My point is not that we shouldn’t be good stewards of the earth. We ought to be. The problem is that for two years running, green politics has eclipsed any mention of the whole pattern of human sin and redemption that forms the core of orthodox Christian belief. What we are seeing is the creation of a new, green religion, under the rubric of Christianity. Christianity includes Schori’s concern for the earth. The question is whether Schori’s green religion includes Christianity, with its broader sense of human sin and disability and its willingness to discuss how sin separates people from God.
The New Testament does not read, “God so tolerated the world that he sent his only begotten son.” The word is “loved.” That love did not include tolerating sinful conduct, but rather the destruction of sin as a barrier to God, so that human beings could become capable of love. By substituting tolerance and inclusivity for love, and largely ignoring sin as a problem, the Episcopal church is creating another “Christianity,” and another reality.
I am afraid the new Episcopal Church will replace the sometimes angry and urgent Jesus of the Bible, who invited his followers to take up their crosses and follow him, with an idea of general benevolence and personal holiness. Jesus will be portrayed as a pop-culture Buddha. I hope this doesn’t happen. Although a Roman Catholic, I was more involved in my wife’s Episcopal Church, over the last decade, than my own, and I learned to value the Episcopal Church’s contribution to the world. I am afraid it will turn into what Flannery O’Connor, in The Violent Bear It Away, called the church without Christ, “where the lame don’t walk, the blind don’t see, and what’s dead stays that way.”
This is a fine piece of commentary, but I think the Church of Christ without Christ appeared in Flannery O’Connor’s first published novel, Wise Blood, rather than in her later novel, The Violent Bear It Away. “It’s based on your own personal interpitation of the Bible, friends. You can sit at home and interpit your own Bible however you feel in your heart it ought to be interpited.”
I have known Craig and his wife for years and respect both immensely. I believe him to be one of the most gifted teachers our parish has ever had. We are both no longer there for similar reasons. Craig is an example of the many gifted Christians that TEC has driven away with its policy of litigation and its innovative theology. KJS has stated that the leadership wants to preserve the legacy of the church but when individuals of Craig’s caliber leave, it is a squandering of the assets of TEC.
Nice work.
His fears are justified,
[blockquote]”the idea of general benevolence and personal holiness”[/blockquote]
has indeed taken over TEC (or at least our little revisionist parish). Somehow, the powers that be think that this is the only thing modern people can relate to.