The Magdalene Mystique » 2007 » February

The Author

Betty Conrad Adam, an Episcopal priest, is resident Canon Theologian at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, and spiritual director of the Magdalene Community. She holds a PhD in philosphy from Rice University and was a recipient of a Merrill Fellowship at the Harvard Divinity School.

The Book

The Magdalene Mystique retells the story of Mary Magdalene for our time. As the consummate “other” who is mislabelled and demonized, the Magdalene becomes an ancestor who can help us bridge our cultural and religious divisions. Her lost Gospel tells us how a more deeply connected consciousness can happen to all of us and how we can be lead into a “shared peace.”

The CD

The Magdalene Mystique: Songs From Within by Anita Kruse is a companion to the book, The Magdalene Mystique. The music that accompanies our services can be found on this CD along with voices from other religious traditions. You will find this music helpful for private devotion or for use in your community.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

posted February 13th, 2007 at 12:38 pm by Betty

I ask your prayers for the meeting of the presiding bishops of the global Anglican Communion in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The six day meeting begins today. Presiding Bishops from all over the world will be there representing their particular body of people.

My special concern is for Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori who will be representing the American Episcopal Church (formally, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America) and for those bishops (about which it has been reported) who have said “they will not sit at the same table with Bishop Jefferts Schori” and those who “have threatend to walk out of the meeting.” See New York Times article New Episcopal Leader Braces for Gay-Rights Test

It is particularly noteworthy in considering this situation that last December the host of the meeting, the Anglican Church of Tanzania, broke communion with the Episcopal Church (USA) that Schori represents. This highly complex situation began with the confirmation and consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson in 2003. See the statement of the House of Bishops of Tanzania.

The New York Times has suggested that at this meeting we will have a “gay-rights test.”

It seems to me that here we have something much larger, something more like “a spiritual test.”

A test that involves how we personally think and feel about “the other”— the stranger, the one we don’t understand, and possibly cannot ever understand. Here is a test as to how we treat the one whose views will probably never coalesce with ours, a test as to what we think of the importance of human relationships.

If there is shunning and dis-associating and dis-engaging, it will be merely something old — a re-visitation of something very old in the history of our religious tradition. May the Holy Spirit inspire this meeting that we might not re-visit. When we do this, we overreach ourselves in saying that we know what is right.

All of us have from time to time participated in this game, not just bishops.

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