Know Tea

A friend E-mailed me today to let me know that this little ol’ blog was mentioned in passing in this month’s issue of the Confessional Presbyterian journal, an extremely conservative publication.

In said journal, a Mr. Frank J. Smith makes this comment about me and about this blog:

“It might be worth noting that one of the critical responders to Sean Lucas was John Allan (sic) T. Bankson*, pastor of John Knox Presbyterian Church, a PCA congregation in Ruston, Louisiana. On Mr. Bankson’s blog, http://knowtea.com/, we can read about celebrating Shrove Tuesday and footwashing on Maundy Thursday, as well as how to obtain real ashes for Ash Wednesday. (We wonder whether John Knox would appreciate
being associated with such practices.)”

Confessional Presbyterian readers, I encourage you to read for yourselves what I’ve written on here and not to accept Mr. Smith’s extremely biased characterization of me, of my church, or of this weblog.

Here is what I wrote on Sean Lucas’ blog concerning Ash Wednesday:

I am a PCA pastor, and we had an Ash Wednesday service last night. It wasn’t really that out of the ordinary: we have a Wednesday evening prayer service every week. Only this week, the focus of those prayers was on our own repentance and on God’s promises to us in the Scriptures to forgive all of our sins through Jesus Christ. In my sermon, I spoke on Christ’s instructions regarding fasting, that fasting is between us and God, not between us and the world. Thus, I instructed everyone who received ashes (that is entirely voluntary: we do it with “every head bowed, every eye closed”) to wash them off before they left church, not to parade around with them on, displaying their piety before men.

On this blog I had this to say about Ash Wednesday:

For all who are of a Reformed state of mind and wonder about this whole Lent thing, I recommend this sermon by Paul F. M. Zahl, Reformation scholar and all around neat guy.

Click the link and listen to Zahl’s sermon if you want to know my “take” on Ash Wednesday and Lent in general (indeed, on any “special” observances).  You’ll find that Zahl is really quite the Puritan (!) when it comes to the subject of Ash Wednesday.  My views are identical to Zahl’s on this subject.  It is not enough to say that I have written about a subject.  Smith decided to leave out what I said on the subject, and that is significant, especially since he had to have seen the post in order to comment on it.

BTW ours is not the only Presbyterian church by any means to have Ash Wednesday services.  It is not even the only PCA church to have Ash Wednesday services.  The first Ash Wednesday service I ever heard of that was not at a Roman Catholic or Episcopal Church was at a PCA church, and it was not JKPC, and no, it was also not a “Federal Vision” church (we aren’t one either):  it was this church, pretty much a down-the-line, mainstream, traditional Presbyterian Church.

Here’s all I have ever written about celebrating Shrove Tuesday.  Yep, that’s it.  So, every year we have a good ol’ Scots Bannock Night on Shrove Tuesday.   It’s not a service:  it’s a pancake supper.  One might even call it a (gasp!) party.  We eat Scottish Drop Bannocks (made from oats) and good ol’ Louisiana King Cake (because we live in Louisiana, and that’s what we do in Louisiana).  Would John Knox approve?  I feel certain that, as a Scotsman, Knox ate more than his share of oat bannocks in his day.  No, I don’t guess he ever got to try King Cake, but I’m sure if he had, he’d have loved it.  That’s how we “celebrate” Shrove Tuesday.  We have a big supper at the church with bannocks and bangers (sausages), milk, orange juice, sweet tea, and coffee, and we have King Cakes (at least two different kinds) for dessert.  Why?  Because it’s fun, that’s why.

As far as “telling people where to get real ashes,” actually I’d never insult my readers’ intelligence like that.  Everyone knows where to get real ashes:  just burn something!  Smith must be referring to a link I posted because a parishioner complained about “lumpy” homemade ashes that our church had been using since long before I arrived there.  The link was posted to show my friend that “smooth” ashes were commercially available.  The link was for the amusement of said parishioner.  In other words, it was a joke, something that may elude those who are afraid that someone, somewhere might be having a good time.

And FWIW we’ve never had a foot washing on Maundy Thursday at JKPC or at any church I’ve ever been a part of (as a parishioner, a staff member, or a pastor).  I have participated in one footwashing service before (as a visitor at an Episcopal Church) and it was a very moving experience, but Mr. Smith is indulging in fiction here (that’s the nicer term) when he implies that this is something we have done at JKPC.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that (footwashing, that is, not prevaricating).  Jesus for one seemed to think foot-washing was a pretty good idea.

My readers are from many different faith traditions.  My readers are conservative, liberal, and everything in between.  They are Baptists, Presbyterians (of many different kinds), Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, and “none of the above.”  I’ve been privileged to know a lot of them for many, many years.  And I believe we can all learn from one another.  I hope they have learned a couple of things from my faith tradition (which is Reformed, even though I would not define that tradition as narrowly as some do), and I have learned from theirs.  I believe we can all learn from one another.  Only the most arrogant believe that they cannot learn from Christians of other traditions:  that they have the corner on the market of biblical insight, or the corner on the market of the Holy Spirit.

*This has got to be the first time in history that someone has spelled “Bankson” correctly but misspelled “Allen.”  We are not Edgar Allan Poe.  Oy.