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Love is Love, Right?

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My latest in the Christian Courier.

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You can hardly argue with the title of the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit presently on display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibit is a display of wedding gowns and wedding attire created by Gaultier over the years. And the title of the exposition is the same as that given to this column: Love is Love. Who could argue with that?

But as soon as we insist on the truthfulness of that phrase the question arises as to what, exactly, it means. “Love is love” seems like a perfectly circular argument in that it starts with itself and ends with itself and goes nowhere in between. But perhaps that is the only way for Gaultier to make the point that love is singular – that there are not many loves or multiple definitions of love. Rather, there is only one love. Love is love!

To make this more concrete, let me offer a simple definition of love. Love means being patient and kind with another person; it means seeking the best for him or her; it means building them up; it means serving them; it means challenging them; it means pointing the other to Christ and his way in the world. We are each able to extend this love to others, and also receive it. Wherever love is expressed, well, there is love. Continue reading →

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A return to relics?

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My latest column for the Christian Courier.

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I thought my 12-year-old son would find it both creepy and cool, but it turns out he just finds it weird, and kind of gross. In response to my question, he mimes the action of taking a man’s heart out the chest cavity and holds it up in the air with a look of confused disgust on his face. His expression asks, simply: “Why? Why would you do that?!?”

I’ve become something of a regular at St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal since our son (see above!) sings in Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal. This is the boys’ choir that accompanies Mass each Sunday morning at the Oratory, and his particular group sings every other weekend. On the days that I serve as a parent-accompagnateur I can’t help but pass by the small shrine that holds the heart of Frère André (Brother Andrew) – the shrine is just outside the choir room door.

Oh, and here’s the question I asked Reuben: “What do you think of that heart?” Continue reading →

Canada. A country of reconciliation?

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My latest column for the Christian Courier.

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What would be an honest answer to the question posed by the title of this column? Some might offer a half-hearted “We are trying?” in reply to that question. Others would say that even such a half-hearted answer gives us too much credit – that the correct answer is closer to a flat-out “No.” For my part, I would venture that we have taken some baby steps in the direction of reconciliation, but that we still have a very long way to go.

Now this is not a resoundingly positive note on which to begin a column marking Canada’s 150th birthday. Couldn’t another question have been asked? Perhaps one that would invite more celebratory reflection on our national identity? Perhaps, yes. But I must confess my uneasiness with the Canadian predilection for national self-congratulation, and so my reflections here will not trend in that direction.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has now come and gone, and much meaningful work was done within the seven years of its mandate. Most important, survivors of the residential schools came with grace and courage to share their stories – reminding the nation and its churches of the violence that was done to them and their communities in the name of Christian faith and of civilization. Stories of abuse. Stories of loneliness. Stories of language lost. Stories of families torn apart. Continue reading →

When a half measure isn’t a half measure

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When I refer to the Life and Mission Agency in what follows, I am referring to the Life and Mission Agency Committee and not to the Life and Mission Agency. While this distinction will be lost on many, it is an important distinction that should have been made in the initial writing.

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The Life and Mission Agency of The Presbyterian Church in Canada is presenting the following recommendation to the General Assembly of the denomination in two weeks time.

That clergy in The Presbyterian Church in Canada be permitted for pastoral reasons to bless same sex marriages conducted by civil authorities.

This is a very carefully crafted recommendation (politically speaking) because it is just the kind of recommendation that commissioners to the General Assembly will instinctively want to pass. It is presented as a kind of half-measure, as an exception, and as a compromise for the short term. There are very few clergy and elders who aren’t inclined to vote in favour of recommendations that are presented in this way. “Don’t worry,” the recommendation suggests, “we aren’t changing the definition of marriage, we are simply providing a blessing for same sex couples married by someone else!”

However, there are serious problems with this recommendation, and perhaps the most serious problem is that it is not the half-measure it purports to be. In fact, if this recommendation is passed, then the conversation about the redefinition of marriage within The Presbyterian Church in Canada will be over, because it will have happened. That is, this recommendation represents nothing less than the redefinition of marriage as a relationship between two persons (rather than between a man and a woman). And it would do so without submitting this change in doctrine and discipline to the wider church for approval as is required by the Barrier Act process. Contrary to our polity, one General Assembly will have made a significant change in the doctrine and discipline of the church.

Why does this recommendation represent more than simply a half-measure? Why does it represent a change in the definition of marriage within the PCC? Consider that the following scenario is imagined and permitted under this LMA recommendation (with respect to same sex couples): Continue reading →

What are you not seeing?

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My latest column, for the Christian Courier.

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Up until a few years ago I had never seen them. I didn’t even know they were around, so didn’t know to look for them. But every Spring they are here. In fact, we are at peak season right now so there’s a good chance you will glimpse them if you look carefully. And it would be worth the effort, too, given how beautiful they are in their blues and greens and reds and yellows – especially the yellows.

IMG_6359Perhaps you’ve guessed that I’m referring to the birds that make their way north each spring, particularly the warblers that rest each night in the trees around us on their journey. There is the Blackburnian Warbler, the Magnolia Warbler, the American Redstart, the Chestnut-sided Warbler, and the wonderfully named Yellow-rumped Warbler. The picture accompanying this column is of a Yellow-rumped Warbler that stopped over, ever so briefly, in my backyard last May.

For so many years, I missed this annual wave of feathers and song. While I have always enjoyed watching common backyard birds (finches, cardinals, jays, juncos and chickadees), I assumed that beautiful, multi-colored birds were a unique preserve of more tropical regions. Now that I know better, I’m learning to recognize the telltale movements of these tiny creatures in high branches as the sun warms them early in the morning. Continue reading →

Easter Breakfast, Anyone?

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My latest column for Christian Courier – it can also be found on the website, here.

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Breakfast is a big deal here in Montreal, and breakfast restaurants are a point of pride for us. There is Eggspectation and Allo! mon coco and, of course, the classic Chez Cora. In fact, it’s just possible that Chez Cora is one of Quebec’s best-loved exports—ranking up there with maple syrup, Oka cheese and Cirque de Soleil. The success of that restaurant means you can now sample Cora Tsouflidou’s menu from St. John’s to Victoria.

At the same time, if you want to experience peak-breakfast in Montreal these days you’ll have to check out Restaurant L’Avenue in the trendy Pleateau district—there is almost always a line-up, so you’ll have to wait patiently before sampling their watermelon water or indulging in a brilliant breakfast burrito.

While it is true that Montreal has some of the best breakfast spots you can imagine, my own most memorable breakfast wasn’t served up in this city. Rather, it was served up sixteen years ago during a visit to The Gambia, West Africa. Earlier in her life my wife had directed a nurses training school there, and in 2001 we were back for a visit with friends and former students. The breakfast I’m remembering was prepared by Christiana, a former student of my wife. It consisted of baguette and baked fish. She had woken early that morning to prepare the meal for us as a send-off on our continued travels. Continue reading →

The Shape of Confession

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An important element of Presbyterian and Reformed  identity is our writing of, and deference to, confessions. The Presbyterian Church in Canada has three confessions that define our faith and theology – they are the Westminster Confession, the Declaration Concerning Church and Nation, and Living Faith.

One of the things you quickly discover in looking at these documents is that their meaning is determined as much by the shape of the confession as by the content of it. What do I mean by this? Simply that the order in which ideas are presented is as important as what the confession actually says about those ideas. For example, in looking at the Westminster Confession and Living Faith we notice that Westminster begins with Scripture while Living Faith begins with God – and we might ask why this difference. Can we begin talking about God before we have said something definitive about the scriptures that reveal God? What does it say about our theology that we can begin talking about God before exploring the nature of the scriptures?

There are all kinds of questions that arise when we look at the shape of a confession. Another more important question might be, why do neither Westminster nor Living Faith begin with Jesus, who is the living Word, and the one in whom we see God fully? Continue reading →

“Praise the Mutilated World” – Sermon for memorial service of the Rev. Dr. Joe McLelland

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I had the privilege, today, of preaching at the memorial service of the Rev. Dr. Joseph McLelland, former Professor of Religious Studies at McGill University and Faculty member of The Presbyterian College. I share that sermon here.
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Over these past few weeks, as I spent a bit of time surveying the life of Joe McLelland, it struck me what a relative novice I am in the world of ministry and in the world of the academy – wet behind the ears, really! In the year of my birth, Joe had already served fifteen years in ministry – in the year of my birth, he had already 15 years into his academic career here in Montreal. When Joe was publishing his early essays and was teaching his first classes at McGill, I was, as my wife and I have taught our kids to say, still only in the mind of God. This is to say, among other things, that his academic career was full, that his contributions to church and college were many, and that his faithful service to the church was long.

When I arrived in Montreal for theological studies at The Presbyterian College in 1999, I encountered Professor McLelland, as I have mostly known him. And the first memory I have of him comes from the community lunches held each Wednesday at the college. During those lunches Professor McLelland and Professor Bob Cully would sit across from each other exchanging smart-ass comments that kept all of us much entertained. There is a real gift in that, it seems to me – the theology professor as human – if I may, the theology professor as smart ass. This is a theologian, after all, who would write essays with titles such as “The Comic Society,” and “In Praise of Crocodiles.” This is a theologian who could write that “the art of clowning is the humane art in which we find our way to the center, the definite place at which God promises to meet us.” Continue reading →

Love – Caress – Difference

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In my book Becoming Two in Love I have created brief, first-person “moments” that give expression to the account and ethics of sexual difference that I otherwise describe somewhat abstractly. An ethics of sexual difference is one that affirms the fundamental mystery that the sexuate other is/represents. It is an ethics that entails a refusal of relations of appropriation and possession and identification between man and woman.

Here is one of those first-person “moments” that explores the caress as respecting difference and love between man and woman, also in the context of faith.

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IMG_9308We are by no means strangers. Years of a shared life form a thick and complex backdrop to our everyday conversations and encounters. Between us, the invitation to a caress is a summons to a privileged and private intimacy. And even if this invitation and encounter is marked by a degree of ambiguity or uncertainty, nevertheless a shared history of trust and care mean that the caress may be given, and received, in freedom. Risk remains, certainly—but who could or would mitigate every risk. Continue reading →

The God of Silence – reflections on Endo’s novel, Scorsese’s film

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My latest column for the Christian Courier, can be found here, or below.

How is it possible for the ocean to be silent? Can the sea lose its voice? On the face of it this seems impossible. The waves come rolling in with rhythmic constancy – breaking and pounding against the shoreline. Even on those days when the wind is perfectly still the water slaps gently against the rocks and our ears will pick up the sound of the water’s gurgle and swirl. So how can the sea lose its voice, be silent?

Of course, the ocean cannot finally be silent. Yet it is the nature of human language, of our attempt to understand and communicate ourselves, that we often hold seemingly disparate realities together in speech or written word. To stay with the idea of silence, we sometimes describe it as palpable or heavy, as if we can feel its pressure against our bodies, as if silence were subject to gravity, as we are. But in the strictest sense, silence is simply the absence of soundwaves striking our ears – silence is absence, rather than presence. It is not some thing, but the absence of something.

The capacity of human language to hold contradictory realities together, however, is a kind of gift, since it enables us to reflect more deeply on the meaning of life. Shusaku Endo deploys such a lexical disjunction in his novel Silence when he describes the ocean precisely as silent. The central character of the novel is a 17th century Portuguese, Jesuit missionary named Sebastien Rodrigues who wrestles with the desperate poverty and violent persecution of Japanese Christians, many of whom are tortured and killed in the sea itself. In the face of their suffering and persecution, Rodrigues encounters what he refers to as the depressing silence of the sea. When he prayed for his sisters and brothers, “the sea remained cold, and the darkness maintained its stubborn silence.” Continue reading →