Cheers!
Posted on 07/10/2009 5:04:53 AM PDT by Frumanchu
ANAHEIM, Calif. (ABP) -- The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church called the evangelical notion that individuals can be right with God a "great Western heresy" that is behind many problems facing the church and the wider society.
Describing a United States church in crisis, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told delegates to the group's triennial meeting July 8 in Anaheim, Calif., that the overarching connection to problems facing Episcopalians has to do with "the great Western heresy -- that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God."
"It's caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus," Jefferts Schori, the first woman to be elected as a primate in the worldwide Anglican Communion three years ago, said. "That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being."
Jefferts Schori said countering individualistic faith was one reason the theme chosen for the meeting was "Ubuntu," an African word that describes humaneness, caring, sharing and being in harmony with all of creation.
"Ubuntu doesn't have any 'I's in it," she said. "The 'I' only emerges as we connect -- and that is really what the word means: I am because we are, and I can only become a whole person in relationship with others. There is no 'I' without 'you,' and in our context, you and I are known only as we reflect the image of the One who created us."
Jefferts Schori said "heretical and individualistic understanding" contributes to problems like neglect for the environment and the current worldwide economic recession.
"The sins of a few have wreaked havoc with the lives of many, as greed and dishonesty have destroyed livelihoods, educational possibilities, care for the aged, and multiple forms of creativity," she said. "And that's just the aftermath of Ponzi schemes for which a handful will go to jail."
She said in order to be faithful, "we need to be continually rediscovering that my needs are not the only significant ones."
"Ubuntu implies that selfishness and self-centeredness cannot long survive," she said. "We are our siblings' knowers and their keepers, and we cannot be known without them."
"We have no meaning, no true existence in isolation," she said. "We shall indeed die as we forget or ignore that reality."
About 200 Episcopal bishops and 850 clergy and lay deputies were expected to convene for the 10-day meeting. Business items are set to include debates over human sexuality, politics and poverty.
One resolution being considered calls for "generous discretion" to be extended to clergy in exercising pastoral ministry in six states -- Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont -- where the civil marriage of same-gender couples has been legalized as well as other states that may follow suit in the next three years.
The 2.1-million-member denomination has argued vociferously about homosexuality since 2003, when the group approved the election of its first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Many more conservative Episcopalians and a handful of congregations have begun breaking away from the church in the years since.
Southern Baptist mega-church pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, took sides in his sister denomination's debate recently by showing up in Texas to encourage about 800 Episcopalians attending the first annual meeting of a conservative breakaway group calling itself the Anglican Church in North America.
Warren, who spoke out last fall against legal gay marriage in California, said in January that any nearby Anglican congregation that loses its property after breaking with the U.S. Episcopal Church was welcome to meet on the campus of his Saddleback Church.
-30-
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
INDEED.
However, the good Pope did NOT articulat that a holy, sanctified, righteous form of globalism would only occur AFTER ARMAGEDDON.
There is at least plenty of room for, if not out right . . . contention for . . . the notion that
IF ONLY ENOUGH PEOPLE WOULD LISTEN TO AND OBEY THE GOOD POPE, WE COULD HAVE A WONDERFUL FORM OF GLOBALISM PRIOR TO ARMAGEDDON.
imho, that’s deceptive, destructive delusion, illusion, intellectual gymnastics . . .
Quix globalism is a Satanic imitation of the true globalist rule of Christ in the Millennium. The devil has never had an original thought in it’s head it has always been a perversion of the mind of God.
I do not see where that is playing into the hands of the evil one but rather testifying to what we should be but are not. Darkness does not overcome light; Light overcomes darkness.
I wonder how many millions of RC's and other Christians and secularists would read even the entire encyclical and think: "OH, the Pope is describing that wonderful time during Christ's millenial reign?" Perhaps one in 250 million?
vs
How many souls rushing toward eternity are likely to read the encyclical and/or portions thereof . . . and think something akin to . . .
"Oh, the Pope is lobbying for, arguing for the NWO to play nice according to his prescription. How naively quaint."
vs
How many millions will likely read the encyclical and/or portions thereof and think something akin to:
Oh, how wonderful! The good Pope is going to change NWO Globalism into a wonderful Christian utopia.
vs
How many will read the encyclical and think something akin to:
WOW! Ain't that good Pope something splendid. He's going to lobby, politic on the geopolitical world stage, pray, work for a sanctified globalism with all the resources of the Vatican. I must lobby, work, vote with him to help make this happen.
Which, Dear Precious Sister in The Lord--which of the above are more than a little delusional--given the true state of the world and globalism that we see daily in the headlines, in the news and on FR?
Which of the above give false hope?
Which of the above play deadly eternal games with false assumptions, false constructions on reality, false Biblical interpretations, misplaced expectations, misplaced hopes, . . . ??
IF the Good Pope is even hinting at the Millenial reign of Christ, he sure hides it well in what I've read of the encyclical.
...but both UNIX and LINUX *do*.
...is she a lesbian, by any chance? Episcopal, you know.
Cheers!
It's all Tashlan to me.
Or as Chesterton said in a similar vein, some people are very fond of saying that Christianity and Buddhism are very similar, especially Buddhism.
The anti-Christs always want to pretend that Jesus is "a way" and that the divine light is within us, yada yada. Like the slave girl in the market whom Paul cast the demon out of ("*A* way of salvation, not *the* way).
Cheers!
Sorry, betty, but the only thing that brought to mind was this and then Sarah Palin's "Only dead fish go with the flow."
Cheers!
What have the Moose-limbs to say about this doorknob?
(He seems to contradict Shahada, and all that.)
Cheers!
Cheers!
You might want to consider John 13:35 and John 17:21 on this topic, as well as Acts 2:44 and Acts 5:12.
Not to mention Romans 14:4...
Just sayin'...
Cheers!
God can choose to use both.
Remember St. Paul's "I become all things to all men, so that I might by all means save some" and then recall that he adjured us to "become followers of me, as I am of Christ" -- meaning, that Christ uses all mechanisms to save us.
Grace may be transmitted through a jackass, a bronze snake on a pole, words from a person, a handkerchief, a bright light from heaven, or the voice of God speaking to your heart.
Cheers!
If you mean the Catholic Church, the answer is no.
Cheers!
Certainly those are wonderful Scriptures . . .
loving one another, unity, things in common, avoiding judging a brother . . .
Great Biblical priorities, as I noted . . .
Loving someone ENOUGH to tell them the truth is also a Great Biblical priority.
Whew.
That was close.
If that is done, everything else falls into place.
But if we worship something other than the Triune God and swear allegiance to part of the creation instead of the only Creator, we can never be right with God because that skewed trajectory is only taking us ever farther from Him.
Seems to me that some of my brothers and sisters in Christ are most spiritually aware when they are by themselves, some on a mountain or lakeshore, others when they are holding a newborn child, others when they are participating in worship in a grand Cathedral and so on. And I thank God for all of these opportunities.
Likewise God has given us His words which are nourishment to our souls. And He has also given us things to 'act out' - e.g. celebrating the Lord's Supper, washing each others' feet - bringing Spiritual truth to the foreground and committing our whole person to it. And He has gifted some for evangelizing, teaching, helping, nurturing, encouraging, etc.
And most importantly He has given of Himself to each and every one of us:
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. - I John 2:27
For if they keep that one and only Great Commandment and the distant second to love their neighbor as themselves - then they needn't "sweat the details."
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. – Matthew 22:37-40
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all [things] he might have the preeminence.
For it pleased [the Father] that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, [I say], whether [they be] things in earth, or things in heaven.– Colossians 1:15-20
"“Two years ago, John Knox in a private conversation, asked my opinion respecting female government. I frankly answered that because it was a deviation from the primitive and established order of nature, it ought to be held as a judgment on man for his dereliction of his rights just like slavery — that nevertheless certain women had sometimes been so gifted that the singular blessing of God was conspicuous in them, and made it manifest that they had been raised up by the providence of God, either because he willed by such examples to condemn the supineness of men, or thus show more distinctly his own glory. I here instanced Huldah and Deborah.” (John Calvin in a letter to William Cecil, 1559)"
Paging Sarah Palin...
Cheers!
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