I like it for its rootedness also and that it takes people seriously. I like it’s theology (but by no means all of it) or should I say it’s approach to theology.
– First, its diversity, tolerance and the most important : freedom of thought. Second, having TS Eliott and CS Lewis but also John Shelby Spong, Paul van Buren and Don Cupitt….
And of course, current problems surfaced and one said ”“ Sadly, what attracts me most in the Anglican Church are all the things we would lose if we were to adopt the Anglican Covenant….
In other words a Church which make no demands on me. I can believe what I what, when I want. A Church where it’s all about me. A Church which is in a Communion which does not feel the need to have any common belief. “We don’t need no stinking Covenant.”
Got it. I am sure people will be rushing to join a Church like this.
I have ALWAYS found this kind of rhetoric baffling. I could understand this if the writer was living in some extreme totalitarian country where the only way to read forbidden books and talk about forbidden ideas was to join some underground society or “church.” Then it would make sense — his secret community would be giving him something unobtainable in his ordinary life.
But that’s not true. This guy can read any books he wants. He can meet with like minded friends over coffee to talk about them. He can set up blogs and other internet venues to talk about them.
He already has, by virtue of living in a Western democracy in the age of the internet, access to virtually unlimited “diversity” and “freedom of thought.” And in the 250 years before the internet, all attempts in the West at coercion in religious thought had ceased — Bertrand Russell was writing “Why I am not a Christian” decades before this guy was born.
Forget about Christianity or even religion for a minute. Isn’t it clear how crazy this would sound in any other area? “What I love so much about the Geology Dept at my university is that we have Flat Earthers, Geocentrists, Heliocentrists, young earth creationists, and evolutionists all teaching Geology 101!” Or “The reason I am such a strong proponent of my political action committee is that we lobby equally for abortion on demand and a constitutional amendment banning abortion — it’s so great that we have such diversity of thought!” Or even “The thing that I love about Chinatown in my city is the way it contains so many Scandinavian, British, German, French, Italian, and Ethiopian restaurants!”
Good point, Jon!
John, I think that you’re making some category confusions. The church isn’t exactly about scientific inquiry (if it were, then having geocentrists would be quite disturbing); nor is exactly about identity. And it is the latter which is disturbing.
Is Christianity an identity? Or is it a stance, or a perspective? Is it an intellectual proposition? Empirically, the faith means different things to different people. Christians who think that anti-homosexuality and scriptural inerrancy are essential aspects of the faith are not the same set as those liberal Christians for whom Christianity is a description of how God acts in the world rather than a set of intellectual propositions or moral codes. Both have some merit; neither knows who will be judged. Best we can do is do as Paul asserts: Judge not, for we all would stand condemned.
RE: “Christians who think that anti-homosexuality and scriptural inerrancy are essential aspects of the faith are not the same set as those liberal Christians . . . ”
Boy that’s the truth. The two sets hold mutually antithetical gospels.
#4… hey JW. It’s interesting how analogies fail to make sense for some people. Try taking a look at what I said again. The point of bringing up geocentrists was not to claim that the church is the same thing as science. It was one of three examples I gave to show how odd it would be (in three distinct and very different areas, deliberately chosen so that they would not have religious associations) for someone to “celebrate diversity” to such a degree that the word that was supposed to bind a collection together (geologists, a political party, a distinctively ethnic area like Chinatown) loses any kind of meaning.
Perhaps it will help you better if you grasp that what I wrote isn’t a “conservative Christian” perspective — my atheist friends would say the same thing. Rather, it is the perspective of ANY person who wishes to use language in a meaningful way — whether he is a socialist or free market capitalist, atheist or Christian or Muslim, Yankees or Mets fan.
Another way to think about it is in terms of colors. There’s no doubt that the word Green can apply to a lot of different shades. But when, in a person’s earnest desire to be Inclusive, we find that he uses it for all possible colors, then the word has ceased to have any kind of meaning at all.
The issue is not me pronouncing moral judgment upon fellow sinners (what the Dominical warnings refer to, which you brought up) — I was simply expressing bafflement about a certain bizarre use of language.
And what was strangest of all to me, and which you missed in your response, is how this guy’s own reason for church (a place to go to permit him to read any books he wants and discuss any idea he wants) is a reason that is pointless in a 21st century post-internet democracy. If I tried to sell an atheist friend on the idea of church, based on the idea that there he’d be able to read and talk about anything he wanted, my friend would ask me if I had ever heard of the internet (or a library).