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.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Careful with the blanket statements: you are forgetting the dimension of time here. cf Luke 13:6-9...
Cheers!
Cheers!
But as far as our own good works being "efficatious" towards salvation, I think the Bible is clear --
Not of works, lest any man should boast." -- Ephesians 2:8-9"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Unless Paul got it wrong.
All I know is there is no salvation outside of Christ! And that He alone purchased our redemption from eternal damnation by means of His suffering and death on the Cross.
Amen. And as evidence of our justification before God, He gives us faith in Christ and His work on the cross on our behalf.
When we stand before God on Judgment Day, mercifully we will not be judged for our own good works which are as filthy rags to God, but for the good work of Christ. God loves us because He sees Christ within us. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Therefore, God does not "reduce" to man in the Person of the Incarnated Son, Jesus Christ. His eternal divinity is not extinguished or diminished by His "mortalization" as true man; He is still true God, the Son being of one substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Amen, dear Dr. E.
It’s called deception. The devil is a master at it. People are searching for something to hang on to. Many are attracted to this kind of ‘spirituality,’ for whatever reasons. They reject the true God for a false one. Deception.
Gasp, you mean that Klingons aren’t real????? Sob.
Thank you oh so very much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
Matthew 23 and 24. Christ quotes on this very issue.
The bible teaches that a man can be very religious and still be dead, in fact dead in works and even, twice dead. Without the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit he is not quickened unto spiritual life.
I never claimed that any doctrine saves anyone
I was perceiving that you and greywhiskers were claiming that there are conduits of Grace, ie objects, creatures, men,rituals and doctrines, etc. Christ is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), no other creature, thing, idea, can replace Him.
None of man's works are of any benefit whatsoever. What is manifested in a Christian, over time and forms a new man, are the works of the Holy Spirit. Once again, a Christian cannot claim them as his work.
Galatians 5:19
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
5:24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
5:25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Amen!
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." -- Romans 1:16-17"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
13:21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
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