I heard several different people report from the American provincial meeting held on Monday afternoon, that our bishops are finding it difficult to encounter so many disagreeable attitudes towards them. In short, they are wondering why they are disliked (some said ”˜hated’) so strongly by so many bishops from other provinces.
And folks, they “don’t get it.” They see their actions as fully in line with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Bp. John Chane, who is getting a great deal of face time here, was in the today’s Lambeth Daily video report as a featured bishop on The Bishop and Social Justice, which is today’s theme. He said into the camera that he and all of the other bishops of the United States believe in Jesus. I have never heard him make any kind of statement of that nature before. I acknowledge that he didn’t say what they believe Jesus to be: Incarnate Son of the Living God, or just one of multiple ways? He followed that with Jesus is the American’s model for social justice, which is not a new statement for this group.
Their efforts to tell the others that there is nothing wrong with the American church and that we are not in turmoil and/or crisis is falling on deaf ears. So far, three bishops have approached me, asked if I was an American and asked me about what is really going on in our church. Several reporters from other countries have done the same.
Yesterday at the ad hoc press conference with Archbishop Deng Bul of the Sudan, the Episcopal News Service correspondent here asked if he had spoken with Gene Robinson. When he replied “No”, she asked if he would like to.
That’s when the archbishop replied, “We will not talk to Gene Robinson or listen to him or his testimony. He has to confess, receive forgiveness and leave. Then we will talk. You cannot bring the listening to gay people to our Communion. People who do not believe in the Bible are left out of our churches, not invited in to tell us why they don’t believe.”
The only thing that is surprising about this is that anyone would be surprised by this. After being warned of what it would do to the Communion, after countless commissions, panels, reports, statements, etc., only the terminally obtuse can be shocked that the actions of TEC have generated global ill will.
Speaking about Bishop John Chane, Cherie Wetzel writes:
[blockquote]
He said into the camera that he and all of the other bishops of the United States believe in Jesus. I have never heard him make any kind of statement of that nature before. I acknowledge that he didn’t say what they believe Jesus to be: Incarnate Son of the Living God, or just one of multiple ways?
[/blockquote]
This is innuendo.
It all goes back to a press interview given by Bishop Jefferts Schori in the summer of 2006.
Bishop Pierre Whalon has pointed out that even the Roman Catholic Church since the time of Pope Paul VI thinks it not correct to hold that non-Christians are beyond God’s salvation. His article is [url=http://web.mac.com/pwhalon/Bp_Pierre_Site/Blog/Entrées/2008/7/17_Is_this_woman_a_heretic.html]here[/url].
The erroneous hype about John 14:6b has the effect of trashing John 14 in the eyes of those who have yet to become part of the Church.
Please don’t misuse the 4th Gospel.
Stabill,
It’s not JUST the 4th Gospel, although St. John spells it out the clearest in there — but it’s also Acts, the other three gospel accounts, the letters of Paul and the other apostolic epistles. In short the entire witness of the New Testament points to salvation being found only in the person of Jesus the Christ — “there is no other name given by which we MUST be saved”.
Peace in the risen Lord
Jim E. <><
“You cannot bring the listening to gay people to our Communion. People who do not believe in the Bible are left out of our churches, not invited in to tell us why they don’t believe.â€
This does not accurately describe Gene Robinson (whatever his other faults and sins may be) nor a great majority of progressive Christians. We most certainly do believe the Bible we just reach some different conclusions in intrepretation and application as do all other Christians in the 11,000+ Christian denominations, hence so many divisions though all believe in the same Bible.
#2 – Excuse me but there is a difference between what some people (like say +Schori or +Chane) mean by “multiple ways” and what the Pope(s) might mean by “non-Christians are not beyond God’s salvation”. One makes Jesus one of many equal ways to God. The other makes clear that Jesus is still the unique (or supreme or best or fullest or… ) way – but God somehow sometimes(?) saves non-Christians… because of and through [i]Jesus[/i]. I wish people – conservative and liberal alike – would be a little more precise and recognize the distinction between these two approaches.
(And to the Elves – yeah I know this is thread drift.)
Archbishop Deng Bul’s response on the Bible and the supporters of Gene Robinson remind me of the words of William Sherlock, onetime Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral (London), written in 1690: “To put our own sense on Scripture, without respect to the use of words, and to the reason and scope of the text, is not to believe Scripture, but to make it, is not to learn from Scripture, but to teach it to speak our language, is not to submit to the authority of Scripture, but to make Scripture submit to our reason, even in such matters as are confessedly above reason, as the infinite Nature and Essence of God is.”
He wrote this to critique the “exegesis” of the Unitarians of his day. Back then, they were still trying to use the Bible to support their views. Of course, modern-day Unitarianism no longer cares if the Bible supports their teaching, and one day, the so-called “progressives” in our Church will find themselves in the same place. It is simply the logical conclusion of their theological method.
When Archbishop Deng Bul says, “People who do not believe in the Bible are left out of our churches, not invited in to tell us why they don’t believe” he is simply following II John 10-11: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.”–‘house’ being house church, following traditional exegesis. Of course, all of the heretics addressed in the New Testament (and every NT writer mentions false teachers) thought they had solid, scriptural reasons for taking their peculiar stands–the antinomians in Romans, the Judaisers in Galatians, and don’t forget those Churches of Asia Minor in Revelation 1-3 (chapters which we really need to wrap our brains around today). It’s all a matter of where we stand in relation to the scriptures: do we stand above them or under them? Do we find our story in them or does their story become our story? I find it humbling (and sometimes enviable) that the Africans figured this out without discovering the rediscoveries of Oden, Lindbeck, Willimon, Hauerwas, and the like.
And finally (please forgive the length of this), those 11,000 denominations are partly the result of doctrinal differences, but even more so the result of politics, history, geography, language, and an “independentism” which has no problem starting a new church. Remove all of these latter obstacles, and we have competing church traditions that can be counted on one, maybe two hands. Too many, yes. I am an example of that mess who finally found a home in Anglicanism–which is why I pray and work so fervently for its renewal. Besides, even with those divisions, such groups manage to cooperate a lot–the highest example for me being the interdenominational Bible translations that keep coming out.
Peace,
William Shontz
Rick (# 5),
The phrasing I used in item # 2 in regard to the Vatican’s [i]Nostra Aetate[/i] and Bishop Whalon’s citation of it was off the top of my head. Please don’t rely on that for concluding that Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori has an importantly different view.
# 4 said “We most certainly do believe the Bible we just reach some different conclusions in intrepretation and application as do all other Christians in the 11,000+ Christian denominations, hence so many divisions though all believe in the same Bible. ”
Why all of a sudden after 2000 years did your “conclusions in intrepretation and application” change.
And just because “the other kids (11,000+ Christian denominations)are doing it” doesn’t make it right.
Already left (# 8),
(For where did you leave?)
Things happen. For example, Galileo had the audacity to insist, contrary to the clear and plain teaching of Scripture, that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth. Shocking, I tell you, shocking. What could the righteous do but lock him up?
#9: I know that your comment was not addressed to me, but where does the Bible teach “that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth”? I read about it rising, setting, and on one miraculous occasion, standing still. Astronomical events are always described from the perspective of the viewer (as still done in every day communication). The concern of the scriptures is our relationship with the God of the Universe as a holy people. This is no time to fish for red herrings.
As Archbishop Deng Bul said, “The Authority of the Bible is always the same. You cannot pull a line out or add a line to it.” This is fully consistent with the pre-Galilean St. Vincent of Lerins: “But some one will say perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ’s Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God who would seek to forbid it? Yet on condition that it be real progress, and not alteration of the faith. For progress requires that the subject be enlarged in itself, alteration, that it be transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well as of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning” (c. AD 434).
William Shontz
#9: Excuse me: The question should read “but where does the Bible teach against ‘that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth'”?
WilliamS, to the irreligious, what the Bible says about the physical cosmos is no less important than its revelation of the nature of God and salvation. Thus, they can’t tell the difference between it’s acceptance of limited human cosmologies and metaphoric speech on the one hand and its correction of fallible human moral and spiritual knowledge on the other.
Arguing with such people is like casting pearls before swine.
Now wait and see if they think I have called them swine. 🙂
WilliamS,
I don’t remember ever reading that quote from Vincent. But then my patristics studies with MasseyS was quite a while ago. Anyway, thank you for thinking of it and adding it to your comment.
And may I continue with Vincent? I pulled Volume 7 of “The Fathers of the Church: a new translation” (1949!) off the shelf to check your quote. You are referencing the beginning of Ch 23 of “The Commonorities”. But just before that, in Ch 22, an apt and now timely discussion of ecclesiastical superiors and that which has been “committed to thy trust”, as spoken from Paul to Timothy:
“What is ‘committed’? It is that which has been entrusted to you, not that which you have invented; what you have received, not what you have devised; not a matter of ingenuity, but of doctrine; not of private acquisition, but of public tradition….” Further, “You received gold; hand it down as gold…I do not want you to shamelessly put lead in the place of gold, or, deceitfully, copper. I do not want something that resembles gold, but real gold.” Finally ending the chapter, “May posterity, through your aid, rejoice in the understanding of things which in old times were venerated without understanding. Yet, teach precisely what you have learned; do not say new things even if you say them in a new manner.”
Personally, I put the Primate of the Sudan in the same boat with Vincent.
RGEaton
Rob+,
Thanks, and I like your “‘new translation’ (1949!)” to mine of 1894! I think that Vincent’s commemoration (May 24) should be in every Anglican calendar, he and/or his theological method: antiquity, universality, and consent (“that which has been believed everywhere, always, by everyone”) has been referenced by so many classical Anglican divines (including King James I!). Everyone should St. Vincent’s [i] Commonitory [/i]–which, as you know, means “an aid to memory.” It isn’t that long and is available online in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
I think what our quotes show is that lust for what is “new” and “progressive” is no modern phenomenon; and we are called to be relevant, but only as we retell the old, old story for new ears. We have long dubbed defenders of the faith [i] Athanasius contra mundum. [/i] Perhaps in these days of postmodernity, it’s time to start dubbing them [i] Vincentius contra mundum! [/i] And I agree that the Primate of the Sudan is a worthy candidate.
Peace.
William Shontz
Will someone explain to me what #12 wrote? It is as unclear as the sun this morning which rose in the west, for some reason. I was out feeding pearls to my pigs, but they turned up their snouts, preferring slops. You know how it is with swine. “You swine,” quoth I! “You betcha,” said they. “Keep pearls for the precious who worry about their earrings. We like real food.” Dumb pigs. Larry
Gasp! The sun ROSE in the west?
I thought the sun rose in the EAST???
No wait, that’s not right either …. because I thought that the Earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around! So that the sun only ‘appeared’ to rise, since we are moving not the other way around!
Oh, but we must clear up this faulty language or future generations are going to think we don’t know ANYTHING about the cosmos!
{/sarcasm} {grin}
Peace
Jim Elliott
“The Son of righteousness will rise with healing in His wings”
Bp Chane might look closer to Scripture. In it we find.. ” The devil believes in God also ….and trembles” The difference for us is the acknowledgement of Jesus as Lord – AND Saviour and receiving His Redemption and Forgiveness.