Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was raised a Roman Catholic, is a qualified pilot and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate specialisation in squids and oysters.
Posted on 09/12/2007 9:56:39 AM PDT by NYer
Chris Johnson alerts us to some deep thoughts from ECUSA's Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the incoming class at Union Theological Seminary September 5 that they need to consider "how theological thinking is going to help to shape the rest of your life."
"The task of theological education really is to help us learn to do theology -- to relate our own stories, and the stories of those around us, to the great stories of our faith, so that we may be able to give an account of the faith that is within us," she said. "Theological education can bless us with the ability to see the need and hurt and injustice of the world, the ways in which God's dream is not yet being realized."
Jefferts Schori based her address, titled "Theological Education and the Dream of God," on Isaiah 61:1-9, saying that the verses sum up God's dream for humanity. "This vision of a restored world, this dream of God, is what drives me," she said.
The cant phrase "God's dreams" -- an expression as fatuous as it is precious -- is enjoying a vogue in the precincts of squish spirituality, including the Roman Catholic variety. It's a particularly annoying affectation. In theological terms, the logic behind the phrase is simple nonsense: an all-knowing, all-powerful God does not have "dreams." God wills. But God's will, in the form in which the Church claims to communicate it reliably, chafes against the desires cherished by many forward-thinking persons. Hence the invocation of God's Dreams serves as a joker in the theological deck, allowing the verbally nimble to deal themselves an escape from unwelcome doctrinal constraints -- and, moreover, to congratulate themselves that their desires would be identical to God's desires, were He only free to speak His mind.
Too harsh? Well, let's spin out a couple highly counterfactual scenarios -- "our own stories, and the stories of those around us," to use the jargon of Jefferts Schori -- in which a Christian might decide "the ways in which God's dream is not yet being realized":
Doesn't play, does it? You don't waste a joker on a trick you can take with a face-value card. Where one's future resolve is known to be consonant with traditional Christian doctrine -- and that in a way ordinary Christians would have no trouble understanding and no hesitation expounding in public -- no one ever speaks of "God's dreams." No one would ever need to.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was raised a Roman Catholic, is a qualified pilot and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate specialisation in squids and oysters.
Sweet, we pawned off another one of our goofball liberals.
i am all in favor of a widespread episcopal-Catholic exchange program, to shift the libs all that way, and to bring their conservatives over to our side. it only makes sense.
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”
(title of the Phillip K. Dick story “BladeRunner” is based upon)
I think I’d prefer to read Dick’s half-mad, recursive ramblings than Shorri’s for entertainment. Then I’ll look to the Bible and Godly men for truth.
My standing proposal is that we trade all the Catholic loonytoon Jesuits, short-haired lesbian priestess wannabes, reiki practitioners, lounge music directors, and a liturgical dancer to be named later, for any orthodox Christians still residing in ECUSA/TEC.
As I recall, according to the Hindus the world is actually Brahma's dream, and when he wakes, the world will end.
There. Made the trade a little fairer.
How insane is higher education? This insane.
(I really wonder about those who remain in ECUSA. There are a few outposts with a complaisant bishop, who still have a conservative rector. My parents' tiny church in south GA has an independent fund and the real property reverts to the donor if any title or interest ever passes out of the vestry or the land ceases to be used for church purposes. So they're all right for now -- although their bishop suddenly showed signs of having been put upon by DBB and started attacking a parish in Savannah. But my parents' church is the exception rather than the rule. After September 30 there really will be no excuse for most to remain.)
As I recall, she also graduated from a Roman Catholic seminary, not Episcopal.
LOL; ping
seems a very bright and well read lady - probably one of those magnetic personalities.
as for experience, well she was never the rector or vicar of a congregation; never on a seminary faculty.
Somehow?? became the Bishop of Nevada with only something like three (3)years a priest some of which was unpaid - in otherwards volunteering to teach Christian Ed classes and the like.
As Bishop of Nevada the fastest growing state in the union, the Diocese was in decline during her tenure. After only a few years, something like 3-5 elected by her peers as Presiding Bishop.
Definitely not earned, must have been divine intervention.
my thoughts, exactly. why is this so tough? it is crystal clear that it is THE ANSWER.
Look at modern Episcopal theology then go look at Satan’s three temptations to Eve in Genesis 3. Notice something? They don’t call him the great deceiver for nothing.
I don't know for a fact that you're mistaken about that, but I think you are. The following is from Schori's bio:
Prior to ordination, she was a visiting assistant professor at Oregon State University's Department of Religious Studies, a visiting scientist at Oregon State University's Department of Oceanography, and an oceanographer with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle.
She received a B.S. in biology from Stanford University, 1974; an M.S. in oceanography from Oregon State University, 1977; a Ph.D. from Oregon State University, 1983; an M.Div. from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, 1994; and a D.D. from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, 2001.
No mention of a Catholic sem. But I could be wrong.
Wait, ain't that one o' them thar oxymoron thingies?
Got link? Regarless, a nitwit is a nitwit, no matter the seminary.
Hough said that Jefferts Schori's election is a "prophetic statement to the church and the world at a time when aggressive misogyny has reared its ugly head in many Christian communions, determined to restore the full grip of male hegemony in the leadership of Christian Churches."Uh, if the priest acts in the person of Christ, shouldn't he be a male? And didn't Christ choose only males as his Apostles? Just some food for thought, Mr. Hough."She and her church in full view of the world have defied this trend and engendered hope for many of us Christians who abhor this sort of male exclusivism," Hough continued.
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