Because the blog went caput this series was not able to be finished. But did you notice how almost no aspect of the ecumenical dimensions of our decisions came into play, esepcially in the two highly publicized decisions?
Because the blog went caput this series was not able to be finished. But did you notice how almost no aspect of the ecumenical dimensions of our decisions came into play, esepcially in the two highly publicized decisions?
Would there be a place to collect it in the Anglican Digest? I think that ++RW made some allusion to those questions but he was a week late and a few pounds short of what was already started by a “mere” Diocesan Theologian.
Well yes I noticed, but the unasked question might be “was I surprised”? Hell no. Let me turn it around: since PB Schori has been in office, have there really been any ecumenical considerations to her scorched earth, power grabbing trajectory? Of course not. She is the epitomy of the “me, me, gotta have it now” boomer generation (of which I am a part unfortunately). Our generation has never waited for anything we didn’t have to wait for and has never really stopped to consider the consequences of our actions. That’s why our parent’s generation came back from WWII and built the greatest economic miracle the world has ever seen–only to watch the next generation (us) piss it all away. And the the gifts we give to the world to represent our internal fascination with ourselves: Katie Schori and Barack Obama.
I hope in heaven we get to read what history has to say about us a couple of hundred years from now (yeah I know, making a big assumption there).
Can you all rephrase the article? Ecumenical dimensions of what and by whom? Thanks!
Well, yes.
When SR and others claim that they’ve done their theology (whatever that phrase means), it would seem that “Doctrine of the Church” has been skipped over. After all, it gets in the way.
I think we need to see a clear, articulate, and thorough (yet parsimonious) manifesto of their so-called theology, along with their own attempt to falsify it in the classic manner, and their own responses to the falsifications. However, I honestly doubt that any of them is up to the academic challenge.
Ralph,
Was that to me or an answer to the original post? Thanks!
#4, To the question of the OP. Yours got posted while I was still typing.
This all reminds me of what happens when amateurs “do theology” like at a badly-mentored EfM session. The Integrity “theology” is the kind of excrement that results. Again, I’d challenge anyone who is up to it to “do” the theology in the classic scholastic manner. They won’t because 1) they don’t have any real theologians; and 2) their arguments vaporize when subjected to an all-around falsification. Not one of them has held up to scrutiny, or else the ecumenical patriarchs would also be on board.
I suspect that a few of them realize that.
As much as KJS might want to think that she is a patriarch, she lacks certain equipment for that, namely, authority and power.
Thanks, Ralph. I am with you, by the way.
Dr. Harmon, if General Convention had no concern for what it was doing to relations in the Anglican Communion, why should we be surprised that it had also no concern for other Christian bodies?
Kendall, if I read the GC09 Legislative table correctly, there were only 5 resolutions on ecumenical relations, and 1 of those was a duplicate. So 4 resolutions out of 450…, means Gen Con spent less than 1% of its time on ecumenical issues.
By contrast there were dozens of LGBT-related resolutions in many different categories, at least 10 -12 resolutions related to environmental advocacy, and at least 53 other political or economic advocacy related resolutions.
Pretty easy to see where TEC’s priorities lie.
OK, so I’ll take a guess at what Dr. Harmon was referring to.
TEC in general and Integrity in particular suffer from myopia and tunnel vision. The former limits their ability to use the history of the church to guide their theology and the latter limits their ability to value the church universal and profit from corrective feedback. They have become an agenda driven rationalizing secular and humanistic organization.
I’ve done ecumenical work in three dioceses over 43 years mostly on local and diocesan levels. Episcopalians will agree to ecumenical statements but it is difficult for any of us in any church to see beyond our local and parochial concerns. But we need to keep trying because Jesus’ wants his church to be one in the Spirit.
I would think that if GC can not even attempt to work on intradenominational issues, ecumenical ones would be far removed from their view.
Both the leader of the House of Deputies and the Presiding Bishop are former Roman Catholics, I believe. Certainly the Presiding Bishops statements would lead one to think that she regards her former denomination with some disdain.
Somehow ecumenism does not seem to be a priority within the Episcopal Church.
That is one of the major differences between 815 and Cantuar right now.
The Archbishop of Canterbury certainly put ecumenical considerations precisely at the center of the discussion. If these aspects of the actions of the GC were largely ignored in Anaheim (although Bishop Johnston of Virginia, for example, did address them and I would like to think he was not unique), they are much more difficult to disregard after the Archbishop’s statement.
As someone has observed, TEC doesn’t do theology; it does politics.
General Convention as currently constituted and operates isn’t conducive to doing theology. Neither is one way “listening”, “dialog” and “conversation”.
Theology is the study of God; the study of fallen man is anthropology and sociology.