The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops concluded its six-day retreat meeting at the Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina, continuing the theme “selection, recruitment and formation of young leaders,” preparing the church for the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century.
“We talked about recruiting, forming and educating young leaders, and that has a great deal to do with inviting members of the church and leaders to get outside church buildings and structures to meet seekers,” said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori during a closing news conference on March 30. “That was a significant part of our conversation.”
During their March 25-30 meeting, the bishops addressed several themes, including the relationship between Christianity and Islam, how to reach young adults with the gospel, and the Anglican Covenant, a set of principles intended to bind the Anglican Communion in spite of cultural and theological differences.
As a GenX clergy, this is deja vu from 15 years ago. It makes one wonder why we still struggle with recruitment of young leaders. I am not faulting this vision. I think it is a good plan but we have been discussing this for a long time.
“He noted that the primate of South Korea expressed a concern from his House of Bishops about “the vestiges of colonialism” in section 4 ‘with decisions being made about a local church (province) outside that local church about its internal decisions.’“
The Primate of South Korea should realize that what apparently offends him is an important part of ‘being in Communion’ within the Anglican Communion and of being a legitimate member of the Church Catholic.
For instance, if the Province of South Korea decided to edit the Nicene Creed and to omits items from it and/or add items to it, it would be saying to the Anglican Communion and to the Church Catholic that ‘it no longer profess to believe, in totality, what the others believe.’
“’According to a daily account from the public affairs office, Bishop Joe Burnett of Nebraska presented a film and spoke about the Tri-Faith Initiative in Omaha, Nebraska, a five-year project calling for the sharing of a campus for an Episcopal Church, a Muslim mosque, a Jewish synagogue and a shared, multi-service educational building.
During the news conference, Wolfe said he was excited by the Tri-Faith Initiative and that it offered “an enterprising way of reaching out to different faiths … if they are doing it in Nebraska, we can do it in Kansas,’ he said.â€
“In another expression of reaching out to people of different faiths, according to the daily account, ‘Bishop Tom Shaw of Massachusetts talked about the Boston cathedral opening its basement to allow space for Muslims to adhere to their prayer order. He shared that he met a Muslim man who has prayed at the cathedral since before September 11, 2001, and how the community felt protected in the aftermath.’”
What does this all mean? Is it an attempt at reconciliation between Judaism and Christianity or an attempt at faith convergence between Islam and Christianity?
If Christians reconcile with Judaism by agreeing that Christ is not the Messiah and that Christ is not the only path to Salvation, then those Christians have become apostates.
If Christians attempt to converge with Islam by denying Christ and worshipping allah or by somehow melding Christ with allah, then those Christians are also apostates.
#1 – We will likely repeat our usual pattern of “missing the bus” again by jumping on the latest trend after it has ceased to be trendy. Many of the bishops and other leaders of TEC have little or no idea about the value of Anglicanism as a way of living the Gospel (having long ago put their hopes in various secular-based philosophies and projects) that they are unable to see the very real blessings we have to offer, and can only try to play catch-up with a fast-moving, consumerized “spirituality” culture.
#2 – My sense is that we are back to the 18th century’s Latitudinarianism (with emphasis on the “-arianism” part, a happy accident of the word), but this time without regard to the boundaries of Christianity. TEC’s culture looks for victims, and muslims seem increasingly to be understood as the new victim class in America (I am not saying this is entirely unfounded). Thus, TEC must find ways to “minister” to them. They will be disappointed in the long run when they find out that muslims are unlikely to want to trade their categories of thought and practice for “enlightened” TEC viewpoints. However, TEC has shown that this doesn’t matter much, as many of the other “victim” classes in the past have demonstrated that it is up to TEC to adjust its teaching/belief/practice when entering into “relationship” with them. This is very different from having an actual dialogue with others, which requires a deep appreciation of one’s own faith and practice. In TEC, those who live out the faith and practice with such depth tend to be mocked and marginalized.
As with the Deists of old, our fearless leaders know no depths beyond which they will not stoop in order to appear “enlightened.”
“selection, recruitment and formation of young leaders,”
very, very frightening…
Why don’t they simply ask the Bishops from dioceses that have parishes that are growing and whose demographic is not ‘average age 57; average size 70’? SC, CFL, Dallas, etc.
“‘…would substantially alter Anglican ecclesiology, specifically by inaugurating — for the first time — a more centralized authority than we have ever had before,’ Epting wrote.” Chris and Neil and their friends seem to have NO problem with Mrs Schori doing the same thing. Why should they (hypocritically) have any problem with the Covenant then?
Reply to A Sr. Priest (#6).
Along with the ‘new order’ in TEC has come a relativistic modification of “New Speak.”
So in order to understand what the revisionists say and what they do, one has to put all of their utterances through an interpretative process that is directly influenced by their secular agenda.