One important objective of TOPIC is to encourage the expression of a full range of opinion on church-related issues through letters to the editor. Of course neither articles, editorials, nor letters represent the official opinion or position of the diocese or its bishop unless so indicated. Letters and other contributions are always welcome. Contributions may be edited for clarity, decorum, and - especially- length, as many of the following letters unfortunately had to be. Please keep letters brief.
Neale Adams, Editor of TOPIC
I am writing in response to the book review by Neill Brown of the Rodney Stark Book, “For the Glory of God”. The review contains statements which I must take exception with, as they seek to redeem the iredeemable.
Coming hot on the heels of a film which apparently hopes to rehabilitate the bloody work of the Crusades, it is another example of a trend to whitewash the Church’s historical warts. Our spotted history is cause for penitence and reflection; not an occasion for historical revision and renewed triumphalism. By all means, may we be proud of what we’ve done right. By the same token, may we recognize our wrongs and repent.
The problematic portion of this article has to do with the Spanish Inquisition, which Stark appears to wish to redeem from historical infamy (which simply cannot be done). It makes one wonder what we’ll be saying about the Holocaust in a few hundred years. Will we be redeeming Hitler because he drew a sketch of the Volkswagen? I shudder at the thought. As it is, the article refers to the “holocaust” (with a small “h”) as an “ideological atrocity”. Is that what it was? I thought it was a genocide of massive scale that still scars the souls of millions.
The author’s claim that the Spanish Inquisition was “not that bad” is patently false. His attempt to place the atrocities of the Inquisition in the realm of the civil is ridiculous, and does not acknowledge the political realities of the day. The Spanish Inquisition’s very existence was a matter of Royal edict (Ferdinand and Isabella asked the Vatican to institute it, out of “fear of Jewish influence”...read: anti-semitism). The Inquisition, then, was an arm of the fully Catholic government of Spain, the civil courts of which worked in harmony with the Church, as Spanish society was quickly yielding to Christian theocracy. Their targets were the Conversos (converted, or “secret” Jews who had converted to Christianity out of fear of Spanish Catholicism, already actively persecuting them).
The article refers to this group as “Marranto Jews” (which is a misspelling. The word is “Marrano”). The fact that Spanish Jews had made outward conversion was not good enough for the Royals. They still could not accept them. As a result, the Inquisition held 25 autos-da-fe in the City of Toledo alone between the years 1486-1492, during which 467 people were burned alive. In all, 700 conversos were burned and 5,000 “repented” (and we all know this word means that their religious freedom was annihilated).
In Portugal (where many Jews fled after the Expulsion from Spain in 1492), 40,000 were put on trial and 1,800 were burned. During the long history of the Spanish Inquisition, it was responsible for the burning of almost 32,000 people (in Spain and Portugal, as well as in the colonial outposts of Mexico, Brazil and Peru). 18,000 were burned in effigy and circa 291,000 were “reconciled” or “repented” (source: Virtual Jewish History Library) under the brutal heel of the Inquisition. Spain would go on to expel the Muslims in 1614, although repression of Islam in Spain began as early as 1499.
The article’s wheedling claim that torture could only be doled out in 10 minute blocks is cold comfort to the many who suffered under its evil and does nothing to redeem the Inquisition (Spanish or otherwise) from its long history of persecution of women, Jews, scientists and others who would not bow to it(Galileo for example, who died a prisoner in his own home because he told a truth the Church was not yet ready to hear) who were persecuted and killed by this malignant mutation of Christianity.
This attempt to rehabilitate the Spanish Inquisition is profoundly insulting to Jews, particularly Sephardic Jews and also to the memories of all those who perished and were persecuted by it. My husband is a Sephardic Jews whose family was driven into Turkey (where it received considerably better treatment at the hands of Muslims that it did in Spain at the hands of Christians) by Ferdinand and Isabella, the progenitors of the Inquisition in Spain.
As a Christian, I am repelled by any such rehabilitative project, as it points to a failure on the part of the Church to acknowledge and fully internalize its own errors. As an Institution that calls people to repentance and reconciliation, it is inexplicable that we continually refuse to answer this call ourselves, preferring the road of hollow triumphalism. This will not redeem the Church in the eyes of those seeking after God outside its walls, yet suspicious of the Insitution. It will not redeem it in the eyes of those who look to it for integrity in a dishonest world.
Jennifer Levy
St. James’, Vancouver
What I most liked about John Paul II was that he was a man of the world, a shrewd politician, a loyal son of Poland and a statesman, but he was no ideologue. First and foremost he was a Pastoral leader to all Catholics in all countries around the globe. In China, the Holy Father chose to raise the comforter's voice, rather than speak with the prophet's bluntness, as he had in Poland.
By listening to Catholic China scholars from Europe, North America and Asia — many of whom belong to religious orders that established missions and churches in China prior to 1949 — the Holy See has been cautious. Its pronouncements, have been more pastoral than political.
The Vatican has also encouraged Roman Catholics in other countries to enter into dialogue with Chinese Catholics; to assist them in the formation of clergy and women religious; to support them in developing social and pastoral ministries.
The Catholic Church in China has flourished since 1979, rising phoenix-like from the rubble of the Cultural Revolution.
Cynthia McLean
Christ Church Cathedral
Cynthia McLean was director of the Canada-China Programme in association with the Canadian Council of Churches.
Bishop Michael's Easter letter on new science/new church brought to mind the extraordinary work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who, in his career, combined new science and new church.
Teilhard de Chardin was both priest and scientist (geologist and paleontologist). He was also a philosopher, a mystic and a poet, whose best known work is Mass upon the Altar of the World:
"Christ of glory, hidden power stirring in the heart of matter, glowing centre in which the unnumbered strands of the manifold are knit together; strength inexorable as the world and warm as life; you whose brow is of snow, whose eyes arc of fire, whose feet are more dazzling than gold poured from the furnace; you whose hands hold captive the stars; you, the first and the last, the living, the dead, the re-born; you, who gather up in your superabundant oneness every delight, every taste, every energy, every phase of existence, to you my being cries out with a longing as vast as the universe: for you indeed are my Lord and my God."
Born in Sarcenat, France in 1881, Teilhard lectured in pure science at the University of Cairo and then became professor of geology at the Institut Catholique in Paris. He made paleontological expeditions throughout Asia, and wrote copiously. But an unease regarding his innovative ideas led to a church ban on his teaching and publishing. Many of his works were published posthumously (he died in 1955).
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a quiet burst of enthusiasm for Teilhard de Chardin's writings, and a fascination with his ideas. I don't hear his books mentioned much today. But I recommend two, in particular: The Phenomenon of Man and Le Milieu Divin. These are not easy books to read, but they are immensely rewarding.
In the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, science and religion came together in a brilliant new way. Darwin, also a priest and a scientist, would have liked his work.
Lyndon Grove
St. Margaret of Scotland, Burnaby
I was saddened by our Bishop's rather puzzling Easter Message (TOPIC, April 2005). In contrast to Mr. Ingham, my own study of the sciences has served to strengthen my faith that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God.
Each of those brilliant scientists-Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, and others, have opened a tiny door to show me the magnificence of God's creation. Each generation's discoveries make a stronger and stronger case for the limits of my knowledge and the brilliance of my Creator.
Our children still learn about Galileo and Newton as they struggle with their high school physics. The laws of thermodynamics and trajectory calculations are as accurate and as useful as ever. Einstein opened another window, only to find that there was more. Quantum mechanics, which he tried to disprove, showed another glimpse of our Creator.
Heinberg's uncertainty principle had nothing to do with "the non-predictability of events" as our good Bishop states, but is a description of the position of the electron at any moment in time. Christ, the Lord and Creator of the Universe is "the same yesterday, today and forever". No uncertainty with Him, no shadow of turning.
Dr. Bernie Toews
St. Mark's, Ocean Park, Surrey
Bishop Michael Ingham (TOPIC, April 2005) looks at the impact of the "new physics" on theology, and concludes that Easter can no longer be viewed as "something understandable" but rather must be seen as an "essential mystery."
I believe his message, however, includes a number of factual errors, draws incorrect conclusions about the physics, promotes an inaccurate stereotype of more conservative Christians, and fails to link its ideas to biblical principles.
The key science error is to falsely assert that the "new physics" has "changed absolutely everything scientists now believe" and to infer that "we need to re-think our faith as well as our science." The new science does not force us to "stop thinking of ourselves as created beings" - for people of faith the "new physics" shows all the same hallmarks of a creator as the "old physics."
Easter is certainly not an "uncertainty principle" in any literal sense - according to Heisenberg, objects much larger than atoms (such as stones at tomb entrances) exhibit no quantum behaviour. Nor does the "divine uncertainty principle" rhetoric work as a metaphor: Easter is a "large" event and is thus, metaphorically, free from uncertainty. Despite Bishop Ingham's protests, Easter is indeed "something neat and coherent" - the resurrection either happened or it didn't.
You can't use physics as "proof" that all truth is provisional. Physics sides with Plato and The X-Files in believing that "the truth is out there" even when our vision is limited. But don't base your theology on physics — base it on the Word of God.
Many of us were astonished at the bishop's tongue-in-cheek "literal reading" of the Ascension (e.g. Acts 1:9-11) where Jesus must leave our universe to get to heaven. Assuming that Jesus travels at the speed of light, he calculates that it would have taken Jesus a year to pass Pluto and more than two thousand years to escape the solar system.
Does Bishop Ingham really believe that there are conservative Christians somewhere tracking Jesus' progress toward heaven at the speed of light? (I point out that light travels from the Earth to Pluto in less than six hours.)
This bizarre analysis is based on neither "the new science" nor conservative exegesis. Orthodox Christians read Acts 1 as an eyewitness account of the actual event rather than a statement about cosmologies. And quite frankly, if God chose to lift Jesus up into a cloud, who is Bishop Ingham to find fault with that?
In talking about a "mysterious Easter," Bishop Ingham is not just exploring ideas; he is in dangerous life-and-death territory. The danger is that "those who are perishing" will make science the "god of this age" and the result will be an inability to know what Easter means (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). For believers, the core "truths" of the Christian faith are clearly laid out for us in scripture - we are a "People of the Book" rather than a mystery sect.
Mike Davenport
St. John's Shaughnessy, Vancouver
Mike Davenport has a PhD in Theoretical Physics from UBC and is a senior research scientist at a high-tech company in Richmond. This letter is a summary of a lengthier response available from the author.
In your editorial (TOPIC, April) you write: "In Canada, the church is run, not by the bishops, but by the General Synod."
Setting aside the question of how democratic synods really are in other ways, the constitution of the Diocese of New Westminster demonstrates dramatically that your assertion, at least as far as New Westminster is concerned, is entirely wrong.
It reads: With the exception of elections, no act or resolution of the Synod shall become valid without the concurrence of the Bishop and a majority of the members of Synod present... [Article 6].
How does a synod run our church when one vote, or the withholding of one vote, by the bishop can determine the outcome? It is this constitutional fact that makes suggestions or hints that the diocese is democratic grossly misleading.
It is equally misleading when suggestions are made, or hinted at, as with the same-sex blessing controversy, that ultimately it was the synod that decided this issue. In fact, by not overruling the synod, which was within his constitutional power, the bishop decided the issue.
In short, you can't have it both ways. Bishop Michael has, with good reason, made much of the importance dealing with change in the church and of being just. Perhaps he should take yet another bold step for change and justice by making the constitution of the diocese genuinely democratic.
David Werthman
St. Alban's, Burnaby
There seems to be an increasing awareness in international contacts of the discriminatory nature of using one ethnic language to the exclusion of others, and thus privileging one linguistic group over all others.
For years there have been associations dedicated to promoting "universal bilingualism" and the use of the ethnically and politically neutral inter-language, Esperanto, as just such a more democratic tool among Christians and others.
Until recently the idea has made little headway, but things now seem to be slowly changing. One recent manifestation of this desire to work together on a more egalitarian linguistic footing is an Ecumenical Congress which will meet in Hungary this June.
The Roman Catholic Church is to be congratulated for its pioneering role in this area, still terra incognita to most Anglicans (perhaps still carrying the linguistic baggage of our neo-colonialist past?) Radio Vaticana has for years been broadcasting thrice-weekly programs in Esperanto.
An official Esperanto translation of the Missale romanum with daily readings has been available since 1995 (also in an altar edition). Regular services in Esperanto are held in churches around the world.
Shouldn't this information about egalitarian communication be more widely known among our people in the pew? More general information (in 62 languages) is available through our Vancouver website: http://esperanto.memlink.ca
Brian Kaneen St. James'
Vancouver, BC