From the Daily Telegraph:
“As long as someone does not deny the very basic doctrines of the Church – the creation, the death, the resurrection of Christ and human beings being made in the image of God – then the rest really helps but they are not the core message.
“And I haven’t found that in Ecusa or in Canada, where I was recently, they have any doubts in their understanding of God which is very different from anybody. What they have quarrelled about is the nature of sexual ethics.”
He nevertheless emphasised that Dr Williams does expect those who attend Lambeth to abide by the decision-making processes of the Anglican Communion.
“The Archbishop of Canterbury is very clear that he still reserves the right to withdraw the invitations and that those who are invited are accepting the Windsor process and accepting the process about the covenant.
“But in another sentence, he said that attending Lambeth is not also a test of orthodoxy.
“Church regulations and Church legislation should not stand in the way of the gospel of love your neighbour.
“You are members of one body and therefore you should listen to one another and find a way out.
The good archbishop has not heard those bishops in the US who proclaim there is no ressuraction, nor the presiding bishop who proclaims that Jesus is not the only way to salvation. Hmm, the power of selective hearing.
Isn’t the question, “What is the minimum that I have to believe to be considered a Christian?” the wrong question? This is legalism trying to preserve a dying Church. Actually the OT and NT message is that God is not interested in minimums, rather He want total comitment. Jesus says the samething:
[blockquote]Matthew 22:36-40 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”[/blockquote]
[blockquote] Matthew 12:50 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”[/blockquote]
You can find others.
“As long as someone does not deny the very basic doctrines of the Church – the creation, the death, the resurrection of Christ and human beings being made in the image of God – then the rest really helps but they are not the core message.
“And I haven’t found that in Ecusa or in Canada, where I was recently, they have any doubts in their understanding of God which is very different from anybody. What they have quarrelled about is the nature of sexual ethics.”
A man sees what he wants to see and disregads the rest ….
– The Boxer, Simon & Garfunkel
“…for us to hammer out our differences.”
reminds me of Wm Blake’s [i]The Tyger[/i]
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
—————
“Hammering” can produce all sorts of results.
It’s either selective hearing or total ignorance on the part of the abp.
He jumps from traditional values to radical liberalism.
A real salad bar of ideas. Some good, some wishy-washy and some very bad.
He doesn’t mention the concept of sin, mankind’s sinful brokenness, acknowledging one’s sin and changing one’s behavior, or the fact that confession of sin and changing one’s behavior are necessary for one’s Salvation.
The islamopalian priestess would be invited to Sentamu’s discussion table (I think she would agree with his “core doctrine”). And just about every other heretic that has wracked the Christian church would, also. Would that be a helpful and edifying discussion? I really think that Sentamu needs to submit a clarification/retraction of this interview (perhaps to the ACI site) because otherwise what he is saying is ludicrous.
#4 Tom–And when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything else becomes a nail.
He said and then she said. September is going to be an interesting month. “Batten down the hatches we’re in for a blow.”
I read this article for what it is. A clarification of some of the ABY’s actual quotes completely mischaractarised in Petre’s earlier article. I don’t trust this as a cogent or complete reporting of what the ABY thinks and actually said in context and would not be satisfied with anything from Petre other than a complete transcript or audio. It is however better than what Petre produced before, although perhaps an apology to ABY would have been in order.
Pageantmaster
How is this different in substance from the other article?
Just one more piece of evidence that TEC is safe with Canterbury. Remember when we were told to be patient, to wait, and discipline would come. Ha.
I am waiting to see what the GS does in response to the walk that will be given to TEC by the ABC.
[blockquote]and I haven’t found that in Ecusa or in Canada, where I was recently, they have any doubts in their understanding of God which is very different from anybody.[/blockquote]
Well, he hasn’t looked very closely, has he? It is this sort of sloppy observation that will keep the status quo of a continually shrinking church. Fools!
Hello Brian from T19
The original article is[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/23/nchurch123.xml]here[/url]
The latest article with quotes is [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/25/nsentamu125.xml]here[/url]
Elsewhere I said that I am glad that this ‘clarification’ of the first article has been issued and a wrong to the ABY partly righted. He is also promoting marriage and Christian charity in the original interview.
At least the following two areas of difference stood out for me which led to controversy:
1. Sexual ethics not core issues:
Original Article:
[blockquote]Dr Sentamu, a close ally of Dr Williams, said that as long as Anglican bishops did not deny the basic Christian doctrines they should all be able to remain within the same Church.
While liberal north Americans disagreed with conservatives over sexual ethics, these were not core issues, he said.[/blockquote]
Actual Quotes:
[blockquote]”As long as someone does not deny the very basic doctrines of the Church – the creation, the death, the resurrection of Christ and human beings being made in the image of God – then the rest really helps but they are not the core message.
“And I haven’t found that in ECUSA or in Canada, where I was recently, they have any doubts in their understanding of God which is very different from anybody. What they have quarrelled about is the nature of sexual ethics.”[/blockquote]
2. Conservative leaders will be expelled:
Original Article
[blockquote]“The Archbishop of York has warned conservative Anglican leaders that they will effectively expel themselves from the worldwide Church if they boycott next year’s Lambeth Conference.
……
But he told them that if they “voted with their feet†they risked severing their links with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with historic Anglicanism, a breach that could take centuries to heal.â€
“Anglicanism has its roots through Canterbury,” he said. “If you sever that link you are severing yourself from the Communion. There is no doubt about it.”[/blockquote]
Latest Article
[blockquote] Inevitably, questions over the future of the worldwide Anglican Communion surfaced, and Dr Sentamu, a close ally of his counterpart at Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, issued a plea for unity.
He warned the leaders of the conservative Global South group that they would be in danger of putting themselves outside the worldwide Church if they carried out their threats to boycott the Lambeth Conference next year.
He said: “The thing that unites all Christians is our faith in the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and what makes us Christians is that we participate in the death and resurrection of Christ.
“The other thing to remember is that we are all sinners in need of God’s grace.[/blockquote]
It is clear that what it was claimed Dr Sentamu said in the first article is not an actual reflection of the quotes given in the second article. Whether the second article is a complete, cogent and accurate report of the actual interview is not known.
I would have thought that an apology is due from Petre and the Daily Telegraph.
Sorry if there are problems with that first link it is here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/23/nchurch123.xml
This reduction to “the very basics” is the fatal weakness in the Anglican compromise. When Catholics and Evangelicals were contending, the credal part of the faith was non-negotiable. Since the liberals gained the ascendancy, the shared ground keeps getting smaller and smaller.
Folks, I can’t see why everyone is expecting His Grace to give a comprehensive statement of the Christian faith in his allusion to “the very basic doctrines of the Church.” Certainly, the Archbishop of York is no liberal, nor is he heterodox (at least, from all the statements of his I’ve seen, I cannot fathom that he is). Some of the people on this board act as though the man should have confessed the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds on the spot after crossing himself three times so that our conservative sensibilities wouldn’t be alarmed.
And to No. 12, I think you (and I) need to recall the words of our Lord, who said, “‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’ and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to hell-fire” (Matthew 5:21-22).
There has been a Lambeth conference to “hammer out” this issue. It occurred in 1998. It is the western provinces’ refusal to observe that conciliar decision which is the problem. They insist on “do-overs” until they win.
#16-Thanks for the admonishment. I repent of that unkind evaluation. Sometime ungodly frustration sets in and I do that which I do not wish to do.
I apologize to the readers of this site and to the good ABY.
Part of the problem here is in fact lack of trust. If the ABC was never going to discipline TEC or support the Network, then he should have said so years ago. The ABC in fact suggested the formation of the Network.
If the ABC and Sentamu are in favor of preserving the Communion at the price of letting every porvence do what it wishes and reducing what we believe to a bear minimum then they should say so clearly and unambiguously. However on this basis we could bring Baptists and Jehovah’s Witnesses into the communion, assuming that they would want to.
Whatever else, Sentamu has ‘cojones’.
“Whatever else, Sentamu has ‘cojones’.”
Caving in to ECUSA’s obduracy, in way contrary to Sentamu’s own past statements, would constitute “cojones” only in a world of chemical castration.
Make that:
Caving in to ECUSA’s obduracy, in A way contrary to Sentamu’s own past statements, would constitute “cojones†only in a world of chemical castration.
Wow. So now the Archbishop of York is chemically castrated? I believe we need to lower the tone of our rhetoric just a bit.
Diezba [#23]: I said nothing of the sort. I said that caving in to ECUSA does not constitute “cojones.”
(In case you are exceedingly literal-minded, I will elaborate: In a world of chemical castration, cojones become irrelevant. Therefore saying that “caving in to ECUSA…would constitute ‘cojones’ only in a world of chemical castration” is the same as saying that caving in to does not constitute cojones.)
Please read and think before becoming excited.
Regardless of the interpretation one applies, I think the spirit of challenging the Archbishop as no longer an exemplar conservative because His Grace believes that communion with ++Cantuar is important (indeed fundamental) to being Anglican is an unnecessary escalation of rhetoric. I stand by my admonition to lower such rhetoric (and will, hopefully, contribute to it).
Diezba [#25]: Then you might have started with Scholasticus’ swagger about “cojones.” Sentamu is going back on his own past statements indicating that ECUSA faced international Anglican discipline if it continued defying the primates.
Part of the problem here is in fact lack of trust.
All along the line. It’s a sad place for Christians to have reached.
And I haven’t found that in Ecusa or in Canada, where I was recently, they have any doubts in their understanding of God which is very different from anybody.
What the Archbishop said was that Americans and Canadians do not have any more, or different doubts about our faith than elsewhere. This is fascinating new image of the Church. We have a central Orthodoxy around which we stand with varying degrees of incredulity For any who have read the Shepherd of Hermas, a whole new narrative could be written with this in mind.
Whatever else you may say about Sebntamu’s remarks, at least you can see that they are wishy-washy. The “core doctrine” label has become a shorthand for saying that, by and large, Anglicans are free to believe what they want because no one in authority will stand up to them. Sentamu is model case of ecclesiastical mugwumpery. No matter what happens, he’ll still be The Vicar of Bray,Sir. Larry
#29
I don’t agree they are wishy-washy.
Are we better Christians when we do not believe Jesus Christ is the one true savior?
I brought my wife into the Church. The other day she told me she has never felt so denominated in her Christian life. She has spent most of her life in evangelical Baptist congregations. Our openness is becoming a kind of prison. We fast becoming a non-thinking church. Emotion is the fourth leg of the stool. In some areas of our church we have a pedestal table with feeling as the single leg and the Scriptures, the prayer books and some science text sitting on the top of e table. We are becoming afraid to ask hard questions and see call wrong what it is. On this sort of forum we have some real goes at it, but in my parish life, if I bring up anything about the current conflicts I get wise smiles and changes of subject.
For me that is the problem with the Archbishops interview. He is pretending nothing is wrong,
While much is very wrong.
Unity trumps all.
Sorry for my typos