Q: What do you see as your primary tasks ahead?
A: I think first to inspire and encourage the church and all of us as part of the church to embrace our vocation as part of the Jesus movement in the world. If 2 million Episcopalians are going out and functioning in this world as people who are actually following the teachings of Jesus and living in his spirit, in his way, they’re going to change some things.
Our General Convention when it gathered this summer really did lift up two critical priorities. One was for us as the Episcopal Church to really embrace evangelism and the sharing of the good news of God’s incredible, reconciling love that we know in Jesus, and that’s a positive evangelism, that’s a gracious evangelism, that’s a generous evangelism, that’s evangelism with a smiling face that’s a real smile.
Q: What was the second priority at the General Convention?
A: The second was to embrace serious work of racial reconciliation, which is the beginning of the work of reconciliation between human beings across all the divides.
I was hoping to read something of a vision. Well, that was a wasted 5 minutes of my life I will never be able to get back.
David Keller, I thought his “vision” would be some version of the “Gods’ dream” meme which has been his signature in North Carolina. Apparently we will need to wait and see what he decides to do once he’s installed.
I do not remember Jesus teaching that God has a dream. Seems like he talked a lot about the kingdom which is an entirely different matter.
“I think the election of President Obama and, frankly, the elevation of a pope like Pope Francis are signs that the world doesn’t have to be the way it is, that it can actually change and that our faith can help to lead us to be a part of that change.”
What does this mean? Perhaps he’s more pleasant to listen to than the outgoing Pb, but the jury is out on whether the substance has improved.
BlueOntario, #4, what you think he meant is what he meant. He most sincerely thinks that following Jesus means advocating “progressive” goals in both church and the state. He talks Jesus and interprets the Bible to support this point of view.
I left his diocese in the spring of 2002 after seeing him speak at a “reconciliation” seminar at UNC. He talked about the 9/11/01 attacks as being all our fault. I didn’t want or expect a rah-rah patriotic address, but I was deeply disturbed to find that he could only see evil in US actions, not in those of the murderers. He said that the mission of the church is to restore the secular world in the here and now to its condition before the Fall in the garden, and his chosen procedures for doing that are all “progressive.” He is also very open about endorsing the “gay” agenda.
I know I’m belaboring the obvious, but here goes: how will Bishop Curry advance the worthy goal of national racial reconciliation, if his leadership weakens TEC by alienating large segments from it and dividing it? Nearly a decade ago, I regretted the election of KJS because I believed she was most unlikely to heal our sad divisions (and would probably increase them). Her undistinguished tenure fulfilled my dimmest hopes. Why does TEC continue to think it has the luxury to be provocative and “prophetic” and o-so-trendy? What’s needed is a healer who can bring people together, and I doubt Bishop Curry, banging-on about the most neuralgic cultural issue of our place and time, will be that person (see #5 above). He will hasten on the decisive break-up of TEC.
#6, “undistinguished” is about the best description of KJS’s tenure that I have read recently.
Curry seems to be big on fluff, but I am struggling to see any substance. I suppose we watch and see what happens.