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.
Romans 1:17
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written , The just shall live by faith.
Hebrews chapter 11 is the bible's great testimony to the faith of the saints, and nowhere is it evidenced that there was any other conduit of Grace other than faith. And what is faith?
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The evidence of things not seen
Signs and wonders are not conduits of God's grace, they testify that the HS is at work.
Unfortunately, we know there are lying signs and wonders, and an unsaved man will never discern the difference.
You define the four great Revelations of God better than I did, dearest sister in Christ! Plus I think the order is better than mine. May I "crib" from you going forward? :^)
I was already re-thinking how to describe Jesus Christ. I referred to Him essentially in terms of His Incarnation. But that misses a whole lot. There is also His Crucifixion and Resurrection. Not to mention His Holy Names of Son of God, Logos, Alpha and Omega; Redeemer, Good Shepherd, Emmanuel....
"The Person of Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son" encompasses all these meanings. And putting Christ FIRST is indeed the proper order!
Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your gracious, beautiful witness and testimony!
To God be the glory, not man, never man!
Thank you oh so very much for your testimony, insights and encouragements, dearest sister in Christ!
But Christ is not present with us today. Christ is in heaven at the right hand of the Father. What we have of Him is the word of God, made known to us by the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is by the word of God that we know Christ. And that is how God intends Himself to be understood -- through concepts and language; not impressions and feelings and inclinations and theories.
As far as "nature" is concerned, all the world shouts His Lordship as confirmed to us in Scripture.
It's true not all men have the Bible. But God has ordained that you and I DO have the Bible by which we are to know our salvation has been won for us by Christ on the cross.
When you lump the Bible with the memory of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit and the natural world around us as if they are equalateral quartet, I think you miss the point and thus under-value Scripture and its purpose. We know Christ and we understand the world through the word of God as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.
Yet I know full well that it is always Christ in whom I live and move and have my being; that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And the Light which guides my toils in this world, and gives me hope of Life Everlasting in the world to come.
How do you know that? How do you know what you are feeling and experiencing is truly Christ within you?
By reading and hearing God's word with new ears and understanding the things of God with a renewed mind, having been reborn by the Holy Spirit.
Even the Christian trapped in a communist country without a scrap of Scripture will be ok:
Amen, my FRiend.
Amen.
And so it is crucial that we not worship the "conduit" but rather, that we worship God
I've heard that suggestion before and I honestly don't know of anyone who would do that. It doesn't even make sense, from a Protestant point of view.
I think it is more of a defensive response made by Roman Catholics feeling the heat of accusations that they imbue earthly objects like the Lord's Supper and wooden statues and relics and even Mary with a type of divinity reserved for the Godhead alone.
No Protestant prays to the Bible or asks the Bible for intercession. If a Bible is destroyed there's always another copy on some shelf somewhere. The Bible is God's chosen means of instructing His family in order to reveal Himself and His salvation to them. That's why the Bible is so important. IT DOESN'T CHANGE. What was true 2,000 years ago is true today. And our confidence in knowing this truth doesn't rest on men or magisteriums or councils or churches made with human hands.
Our confidence comes by comparing Scripture with Scripture as we are led by the Holy Spirit to know the things of God.
"And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." -- Galatians 4:6
Truly, God has used many "things" in making His will known, e.g. the burning bush, Balaam's ass, Gideon's fleece. And when He wants us to consider such things holy, He says so, e.g. the Ark, the Temple, the Holy Mountain
Yet life is different since the resurrection. The golden calf only condemns us. We have a better proof... And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent" -- Acts 17:29-30
"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" -- Hebrews 1:1-3"Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
I'm lisping today. Possess. Possess.
Well jeepers, dear brother in Christ, of course not!!! Grace falls on the faithless as on a stone, as on totally deaf ears. There's simply no question about that.
At this point, I'm beginning to wonder how much of this "apparent dispute between us" can be attributed to a semantic problem. I.e., "both sides" — i.e., Reformed "vs." Orthodox — understand the same things, but differently. Yet it seems to me no "either/or" decision — this view is "right," thus that view is "wrong" — is required.
Case in point: You wrote
Signs and wonders are not conduits of God's grace, they testify that the HS is at work.Thus you say signs and wonders are not "conduits," but "testimony" of the workings of the Holy Spirit. But why can't they be both? Whatever the case, the question is formed in terms of purely human categories of thought, which are finite.
And yet the Holy Spirit simply IS and, like the wind, "bloweth as it wilt." After the fact (as it were), you seem to be suggesting that the Holy Spirit acts only according to human categories: (1) either as conduit; (2) or as testimony. And you seem to suggest these are somehow mutually exclusive. Yet both are artifacts of human perception that do not constrain the divine Nature or Action of the Holy Spirit at all.
The practical problem seems to be, of what can we make "testimony" that has not been first conveyed to us in experience? [E.g., our experience tells us that "normal" shrubbery do not make divine speeches.] So unless you think the burning bush is itself divine in some way, you have to allow, it seems to me, that it can be only a "mediator" or "conduit" of a something else — which is divine. Only then do we have anything to testify about. And that, thanks to the conduit.
The other thing I notice is that your reference to "signs and wonders" seems to pertain to miraculous acts in the natural world. Yet we have to recognize that the natural world includes human beings, who, in turn have a natural social extension. This is what is meant by the saying, "man is a social animal."
Nor should we necessarily deplore the term "animal" as applying to man. "Animal" comes from the Latin word anima, which means "spirit." Thus animal means "spirit-bearing creature." The classical Greeks realized that man was even more than that, that he was also a creature with a mind. All of which the doctrine of the creation of man as imago Dei — as the image or reflection of God, that is, as divinely created to possess natural reason and free will as innate gifts of God — abundantly confirms.
But that's a long digression to get where I want to go with this. Which is: Man, being a part of created nature, and created so to have a natural social dimension — why is it that the Holy Spirit ought to be precluded from using traditions, rituals, practices, and so forth — the social expressions of natural human persons, which accordingly are part of created nature in the fullest sense — as "conduits" to human souls, while He is evidently free to use other natural objects for this purpose?
You also wrote:
Unfortunately, we know there are lying signs and wonders, and an unsaved man will never discern the difference.Oh so very, very true, dear brother in Christ! If the "signs and wonders" are lying to us, we know from whence THAT spirit comes. But those who have refused to admit the Holy Spirit into their hearts and souls can have no warning that a Lie is being perpetrated upon them which brings eternal suffering. The godless have no protection against the great Evil, and thus are wholly defenseless against the devastation to come....
God have mercy!
And here it is, the slippery slope, of feelings. People so dead in their faith that they need aids to feel alive. They go to church or to new preachers, or to some site of a "miracle" to have an experience, feeling through some conduit. They will tell you then that they worship through their feelings and their experience, and through what feels good and right to them, (Jeremiah 7) yet God desires those who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. What spirit and what truth they are worshipping in is suspect for the heart of man is deceitful above all things. Everything that deceives also enchants.
If we are speaking of God's saving grace it would be better to say God's grace does not fall on some men are not given faith in Christ and so their ears have been closed.
Men do not give themselves new ears and anyone who receives God's saving grace through faith in Christ is saved. That's the definition of "saving grace." It has saved. That man's sins have been forgiven.
That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord." -- 1 Corin. 1:4-9 "I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
The angel of the Lord was in the fire and he conveyed the message to Moses of just Whom was speaking
Exodus 3:6
Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
Again, if signs and wonders were conduits of saving grace, they would save, but they don't. The burning bush didn't give any saving grace to Moses, he fled from God and God was about to kill him over it.
And yet the Holy Spirit simply IS and, like the wind, "bloweth as it wilt." After the fact (as it were), you seem to be suggesting that the Holy Spirit acts only according to human categories: (1) either as conduit; (2) or as testimony. And you seem to suggest these are somehow mutually exclusive. Yet both are artifacts of human perception that do not constrain the divine Nature or Action of the Holy Spirit at all
Hmmm... I'm always pretty adamant that the HS acts only according to God's will so I have no idea why you surmised I would say that
Amen!
That's why God gave us His instructions in the form of the written word in black and white, and not in a melody or a coloring book or a flower.
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
But God hath revealed [them] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. - I Corinthians 2:6-16
And I imagine that some of my brothers and sisters in Christ standing in a grand Cathedral might also say it as if God is speaking to them saying "see, I made this."
Ditto for the Christian looking across the mountain range or the ocean or catching a glimpse of a Hubble telescope image.
But here's the problem I see with this position: Once a man has been "forgiven" (i.e., is thus promoted to the "elect" of the saved), on the basis of justification merely by virtue of the sacrifice of the Cross), does this relieve him of his responsibility for leading a life in this world that follows Christ? Or even a life that is even remotely human?
I mean, if we are "told" by the Holy Spirit that we are "already chosen for salvation," (regardless of whether we wanted to be chosen in the first place, or whether such "chosenness," such election, imposes any further duties upon us), then once "chosen," in what way is any contribution from the human side of this problem in any way meaningful to God's plan of salvation?
I mean, if we are already "chosen," then one would think we've "already made the grade," and so nothing further is required of us. Worse, if we are already "chosen," i.e., "saved," that would seem to constitute a warrant to do whatever we want to. If "election" and "justification" are alone sufficient, then even a Hitler, if qualified as "elect" and "justified" before God, could do whatever he wanted to, without at all disturbing his future (immortal) prospects.
Plus under this scenario, there is also the problem of the seemingly arbitary nature of God's chosing in the first place. How can a just God pick some for winners, and some for losers, in the great economy of Salvation?
Let me make an analogy.
When you pick up the phone and call someone, are you hearing their voice, or not?
In a way, no. They are miles away, and the sound waves from their larynx are dissipated long before your ears could pick them up. Instead, their voice is transmitted -- electronically -- and reproduced.
You are hearing the reproduction -- and yet it is faithful to the tone and content of what they said, or we wouldn't use phones.
Or for another example, there are people who have fallen in love via letters, or over Internet chat rooms, without ever having met or heard one another's voice. And yet they still know each other.
So it is our relationship with Christ, and our faith and trust in Him which is being fed: but it does not mean that the only *item* involved is the Holy Spirit and our heart. We use the phone: He might happen to use other things on occasion. But it is still our Lord who is drawing us.
Cheers!
The problem is the conflict between Romans 9:22 ("vessels of wrath"), and Phillipians 2:12-16 ("work out your own salvation with fear and trembling").
They appear to be irreconcilable, don't they?
And then of course you always have Matthew 13:24-31 (wheat and the tares which *look* indistinguishable until the end) , Hebrews 10:29 ("trampled the Son of God underfoot"), and 1 John 2:19 ("would have remained with us")...
These seem to argue against the "once saved always saved", as does 1 Cor. 4:4 ("I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.")
Curiouser and curiouser -- almost as though He doesn't want us to judge, not even ourselves, so we will not be tempted to pride and/or self-righteousness indirectly.
Cheers!
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