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| Mariann Budde, New Age Episcopal Bishop, Washington DC |
Washington Bishop Mariann Budde's First Sermon:
The New Age Night
COMMENTARY
By Sarah Frances Ives
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
November 21, 2011
The consecration of Mariann Budde in the Washington National Cathedral was a bizarre excursion into New Age darkness only paralleled by her first sermon the following day.
In the consecration sermon, Rev. Linda Kaufman repeatedly referred to a New Age David Whyte poem, even as she found new lows in bad language and questionable cultural symbols. Kaufman declared that the movie Brokeback Mountain (that glorified a homosexual relationship) gave images of shepherds to parishioners. That was after Kaufman's reference to a "kickass sermon" whose violent metaphorical imagery of attacking other people seems out of place for a people dedicated to the Prince of Peace. But Budde's self-revelatory New Age sermon equaled her accident-prone consecration.
In just the beginning moments of the November 13, 2011 sermon, Budde once again quoted her New Age master, David Whyte. (You can watch this sermon online but looking at it requires real fortitude because you will once again see the bright orange vestments.) In one sentence towards the beginning, Budde talks of "Jesus and all of the great spiritual masters before and after him." Jesus Christ becomes one of many spiritual masters and for Budde, one not to the level of her chosen master, David Whyte, whose words she used throughout the sermon.
And to show how deeply Budde is engaged with New Age spiritual practices, she reveals her own use of autosuggestion, a mental technique discovered in the late 19th century. For not only is Katharine Jefferts Schori looking at herself in the mirror and practicing autosuggestion but also Budde. Many psychologists note that this technique can be used for good or ill but clearly at this point in history, these leaders use of it seems destructive for the Christian faith.
Budde's self-revelation about her mantra and dependence on Whyte came quickly in the sermon. "In a fragile time in my young adulthood, a person I admired... looked into my eyes and said, 'You are a unique expression of God's creative genius.' And she told me to repeat that mantra every morning as I looked in the mirror until I knew it in my heart. Now from this esteemed pulpit and on behalf of Christ, I say the same to you. In the words of David Wythe 'you are not an accident amidst other accidents you were invited from another and greater night than the one from which you have just emerged.'"
Throughout her sermon, Budde then peppered the name "Jesus" and "Christ" frequently, giving her own unique interpretation of what He stood for. Budde said, "Jesus lifted me." But then we must wonder why she encouraged this mantra rather than faithful dependence on Jesus. And when Budde wished to support her ideas, she continually turned back to the Whyte poem "you are not an accident" and her autosuggestion mantra (whose source is unknown.)
At the height of her sermon, Budde broke loose with one of her characteristic flights-of-fancy. She said, "And so, back in 2003, when a Lutheran pastor whom I deeply admired wondered aloud why the Episcopal Church insisted on taking so controversial a position on the full inclusion of gays and lesbians at the very time we needed to grow our congregations, I said to him, 'You don't understand. The full inclusion of lesbians and gays wasn't something we thought up on our own. God led us to this place. It has not been an easy road. And some day you will thank us because we are making it easier for you to do the same. This is our treasure. This is our treasure.'" She continued with the autosuggestion mantra, "We are a unique expression of God's creative genius. Never doubt the importance of what you are doing and what we are doing on this earth."
This seems to be Budde's reasoning.
1. If everybody in the Cathedral repeats the same mantra, we will have the same subconscious mind.
2. Guru David Whyte's poems will become our new scripture but we still use the name of Jesus to appear like Christians.
3. Ordained gays and lesbians will be seen as the true "treasure" of the Episcopal Church.
What is this new doctrine? What happened to scriptural authority and the use of accepted Christian theologians and mystics? And-the most important question-is what Budde saying even rational or have we moved into idiosyncratic thinking based on her belief that she is a "unique expression of God's creative genius"?
So what does David Whyte believe now that Budde has established him at the Washington National Cathedral? Whyte is not interested in the actual Lord of creation but turns his own life into his own divinity.
In his "Self Portrait," he writes,
"It doesn't interest me if there is one God or many gods. I want to know if you belong-or feel abandoned."
The section Budde repeatedly quoted in this sermon from Whyte's "What to Remember When Waking" reads:
"You are not a troubled guest on this earth, you are not an accident amidst other accidents you were invited from another and greater night than the one from which you have just emerged."
For those who want to look at David Whyte's writings themselves (though I surely don't recommend this) all they have to do is look at Oprah Winfrey's Lifeclass on June 15, 2011, in which she featured Whyte's thoughts. In Whyte's "Ten questions that have no right to go away," he writes a totally secular and emotional approach to life. Interested researchers on Whyte can find the poem "What to Remember When Waking" that Budde chose to start her first Cathedral sermon with on a website called "Life Trek Coaching International: How do you want to get there?" These experts will explain to you how to use this David Whyte poem as a mantra in your own life if you contact them (you might need to send them a generous contribution.)
That David Whyte's jumbled and troubled imagery did not rightly end up in Budde's spam file on her computer, but instead taken into her heart, mind, and soul and pronounced both in her November 12 consecration as well as her first sermon on November 13, 2011, should cause an international Anglican outcry. But at least one person has not gone along with her-Dr. Paul Budde-her husband, for as the Washington Diocesan newspaper proclaims, he is still a practicing Roman Catholic. The new bishop coyly announced in this sermon that her husband had thought of being a Roman Catholic priest earlier in life. Sadly, at Budde's consecration, he stood and read the interminably long poem by David Whyte, "Coleman's Bed."
Christians believe we are in the image of God, fell into the dominion of death and corruption, and yet redeemed by Christ. Yet Budde invites all people to follow David Whyte, the one who doesn't care about monotheism and who seems to believe that some dark force created us as in we emerge from a "greater night." Faithful Christians should not accept Budde's signature New Age philosophy yet Budde continued by inviting all Episcopalians to believe this.
Budde has stated in opening interviews that she is going to ask more of Episcopalians. She has already further impoverished this church by denying the singularity of the Incarnation of Jesus and dismissing monotheism through her self-canonization of David Whyte.
Budde's guru Whyte wrote in "Coleman's Bed" to "refuse to talk, even to yourself." That might be good advice for all fragile adults talking to their mirrors. Maybe the "stranger in you" that Linda Kaufman was yelling about in the consecration sermon is the mantra Budde pushed into her soul. All TEC leaders should immediately stop their self-proclaimed mantra looking into their mirrors. I know that Jefferts Schori thinks that the very idea of temptations is passé but the temptation to believe your own autosuggestions can take people (or the entire Washington National Cathedral) into something like outer space. The obvious idea though occurs: if you are grounded upon this bizarre autosuggestion, you should not be preaching from the pulpit of the Washington National Cathedral.
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Sarah Frances Ives is a frequent contributor to Virtueonline
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