CEN: Neglect of Bible 'is leaving church impotent'

Church of England Newspaper via VirtueOnline ^ | 03/11/05 | CEN Editorial

[newheart]

A growing detachment from the Bible has left the Church impotent to cope with the forces of secularism, according to a senior bishop.

Clergy are not receiving adequate theological training, Christians are no longer reading the Bible, and the seriousness of worship is being neglected, said the Bishop of Chester, the Rt Rev Peter Forster.

Speaking to the Chester Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship, he delivered a rebuke of the way that the Church has lost “theological seriousness”, and warned that without it secularism will thrive.

The way that the Bible is read in Church has driven him to despair: “I am often saddened by the inattention with which the Bible is read in worship.

“Only rarely, I am tempted to say, do I gain the impression that the person reading the Scriptures actually believes that what is being read means something.”

Bishop Forster expressed concern about the way that the Bible was being treated “more or less like any other book” and urged for the recovery of its “true place of honour in the life of the Church”.

Anglicanism must recapture a theological seriousness, which he argued has been significantly lost.

“The central message from the African Church to the Western Churches at the present time is that we are accommodating too much to an increasingly secular culture. But how will we resist this, without a clear and widely held appreciation of the distinct teaching of the Gospel?”

He suggested that the neglect of the Prayer Book has “gone hand in hand with a certain neglect of the seriousness and dignity of our worship”.

Sufficiently detailed attention is not being paid to fundamental doctrinal theology, the Bishop said. He added that the Bible “has been practically ignored to the point that many Christians no longer read it.”

Bishop Forster, who was among a group of bishops who sent a letter expressing concern over the appointment of the gay canon, Jeffrey John, to be Bishop of Reading, said that the current crisis owed much to the secularisation of modern Christianity.

“In our Anglican future I believe we need to rediscover in renewed ways what it means to live a Christian life, perhaps I should say the Christian life. We have become deeply secularised in modern European Christianity: that, I believe, is one lesson which we should draw from the current debates over human sexuality. It is certainly the lesson which the African Church has drawn.”

[newheart]

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[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

What the Bishop is saying is no doubt true. But it is absolutely astounding that someone should have to get up and say this. Yes, I would say a return to a more serious approach to the Bible and theology and worship is just what the doctor ordered, and is to be much preferred to the addled meanderings of inadequately-educated and secularized clergy. It's just a shame someone didn't point this out--and with a lot more oomph-- a long time ago. It looks like a case of locking the gate after the horse has run off. There's a lot to admire in Anglicanism (I almost joined the ECUSA myself a quarter-century ago) and one can only hope and pray that Anglicans get back on the right track soon.

[newheart]

"It's just a shame someone didn't point this out--and with a lot more oomph-- a long time ago."

Many have tried, but for the majority of ECUSA seminary graduates in the past 30 years, it seems that their come out fo school believing that their primayr mission has been to persuade the laity that the Bible is not a very reliable document for understanding the life God intends for humanity.

Instead of the Bible we are supposed to submit ourselves to the patronizing, arrogant, gnosticism of the priestly class. After all, they know so much more than we do.

Well, they have had their day. And the actions of the HOB prove their mettle.It is time for restoration.

[mel]

The lack of Biblican teachings is one of the many reasons I left ECUSA. Gee, when Sunday morning church school starts having more classes from the local sheriff or mayor and the topics are not Biblican, it is time to leave.

[MWS]

Of course Bible reading is dying out in the Anglican/Episcopal Church. What else can one expect?

That is the result when you have scholars, ministers, and bishops that systematically call into question the veracity and inspired status of the Bible in order to buttress teachings that fly contrary to Biblical morality. When a group starts to treat a book like a book in some cases, it is inevitable that such will extend to common practice as well.

I somehow doubt that in more conservative parishes and areas that respect for the Bible has waned. It seems that such is more the case in places where belief in Biblical inerrancy has been whittled away.