”¦ ”˜the way’ that John speaks of is not about believing doctrines about Jesus. Rather, ”˜the way’ is what we see incarnate in Jesus: the path of death and resurrection as the way to rebirth in God. According to John, this is the only way ”“ . . . it is ”˜the way’ spoken of by all the major religions of the world. Dying and rising is the way. Thus Jesus is ”˜the Way’ ”“ the way become flesh. Rather than being the unique revelation of a way known only in him, his life and death are the incarnation of a universal way known in all of the enduring religions.
“Rather than being the unique revelation of a way known only in him, his life and death are the incarnation of a universal way..”
Nothing else that this person says before or after THIS matters. He’s verbose and easily impresses with what must be a genteel sway, but it all boils down to this, doesn’t it. According to KTGF Jesus isn’t unique but instead is just dropping into time into a stream of a universal way known to all religions. ALL? That would be news to Shinto and other fatalistic religions. Somehow reincarnation and resurrection don’t seem the same. Yet we are to believe that all religions share a common stream of truth that is revealed by any incarnation in any religion.
Strange how Jesus never saw it that way.
From a Christian standpoint, this stuff is nuts.
#2, how is it from a non-Christian standpoint?
This document is troubling in many ways, and I’m not sure where to begin pulling it apart. There is some dangerous proof-texting going on here for starters. He sure hates Anselm too, but he forgets Anselm certainly isn’t the only theorist on the atonement nor is Anselm’s theory really even the one our BCP liturgies are based on. Nor did the early Fathers ignore the meaning of the cross in favor of Incarnation and Resurrection. That’s purely a caricature. Of course the cross is essential to Augustine…but, oh wait, he’s another one of those poisonous western theologians! Very disturbing stuff.
Well, here’s……….Kevin Thew Forrester ‘defending’ the Faith:
“Rather, ‘the way’ is
what we see incarnate in Jesus: the path of death and resurrection as the way to rebirth in God.
According to John, this is the only way – . . . it is ‘the way’ spoken of by all the major religions of
the world. Dying and rising is the way. Thus Jesus is ‘the Way’ – the way become flesh. Rather
than being the unique revelation of a way known only in him, his life and death are the incarnation
of a universal way known in all of the enduring religions.”
That ought to satisfy all theological concerns about his alleged christianity and capability to defend Christianity as a bishop. But, your mileage may differ, of course, if you are episcopalian instead.
I have to admit, I didn’t read this carefully, I merely scanned it all. However, I have read carefully, and repeatedly, a short chapter in E.L. Mascall’s book “Via Media” in which he discusses the Christian viewpoint on creation as “dependent reality.” In this short chapter, he contrasts the Christian view of creation with the major alternatives (views which would see creation as either independent or unreal in one way or another). Toward the end of his review he makes the following remark pertinent to this issue: “There are few human characters as appealing as Gautama Buddha, as the Buddhist scriptures depict him, with his yearning to deliver his fellow-men from the misery in which he sees them entangled and his determination not to achieve his own liberation until he has laid down the Noble Path by which they may attain theirs; but there is no metaphysical system so radically opposed to Christianity as is that of Buddhism, with its unqualified abhorrence of a world which to the Christian is the work of omnipotent and personal love” (p.26).
I’m not an Episcopalian, but I am a Christian, and I find it offensive that a man with such views should be considered for the position of Bishop who is to guard the faith.
KGTF is mounting his defense in his campaign to be a Bishop. The flaws in his letter have been dealt with in posts above far better than I can. Do we want another Spong or Pike? We saw the damage those two caused and KGTF will be worse, because we let Spong and Pike do as they wanted to and KGTF will write like this, but continue to equate Jesus the Christ, with Buddha.
Somehow, VGR sneaked in riding the coattails of a serious New England sexual revolution. Look at the damage he has caused the TEC and all of us members. As a Bishop, KGTF, will never stop being a Buddhist in the cloak of Christianity. Or is it vice versa? Either way it is heretical.
Oldman
At the moment I don’t have the time or the patience to read through the whole document carefully, but noted with some irritation that he begins by implying that the conservatives who resist his innovations are like his children who are afraid of the evening shadows on the walls. It’s the same old patronizing stuff — “you’re only objecting to these new ideas because they’re unfamiliar and you’re afraid of them,” etc. etc.
He should not even be allowed to be a priest, much less a bishop. His ideas are poisonous.
#6 Fr Greg,
Buddhist cosmology is diverse in its perspective on the nature of matter and energy. Some traditions focus on the inherent unsatisfactoriness of any impermanent phenomena. Other traditions see each particle in the universe as a realm of an infinitely compassionate and wise Buddha. Still others see all phenomena, whether terrestrial or heavenly, as of the nature of clear and unobstructed awareness. Others, like Zen, simply point out that whatever is, simply is.
There is a lot of discussion (or assertion) in his paper that he is favoring one patristic tradition about the work of Christ over the tradition from Anselm. That other tradition is certainly there. But what about the early Christian tradition Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15: “that Christ died for our sins . . .” ? And what about 2 Corinthians 5:21: “He made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” It seems that Thew Forrester wants us Christians to somehow become the righteousness of God without God’s making Christ to be sin for us.
So Thew Forrester’s theology does not just raise patristic issues about how to understand the saving work of Christ: it seems to have basic problems with what Christ did to save us — a tradition that Paul, the earliest Christian writer, says predates himself.
Rudy+
#3, I guess it’s interesting – but, since I’m a Christian, I’m not in the best position to say.
#12
My guess is that Kevin Genpo Thew Forrester probably thinks Paul is dispensible the canon. Forrester is all about the “Gospel according to Kevin” as interpreted through his flavor of Buddhism, of course,.
KTF’s use of Patristic sources is sadly reminiscent of proof-texting and isogesis with Holy Scripture. I cannot help but feel here a sort of Patristic fundamentalism in the service of pre-conceived outcomes. The witness of the Fathers must be taken broadly. They had a variety of different ways of speaking about the Cross, but to try and remove the Augustinian-Anselmic trend from the Tradition is not only unbalanced, but does violence to the basic Faith as received from the Old and New Testaments generally, in which these holy exegetes were so deeply steeped. It is not an “either/or” proposition. Whether it be the Syriac tradition or Gregory the Theologian, one cannot remove the notion of atoning sacrifice from the meaning of Christ, the Gospel, and the Christian faith. They didn’t, so why should we? There is far too much self-justification rather than humility in this way of approaching the Fathers, the Scriptures, and the Faith.
[blockquote] … ‘the way’ that John speaks of is not about believing doctrines about Jesus. Rather, ‘the way’ is what we see incarnate in Jesus: the path of death and resurrection as the way to rebirth in God. According to John, this is the only way – . . . it is ‘the way’ spoken of by all the major religions of the world. Dying and rising is the way. Thus Jesus is ‘the Way’ – the way become flesh. Rather than being the unique revelation of a way known only in him, his life and death are the incarnation of a universal way known in all of the enduring religions.[/blockquote]
To those who do not worship the Cross of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ as the salvation and glory of the whole world and as that which annulled and utterly destroyed the machinations and weapons of the enemy, and thereby redeemed creation from the idols and manifested victory to the world, but hold the Cross to be a tyrannical weapon; to such men,
[b] Anathema![/b]
From The Synodikon of Orthodoxy
[blockquote]Marcus Borg offers a marvelous description of “the way†of Jesus spoken of in John’s gospel, but it captures Paul’s theology of self-emptying as well.
[blockquote]… ‘the way’ that John speaks of is not about believing doctrines about Jesus. Rather, ‘the way’ is what we see incarnate in Jesus: the path of death and resurrection as the way to rebirth in God. According to John, this is the only way – . . . it is ‘the way’ spoken of by all the major religions of the world. Dying and rising is the way. Thus Jesus is ‘the Way’ – the way become flesh. Rather than being the unique revelation of a way known only in him, his life and death are the incarnation of a universal way known in all of the enduring religions.[/blockquote][/blockquote]
The late Stuart Blanch, one time Archbishop of York and Old Testament scholar, once famously reminded readers of the Fourth Gospel of its profound Jewishness. One such example was his paraphrase of such expressions as “the Way, the Truth and the Life†as “Torah, Torah, Torahâ€; likewise, “the Light of the World†equals “Torahâ€; and so does “the Wordâ€. Jesus, [i]in this light[/i], is both the essential foundation of the Israelite Torah, expressive of Yahweh’s specific and unique relationship with Israel, and its true fulfilment. There is quite simply no scope in the Church of God for the waffle and “filth†([i]skybalon[/i]) portrayed here.
How did the TEC get into the mess that it is in? But then again with your PB saying that you can’t put God in a box and that there are many paths to God, nothing surprises me.
What strikes me is not how heterodox Christian Forrester is but how mainstream Episcopal. Certainly more articulate than the PB. For supporting documentation, consult the work of Dr. Moheb Ghali at:
http://www.christchurchsavannah.org/Articles/AConflictofBeliefsformattedforweb.pdf
and
http://listserv.virtueonline.org/pipermail/virtueonline_listserv.virtueonline.org/2008-April/008430.html.
3 H words will do in summary of this dross
Heresy
Huberis
Horsesh#***
I would honestly refuse this man confirmation in my parish church so HOW is he seen as suitable material for Bishop?
He ultimate premise is that ‘tradition’ is a valuable thing now finished, rather than a living thing. That those who resist his change are unenlightened and driven by fear. That Christ is only useful not essential in a general enlightenment and revelation revealed by all faiths regardless of specific doctrines.
Bang the dust of your shoes my friends- for here is a wolf amongst the fold.
This is another Schori disease vector. The writer can scarcely be called Christian. His position and Buddhist views should be intolerable to any Christian church. Why isn’t anyone in the church angry enough
to do something more than talk, to tut-tut, to back and fill? In short, why is he being protected and encouraged by a few, when the majority in the priesthood should be on his neck, at his front door, in his face t every turning. In short, why are we such wimps, so thoroughly unable to act? L
In his defense, he shows how he has departed from the faith of the catholic Church. This is sad for he does not realize what he is saying and how such is a departure from the Christian Faith and Anglicanism…
God have mercy
I was staggered when he quoted with evident approval this passage from the Brock/Parker book:
[B]y the eleventh century, the church’s rituals had virtually reversed the traditions of Cyril’s fourth-century Jerusalem. Instead of mourning the Crucifixion once a year and marking the Resurrection daily, the Resurrection slowly receded in importance
Goodness me. And I always thought that the eucharist – celebrated daily on countless altars in the Middle Ages – depended upon the resurrection of the Lord to have any meaning.
As for the statement attributed to Athanasius – I want to see the actual source. Please. For example, in speaking about the divinization or apotheosis of humankind, the Fathers were not speaking about us becoming god, which would have been blasphemy. They were speaking about us through God’s gracious mercy being taken into the life of God, which is love.
[i]”But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;”[/i]
So now your telling me there are some Greeks in TEC?
Re # 21
Larry,
[blockquote] In short, why are we such wimps, so thoroughly unable to act?[/blockquote]
I fear you do not grasp the fact the KTF is in fact representative of the views of a substantial majority in TEC. He is the now and future of TEC even if for reasons of political expediency, he is likely to be denied consent by a majority of the bishops. You are crying out for people to plug a damn that has already burst.
Christ is risen!
John
#6: Buddhism has no abhorrence, whether qualified or not, of the world.
Why would anyone regard Mascall as knowing anything about this?
If one wants to understand Christianity, consult Christianity.
If one wants to understand Buddhism, consult Buddhism.
I’m with Stephen Noll here. This is actually a comparatively articulate and well organized precis of late 20th century TEC thinking. Sure, when compared to actual scholarship, it’s sloppy, tendentious, over-simplified, and incomplete. When set against a fairly ordinary Apologia by your standard-issue 19th century clergyman, it grates on the ear. But compared to the inarticulate twaddle spouted by the hapless head of TEC, this piece is positively fulsome. Surely, the author is an unremarkable specimen of the breed that already inhabits so many episcopal thrones in TEC. Indeed, as his comes across as barely a fourth-rate mind (people like this should never be entrusted with rich concepts as [i]theosis[/i]), his intellect surely outstrips a good number of his would-be episcopal brethren. One can readily sympathize with the man’s frustration. It is tempting to find grounds for optimism in so many bishops rejecting one who so well embodies their, well, thinking – but as I am perhaps overly fond of reminding myself and others, Christians are creatures of hope, not optimism. I don’t expect TEC’s leadership to learn a thing from this. Maybe somebody else will. There’s always hope.
#25. Love that: “….plug a damn. ” I larfed and larfed. Very witty I thought. Larry