”˜At the beginning of the 21st century, does Christianity have a view about an ideal human society?’ Responding to this question, Bishop George Browning, past convenor of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, reflects that such a society must ”˜address rapidly growing inequity and … confront an economic system which operates as if resources are infinite and that humanity can somehow exist as if it is not part of an unfolding ecological crisis.’
In a new series of reflections, Bishop Browning explores the roots and meaning of Sabbath and how a fresh understanding and practice of this biblical concept can reconnect economics to ethics, and shape human society in a manner that is consistent with the creation upon which it depends.
Bishop Browning is more like the Pharisees perversion of the Sabbath Jesus rebuked in the Gospels. Mark 2:23-28 comes to mind.
23 One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?†25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of[a] Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?†27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.â€
Pharisees like Bishop Browning turn the Sabbath to work righteousness. In respect to Browning I see no place in scripture for us to create the Human Ideal society or shoehorn secular socialist ideology into the Sabbath, therefore he preaching a Christless Christianity. If anything our response to the human ideal question is is not possible because we all are dead in sin and trespasses yet Christ died for sin and resurrected on the third day for or justification.
If one passage comes to mind is Colossians 2:6-23. The Sabbath is only ” a shadow of the things to come”( V17), (sees also Hebrews 8). The Sabbath not just a vehicle for and ideology.