From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

Last Sunday morning I received some funny reactions to my sermon. For those unable to be there (in-person or online), we read a portion of the catechism together from the Book of Common Prayer.

I suppose my desire to do so was motivated by a simple thing: I feel as if our culture is losing a sense of connection to deep truth. An erosion of our awareness of what we believe, at our deepest level, has also eroded our ability to say with conviction what is true and what is untrue in our common life.

Whether it’s in our politics, our consumerism, our destruction of the environment, our treatment of refugees and migrants, or the ways we devalue life, there are so many ways that a lack of an agreed upon framework for viewing the world contributes to the degradation of our life together.

This shattering of a shared reality means that people now live in silos of either narrow information or outright disinformation. It also means that when we’re pushed by this or that force on our culture or politics, we don’t have a firm foundation that holds us steady through the gusts and gales of life.

We now have mutually exclusive media ecosystems that reward, with little bursts of endorphins, being so, so right that major figures agree with you. We have a political system that thrives on the hit of biochemical affirmation that comes with a “like” on social media. We’re fed by a stream of little doses of bias confirmation. We assume others are fed by the same.

Others are fed by the same triggers but they are not fed with the same food. So while we expect them to be addicted to the same addictions that we have, they are, in reality, only addicted to the same reward—not the same stimulus. While one person’s stimulus might be progressive orthodoxy, another’s might be social or political revanchism. Yet our addiction is the very same—to being right. To being affirmed in our rightness. To being one with the rightest people.

Reading the catechism is simply an exercise in exploring what is right together. It’s an attempt to re-center the historic faith as the ground from which we make decisions. It is an expression of two millennia of discernment, prayer, and inquiry as an antidote to the quick reactions and hot takes of our heated days. It is the re-engagement with our shared reality.

I think we need more rooting, more exploration of sources of unity in our increasingly fractured world. While the world fights over perceived differences, perhaps the Church can find its reward not in our affiliation or affection for one position or personality. Perhaps we can find our reward in reminding ourselves, again and again, that it is Christ’s love, and nothing more, of which we can boast. That is a sure foundation against which the gates of hell—let alone the winds of the day—cannot stand.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert