The Reverend Danny Borkowski has come out of his short retirement to occupy the pulpit of the newly formed Christ Church Anglican parish in Ajijic. A native of Dallas, Texas, Borkowski has a long educational pedigree that includes a Doctorate of Ministry in Ecumenical Studies from the Graduate Theological Foundation. He was ordained in the Holy Orthodox Church in 1980 and the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf in 1998. Borkowski holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mathematics from the University of Dallas and a Masters in Mathematics from the University of Houston. He and his wife Kay moved to Lakeside in 2005. Here he talks with Jeanne Chaussee.
You’ve lived much of your life outside of the United States and in some exotic places. Why Ajijic?
We were looking for a place that was at least on the same side of the world as our families. Kay’s mother was getting old and we have grandchildren and so on. We were looking for a place that had weather like Nairobi. Kay did a lot of research on the internet and this area looked promising with a similar altitude and climate. So we came to visit.
Why like Nairobi ?
I received my first graduate degree at Makerere University in Uganda and I taught in a town just outside of Nairobi.
So it’s the climate.
Yes, it’s the climate, although we both like the expat life style. We’ve both been expats for a long time.
You have a long pedigree in religious education. Did you always plan to become an Anglican priest?
Actually, I started out as a Roman Catholic with my early seminary training through high school and the first two years of college. However, it became clear that I was not called to celibacy, so that was put aside for a while. I actually spent 25 years of my working life as a computer programmer. I worked for NASA during the moon landing and after that studying moon rocks. I then went to work for oil companies – mostly Saudi oil companies – and lived in the Middle East. When I decided to go back to the priesthood, I became ordained in a small Orthodox body in 1980. It was the American Jurisdiction of the Holy Orthodox Church. My ex-wife didn’t like that. So we joined an Episcopal church and I again became inactive, basically. When we moved to the Middle East, I was active in the Episcopal Church there as a layman. When the bishop there found out that I was a priest, he asked me to submit my credentials. So I did. I ended up being ordained again as an Episcopal priest in 1998. So I started out as an Orthodox priest – kind of Russian Orthodox in the western world and then became an Episcopal priest in Cyprus, which is very Orthodox.
By that time, there was no chance of my functioning as an Orthodox priest since I had divorced and remarried. In the Orthodox Church divorce is not recognized, nor the subsequent remarriage. I feel more comfortable in the Episcopal or Anglican Church as it’s more like what I grew up with in the Catholic Church. The ceremonies and the liturgy are very similar. And I’m a liberal type of guy. The Orthodox Church is very conservative.
Recently, the Guadalajara Reporter published a story about the Anglican Communion Covenant and that the Anglican Church of Mexico had been the first to sign on.
The covenant is an attempt to increase the authority across the whole Anglican Communion. As it was before, each province was so independent that they could pretty much do as they pleased and no one could say anything. The issue that caused this covenant thing to come up was to deal with homosexuality and the election of an openly gay bishop in one of the provinces. Essentially what the covenant does is put a moratorium on ordaining openly homosexual people or performing same sex marriages. They aren’t saying that homosexuality is right or wrong – they’re just putting the whole question on hold. This is also an attempt to strengthen the authority of the leadership. Not like a pope but something, at least, that could be referred to as the last word.
I noticed that you and Kay have been authorized to facilitate a course called “Walking the Mourners’ Path.”
It’s not exactly a course. It’s a program or a process. We got certified the last time we were in Houston. It isn’t just for the Episcopal Church. Many times people have not actually dealt with grief and it affects them forever. It’s not a psychological, but a Christ-centered program. It’s non-denominational. It’s an eight-week process for one day a week. It does require some commitment. We’ve invited all the English-speaking clergy to come to our house on August 10 to learn about it. This is most effective for people who have passed at least some months after the death of a loved one. It is not therapy in the psychological sense. There is discussion and sharing.
You’re a scientist and a theologian. How do you meld the theories of creationism and evolution?
Creationism doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. God could create any way he wants to. He could just as well have created through evolution. I don’t believe in evolution the way I believe in God but it is a good explanation. I know it’s not perfect but I think it’s basically correct. In general, the Episcopal Church believes that science and religion shouldn’t conflict. The creation story in the Bible is a poetic approach to the truth. The people who wrote that down didn’t have access to the information that we have. Its truth lies in the fact that God can create. If He did it through evolution, that’s okay with me. The Episcopal Church talks about the three-legged stool. A stool won’t stand on two legs. It needs at least three. In the Episcopal Church those three legs are scripture, tradition and reason.
What do you hope to do with this new Christ Church fellowship?
My personal plans are to serve as a priest. The overall plan is to increase in size and move a little further west to serve the Anglicans in that direction toward San Juan Cosala. The bishop has indicated that at the synod meeting in January, we will become a full-fledged parish. We won’t go through the mission stage. It has to do with money and maturity of Anglicans. Our members are all Anglicans. We don’t try to proselytize so we aren’t going out into the community trying to convert people. We take the stand that we are part of the Christian Church. We are not the Christian Church. One of the things that makes the Anglican Church so attractive is that we don’t declare ourselves “the one true church.” We try to be a bridge between Catholics and Protestants with kind of a foot in both camps. A priest is really there to aid the ministry of the laity. They are where the rubber meets the road. The priest shouldn’t be doing all of the lifting. Of course, ultimately it is the Holy Spirit that is in charge and we have to stand back and let Him do His thing.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|