Diocese of Rhode Island Bishop Geralyn Wolf said July 17 that “for those who like to be taken into a vision and work into that vision,” the retreat’s first day was “thrilling.”
“For those who like absolute answers and wish him to address the issues in the Communion, it was probably a disappointment,” she added.
Many of the bishops interviewed recalled the experience of singing and praying with 650 bishops in the historic space of Canterbury Cathedral, which has been the site for Christian worship and pilgrimage for about 1,400 years. Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane, the primate of Australia, said the singing was “gentle and wonderful.”
“That’s an image to take forward into the conference,” he said during an interview July 19. “The harmonies we’ve experienced in worship”¦could well emerge in other ways.”
Aspinall added that he sensed “a strong desire to hang in together and remain in relationship as we try to discern the truth together.”
Williams challenged the bishops July 18 to seek out another bishop who made them fearful or anxious and ask that bishop to pray for them. Bishop Assistant Sergio Carranza of Los Angeles said he sought out African bishops.
I would like to see responses from our brother bishops from Africa rather than the narrow focus on US reactions.
I’m wondering where Duncan, Iker, and Venables are. We’ve heard from Howe and Lawrence, but what about these other three. Their words to us would significantly useful right about now. I would like hear their take on things due all the mixed bits and pieces we’ve gotten so far. Anybody know what’s going on with these guys?
“For those who like absolute answers and wish him to address the issues in the Communion, it was probably a disappointment.”
I’ve found this to be true in all aspects of the kingdom of God; when His people stray further & further away from His truth, primary things become secondary, and the secondary things become primary.
One would even NATURALLY expect for an important ecclesiastical gathering with its highest officers present to deal with issues of absolute truth and the important issues effecting the communion.
Touchy-feely is nice for dessert, but its hardly a nutritious main course.
#3 I find we like absolute answers when we agree with them.
I suppose some would call “prayer” touchy-feely, but this is a good occasion when too often people are speaking about themselves, rather than listening to God.
Shall the wolf dwell with the lamb?
I would hardly call a bible study amongst Bishops dealing with the “I Am” statements from the Gospel of John “touchey-feely” but rather going to the heart of who Christ is. Doesn’t sound like they are trying to play softabll to me. So far everything I have read about the retreat and bible studies sound absolutely orthodox and very solid. I too, what like to know what Iker, Venables and other more conservative bishops are expereincing. I have hope.
Kum-ba-ya, my Lord, Kum-ba-ya,……………………………………..
Kum-ba-ya, my Lord, Kum-ba-ya,……………………………………..
“Recent research has found that sometime between 1922 and 1931, members of an organization called the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals collected a song from the South Carolina coast. Come By Yuh, as they called it, was sung in Gullah, the Creole dialect spoken by the former slaves living on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. In Gullah, “Kumbaya” means “Come by here”, so the lyric could be translated as “Come by here, my lord, come by here.”[3] Another version was preserved on a wax cylinder in May 1936 by Robert Winslow Gordon, founder of what became the American Folklife Center. Gordon discovered a woman named Ethel Best singing Come By Here with a group in Raiford, Florida.
An intriguing etymology is that Kumbaya is derived from an Aramaic phrase, Qum bi haya, Eli (“Rise with Life, oh my God!”)”
May it be so at Lambeth.
“Do all things without murmuring and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” – Philippians 2:14-15
Oh please. If these Bishops haven’t done a decent study of the “I am” statements of Christ a half-a-dozen times or more by now, than they shouldn’t be Christian Bishops in the first place.
Not impressed. A Christian Bishop is to defend his church against heresy. If the LGBT’ers and those who deny the basic creeds of Christianity are soundly and thoroughly rebuked at the end of all this, then I will say that something worthwhile has been accomplished here. Otherwise, Lambeth will merely have been a fine looking and sounding religious exercise.
No one should ever forget that the Wolf in bishop’s clothing voted for VGR. Must be how she gets her thrills, living into others’ visions…..
I do find it interesting that they are studying the “I am” statements in the Gospel of John–particularly since ‘modern’ scholarship typically denies that Jesus ever said them, but that they were put into his mouth later by the Evangelist (who, by the way, wasn’t really John). Will this “hermeneutic of suspicion” affect the outcome?
William Shontz
Since a great deal of North American and British seminaries (there are some wonderful exceptions, such as Trinity School for Ministry) train budding clergy in the art of getting the Bible to say what they want said, a study of even the “I am” statements of John will not be profitable for the organization.
I would not be surprised to learn that many will say, “This is how this passages strikes me,” rather than “This passage says…., and so I must repent,” or “so I am encouraged,” or “so I must aim at…” Reducing dealing with the passage, its central meaning, and its application to mere reflections on how it affects one emotionally or where it connects to one’s favorite political or psychological goals will not connect the Anglican bishops to one another in a common ministry. Only by dealing with Scripture on its own terms will bring the unity we need and desire.
#11 William, I am not sure what your point is. It seems that the current crisis is precisely about our differences regarding the authority of scripture. I would also suspect that most of us who take the authority of scripture seriously do not take a naive or simplistic view of scripture. Even if there are questions about the origins of this verse belief in the uniqueness and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is what makes us Christian and any other view is pagan.
Don’t forget Nashotah House Episcopal Seminary!
“for those who like to be taken into a vision and work into that vision”
Am I the only person here who thinks that these words are void? That they have no meaning, substance, or grounding in reality at all? Every time I read something from a revisionist bishop, I read something that strikes me exactly this way.
The Episcopal Church — it’s… a Church About Nothing! (When will Kramer be elected and consecrated???) LOL
+Bruno said “no one pushed them out.” He wants to “envelope them.” Yeah, like “come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”
John A.,
Which is why I wonder how studying the “I am” statements in John will impact the conference overall, since so many of the attendees are the heirs of protestant liberalism. I don’t want to paint everyone there with a broad brush (even those who call themselves “liberal”), but there is a strong liberal tradition that says that John’s gospel does not preserve Jesus’ actual claims to his own divinity, only that the early church believed it and put their own words in his mouth. I believe that this is ultimately destructive and one of the reasons protestant liberalism is now a bankrupted system. As you said, “belief in the uniqueness and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is what makes us Christian and any other view is pagan.” If we are going to claim to believe in this Christ, yet challenge the testimony (admittedly a Greek translation of what he originally said in Aramaic) attributed to him about himself, we’re in trouble. Perhaps there are those clever liberals who can “live in the tension” and hold to the divinity of Christ while rejecting as authentic the “I am” statements as originating with Christ himself, but over the long-haul, such teaching cannot and has not sustained a community of faith called to be Christ-centered in a real world of challenges on every side. Either we drift into some kind of unitarianism, or the pastor must keep his/her “real” beliefs to himself/herself, which, I believe, raises issues of personal integrity and authenticity.
As for me, if I had to choose between liberal Christianity and paganism, I’d go with paganism. It looks far more entertaining.
William Shontz
#15 “Am I the only person here who thinks that these words are void? That they have no meaning, substance, or grounding in reality at all? Every time I read something from a revisionist bishop, I read something that strikes me exactly this way.”
If you find words like this void than I trust you have no use either for the great works of mystical theology which use exactly this kind of numinous language i.e. The Cloud of Unknowing
Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodoxy all have a rich stream of mystical Christianity…if you find such language as this useless than perhaps you are a true Protestant. More and more I begin to think that such much of our present difficulties are not just between liberals and conservatives but between Evangelical Anglicans and Anglo-Catholics. It seems to me that the Gafcon folk have little use or interest in mystical theology in the Christian tradition but are Puritans with robes much like many of the uber liberals are Unitarians in vestments.
Come Holy Spirit, and fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your Divine Love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth. Oh God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit instructed the hearts of the faithful, Grant, that by the same Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation. We ask this through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Amen. archangelica said:
[blockquote]If you find words like this void than I trust you have no use either for the great works of mystical theology which use exactly this kind of numinous language i.e. The Cloud of Unknowing
Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodoxy all have a rich stream of mystical Christianity…if you find such language as this useless than perhaps you are a true Protestant.[/blockquote]
Hmmm, interesting observation. Indeed, I’m not well schooled in the mystical Christian traditions. And I would identify myself as a Protestant Catholic (I’ll give you a moment to stop laughing ;^)
I guess I always assumed that the language of mysticism in Christianity was numinous, but ultimately meaningful. Please tell me if there is any meaning in the phrase I highlighted, “for those who like to be taken into a vision and work into that vision….” I certainly can’t see it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Is God a mystery? Well, I guess so. How could any one human being (who isn’t a person of the Trinity) understand God? But there’s a *huge* difference in my book between a mystical contemplation of God, and an intentionally mumbo-jumbo, misleading political effusion. I have great fears that the clever revisionist leaders know just enough theology, for example, concerning the mystical tradition, to kow-tow to these beliefs and use them to trip us all up (see Chane’s recent “insistence of uncertainty,” which might perhaps be claimed to rest on the mystical nature of God (even though I know that’s poppycock)). They are clever as serpents, but *not* harmless as doves.
#19 I am not laughing. I “get” what it means to be a Reformed Catholic in the Protestant tradition. It is an honorable path of walking in the Way of Jesus and it brings a kind of balance to us more Catholic and mystical types.
You ask a valid question about Bishop Wolf’s numinous statement:
“Bishop Geralyn Wolf said July 17 that “for those who like to be taken into a vision and work into that vision,” the retreat’s first day was “thrilling.”
My sense of what she means is it’s the idea that God’s vision for my life will require me to stand firm, to be courageous, and to do this from an attitude of love. So often I see the world’s version of strength and courage and standing firm and this undergirding of love seems to always be missing. Perhaps this is the call from which we are to live out God’s vision upon our lives. Once we have the vision we have to put it into practice and God’s vision will always cause us to stand firm, to be courageous, to practice faith, to be strong, and all of this must be done through the attitude of love. This is a total act of Grace, through God’s grace we are able to live this way and when we do this our two dimensional vision fantasy becomes a three dimensional vision reality.
Bishop Wolf is a moderate and known to be deeply Catholic in orientation (a founding member of Affirming Anglican Catholicism) and probably the most orthodox of the women bishops in this country. If you do some research and compare her to KJS you will see a world of difference.
You may be right, in fact probably are right, when you say that many of these revisionist leaders know just enough theology, including mystical theology, to twist it to there own ends. This is a real danger. Yet, the church is called always to be-revisioning itself i.e. casting off the accretions and prejudices of culture, being open to More Light and receptive to authentic development of doctrine, being cleansed from parasitic sins, etc. “Reformed and always reforming”. May it be so amongst us.
When the words of Bishop Bruno are studied, he is only saying that the revisionist will overcome. Such statements as,
“No one has pushed them out. We’re trying to envelop them,” he said. “If they would only come and be part of the body, they would be enriched and maybe changed”.
The revisionists are only interested in changing everyone to their views. They will not accept the Bible in its plain meaning. This sounds as preposterous as Bill Clintons “It depends on what the meaning of is is.” statement. It is all a play on words to purposly mean nothing but “do it our way”. When the Bible is twisted you can make it say anything you want too. What is wrong with accepting and following the Word of God as it is?
When Bishop Bruno states, “This retreat has set the foundation for us to build the building blocks of love, compassion, grace and understanding,” he added. “The only way that that would be disabled or derailed is if people go to places within them of their own personal agendas, that they become ideological idolaters, and that they move to a place of hatred, rather than a place of love.”
What does he think the revisionists have done? They have pushed their personal agenda on the whole Church and will not be denied. That is devoid of the saving grace of God in every way. They are the idolaters of their own gospel, not that of our Lord.
How do the I Am statements square with the TEC theology to the effect that Jesus is “our” way to God? Is Jesus a way or is He God? The study could be very interesting but it will not be so.
#20 archangelica: Thanks for your post :^) If I didn’t do Bp. Wolf justice by choosing only that snippet to focus on, I was wrong. Having your words of explanation makes her appeal to “a vision” far more understandable, and sensible, to me. Indeed, I’m not familiar with her and her general positions on the crucial issues of the day.
I like your take on the “growth” of the Church :^) “Reformed and always reforming” does resonate with me. But I have a close friend who said to me years ago that any understanding that God’s revelation of himself is continuing is what allows serious errors like those currently being promoted to creep into the Church. This is certainly *not* the “being open to More Light and receptive to authentic development of doctrine” of which you speak! Thanks again.
#22 Pb
“The study could be very interesting but it will not be so.”
O God, who dost bring into the way of truth them that are gone astray, dost gather together them that are scattered abroad, and preserve them that thou hast gathered; we beseech thee, of thy mercy to pour out upon all Christian people thy grace of unity and concord, that, all divisions being done away, they may be one flock, in one fold, under one Shepherd, and do thee worthy service. Through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
from the Anglican Missal
Mass for the Ending of Schism
“Santicfy them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17)
I wonder, though. How much of what the mystics taught are or have been accepted as ‘authentic church teaching’? Granted, there are ‘gems’ in their writings and they have garnered a following here and there through the centuries, but really, what of their teachings are ‘vital and essential’ to the understanding of Christian revelation?
cmsliger wrote that [i]there’s a *huge* difference in my book between a mystical contemplation of God, and an intentionally mumbo-jumbo, misleading political effusion.[/i] And I totally agree.
Some of the writings of the mystics (St. John of the Cross; St. Teresa of Avila; St. Francis of Assisi; Thomas Merton; etc.) are pretty far out there in terms of theological believability and compatibility.
That doesn’t mean I don’t like them, or read them, or place value in them, but I just wouldn’t take their words over that of the Scriptures (always our first source for reliable written revelation) or the Church Fathers. Where they aggree with these, fine, I’ll quote them,a nd acknowldege their value. Where they disagree, or are at odds, I prefer to leave them alone.
Peace
Jim Elliott <><
As I see it, there are three audiences for Bishop Bruno’s comments.
1. Those bishops who know share his agenda and share the propaganda.
2. Those bishops who do not share the agenda. (Not an easy crowd to manage. Accusations seem to work best. Therefore, “The only way that that would be disabled or derailed is if people go to places within them of their own personal agendas, that they become ideological idolaters, and that they move to a place of hatred, rather than a place of love.â€)
3. Those clever bishops who wish to be wowed by other people’s visions and work toward that vision. (Did I just hear a wolf bleating?)