Here is Nikola Jokic on work …

Now if we compare worke to worke, there is a difference betwixt washing of dishes, and preaching of the word of God: but as touching to please God none at all … The homeliest service that we do in an honest calling, though it be but to plow, or digge, if done in obedience, and conscience of God’s Commandment, is crowned with an ample reward ... God loveth adverbs; and cares not how good, but how well.

Joseph Hall - 1610 (ish)

In the workplace, the neighbors may be the customers, who are to be loved and served. The boss is to love and serve the employees, his neighbors who are under his authority. They, in tern, are to love and serve him. Teachers love and serve their students; artists love and serve their audiences … 

… God is hidden in vocation. It is also true that God is hidden in our neighbor.

Gene Edward Veith Jr. God at Work

Links

The Texas A&M Professor Who Predicted The Great Resignation - Texas A&M Today

The Great Resignation is Turning into the Great Regret - msn.com

I talk with Chad about change and this era of change we are in.

No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

Matthew 9:16-17

Links

As I Lay Dying - William Faulker

All My Friends are Finding New Beliefs - from Survival is a Style: Poems - Christian Wiman

Dogma and the Universe - from God in the Dock - C.S. Lewis

The Big Story - Mike Sherman

The notes for this episode of On Culture are the most recent piece in The Embassy (from May 27, 2023) - The Logical Outcome.

Thanks to Susan James for joining me on this one.

Links

No Other Options - The New Atlantis

Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada 2021 - Health Canada

‘Disturbing’: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws - Associated Press

Canada’s Ministry of Death - National Review

Where Are the Churches in Canada’s Euthanasia Experiment? - Plough

What Euthanasia Has Done to Canada - The New York Times

Assisted Suicide for Poverty - National Review

Canada Euthanized 10,000 People in 2021. Has Death Lost Its Sting? - Christianity Today

The European Way to Die - Harper’s Magazine