When the Homily is about Immunology

A Busy Weekend

First time back on the river for quite a long while and it was great to feel the rush of fighting a 10lb Coho Salmon. It never ceases to amaze me how strong and fierce these fish can be - it is no wonder they threw my elbow out last year. On top of this, a beautiful Fall day in the Pacific Northwest capped off a fantastic time.

Today I went to Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church in Kenmore in order to watch my good friends the Pflager family get baptized/Chrismated into the Church. My meeting Daniel Pflager makes for an interesting story which will explain what initially led me to leave the Episcopal Church.

When I became an Episcopalian I was pretty naive about my own denomination - I knew there were some liberal priests and dioceses and such - but I had no idea HOW liberal and HOW high up the liberalism went. Frankly, homosexuality was not the most dominant liberal issue in my mind, but rather when I found out about the existence of a so-called "bishop" Spong who made it a point to bring about a "new reformation." In Spong's reformation we'd do away with archaic ancient beliefs such as the virgin birth, miracles, and the resurrection in favor of a new christianity...a sort of "Jesus Seminar" Christianity. Spong turned Jesus into little more than a sort of 60's flower child whose ONLY priority was to love everyone. It seems everyone likes to develop in their own minds exactly what Jesus was like and then they can create their Christianity around it. In keeping with the age, religious truth (in Spong's mind) contains no absolutes and thus not only are all denominations equally right - so also are all religions.

Much to my suprise, the Epsicopal Church saw no need to kick the WHACKED heretic out on his ass. (sorry) How dare this church claim any understanding or ownership of Apostolic Succession with such obviously non-apostolic teachings being promoted by one of their bishops - and not raise a finger to let him go off and start his own "church." I have no idea how important doctrine is, but I know it is not unimportant. I could have been a gnostic and no one COULD possibly have told me I shouldn't be.

Anyway, I met Daniel Pflager on an Episcopal E-Group in which we found ourselves frequently engaging in lively conversations with some of the liberals in our denomination. Come to find out, Daniel lived nearby and as he knew I was struggling with the lack of solid discipleship in my ECUSA Parish, he invited me to attend a small group (Called "Alpha" in the ECUSA) which met in his home. I attended a few times (which was a breath of fresh air) and then left for a month long vacation in Minnesota. Also, I began my classes at Regis University to finish my degree in Religion and this is how I was introduced to Orthodoxy. I never went back to the Alpha group and I never went back to my ECUSA parish.

Much later, I happened to drop back in to the Episcopal E-group and found a post by Daniel in which he mentioned that he wished he could get back in touch with me. I wrote him and apologized for dropping off the face of the earth (he graciously accepted) and then he proceeded to tell me that he was on the verge of leaving the ECUSA himself, but was planning (with certain reservations) to head for Rome. I told him that he had other options.

And so today, three of his children were reborn and the baptisms of all the others in his large family were fulfilled by the annointing of Holy Chrism. It was a day of rejoicing as we welcomed them all home.

"As many of you who have been baptized into Christ,
have clothed yourselves with Christ. Alleluia!"