To have a coherent and rational debate about the tenets of the Christianity is perfectly natural. To have a virulent, almost irrational attack upon it claiming that what is being said is self evidently true is dangerous, not just because it refuses to allow any contrary viewpoint but also because it affects the public perception of religion. It leads, for example, to local authorities calling Christmas ”˜Winterval’, to hospitals removing all Christian symbols from hospital chapels, or to schools refusing to put on nativity plays, or allowing children to send Christmas cards with a Christian message, or airlines refusing staff the freedom to wear a cross round their necks.
All of this is what I would call the new ”˜fundamentalism’ of our age and any kind of fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous, because it allows no room for disagreement, for doubt, for debate, for discussion. It leads to the language of expulsion and exclusivity, of extremism and polarisation, and the claim that because God is on our side, He is not on yours.
Contrast all that with the message of the angel to the shepherds in the nativity story in St Luke’s Gospel, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people”. It is a message of joy and good news for everyone
”“ no one is excluded, everyone is embraced, from the shepherds, who would have been seen as nobodies by respectable Jewish society, to the magi – Gentiles, who would have been strangers in the land.
The Gospel writers make the point that Jesus is the focus of all God’s promises and purposes from the beginning of creation. God is not exclusive, he is on the side of the whole of humanity with all its variety.
Yes, God is on all of our sides….He invites all to come, repent and be baptized.
Morgan of course misuses (as do most) the word ‘fundamentalism’ to smear evangelicals as being like crazed Islamic jihadis – whom he’s never troubled to condemn before. As Morgan’s church shrinks into invisibility, he keeps pushing the gay cause and seeks to undermine Windsor.
#2, can’t you find something positive to say on Christmas Eve? All of us, can’t we lay down our arms and celebrate the birth of our Prince of Peace?
RE: “#2, can’t you find something positive to say on Christmas Eve?”
Well . . . why allow the Archbishop of Wales to get away with non-“positive” words? He didn’t “lay down” his “arms” . . . so now you don’t want anyone to respond?
It’s only “peace” for revisionist Archbishops who do sermons, but not for “fundamentalists”???
[blockquote]To have a virulent, almost irrational attack upon it claiming that what is being said is self evidently true is dangerous, not just because it refuses to allow any contrary viewpoint but also because it affects the public perception of religion.[/blockquote]
I liked this passage most. The good Archbishop tosses 5,000 years of Judeo-Christian doctrine out the front door without so much as a fare-thee-well and then gasps in shocked horror that those knuckle-dragging troglodytes not only haven’t jumped on the lavender bandwagon, but are actually opposed to his prophetic acts! Don’t you know how this looks to the neighbors?!
I wonder what the “public perception” of the church is when bishops are seen grinning like Cheshire cats in their convertibles amongst bare-rumped leather boys. When jihad-crazed ayatollahs spout their lunacy from our cathedrals. When male bishops enthuse about being “June brides.” I do wonder if the public can perceive even the slightest difference between our church and Sodom a moment prior to its destruction.
OK, now it is MY fault that Christmas is now to be called “Winterval” by some?!
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Also, I have always wondered about statements like, ” It is a message of joy and good news for everyone – no one is excluded,…” Yes, it was a MESSAGE of joy and good news for all, but a good message for some is bad news for others – the rebelious types. It was bad news for King Herod. It was also bad news for those upon whom Herod’s anger and jealousy fell – the slaughtered innocents.
Which takes me back to my first question. We bring good news but to some rebelious types it is not seen as good news. The answer is not in changing the news but in doggedly persistance in giving that good news. Jesus never gave up during a whole lifetime of opposition, confusion, jealousy, anger, and hatred toward Him. We, too, must never give up; we must never change the message of good news to all people. To give up would be to yield up and deny that very message. I can not stop them from calling “Christmas”, “Winterval”, nor can I stop them from calling me a Fundamentalist, but, likewise, neither can they stop me from proclaiming the Good News to all people. This is proved by 2,000 years of telling it. It is proved by God raising up those who would hold the message of the church to that same Heavenly standard.
God is with us!
Merry Christmas!
Morgan’s church is very insignificant, it has just 45.000 members, loosing an average of 1000 members a year, in 2052 it won’t more exist. But it isn’t a important issue, because in Wales there is very good Evangelical Chapels.
# 7: But it is sad for those 45000 Anglicans in Wales and those 16000 Episcopalians in Scotland who also face ecclesiastical extinction in a generation, and a tragedy that their official shepherds don’t know how (or perhaps don’t care) to turn things round before it’s too late. Well, it has happened before – think of the vanished churches of North Africa.
#2: Bob – I hesitate to make such a comparison (because non dignus sum & I don’t like the implication), but I dare say John the Baptist was castigated for failing to ‘say something positive’.
A blessed Christmas to you.