[Frumanchu]

Pinging a few fellow heretics...

[BibChr]

Yep. Commented on here, and more to come later at the same site when the week's Hither and Thither goes up, DV.

[Alex Murphy]

....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."

Thanks for the ping, Fru.

[lupie]

Compare these words of the first female primate: "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,...That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, -- 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."

With these others of hers, which I just corrected for grammar:"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." -- That "GROUP is a form of idolatry for it puts US and OUR words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being."

I don't see any difference. In fact, she just refuted herself by saying that her own words in the form of idolatry, in the place of God's words. It isn't about her words, or my words, or anyone's words. It is about the fact that God calls individuals, not groups. He didn't Abram and his family, nor David and all his brothers, nor Isaiah and his family, nor... He didn't say to the thief on the cross, you and your ubuntu buddies will be with me in paradise. But YOU. He says..

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

and:

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Nothing there about when the GROUP, the ubuntu of you all act together doing nicey nice things, then you will have life. Nothing there except through group hugs and ubuntu mumbo jumbo will you see the Father. Nada..

Sounds like just another cult that says that only through their group can anyone find salvation with very little mention of coming through Jesus.

[xzins]

In another universe, the Apostle Paul says, "Work out YOUR OWN salvation with fear and trembling."

Schori is a heretic, and as Paul feared, easily deceived.

Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

Muslim Priest and Buddhist Bishop-Elect Are Raising Questions About Syncretism

Found at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/marchweb-only/112-53.0.html?start=2

For years, Episcopal Church leaders have taught that God can be found in other faiths. Now some clergy are pursuing him there.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the pluralists, the Shema of the Jews, the Christian Creeds, the Muslim Shahada (There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet,) and the Buddhist belief that at the heart of reality there is the emptiness of Nirvana, all have their own saving power.

In an October 18, 2006, interview broadcast on NPR's "Here and Now," Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori stated, "Christians understand that Jesus is the route to God. That is not to say that Muslims, or Sikhs, or Jains, come to God in a radically different way. They come to God through human experience—through human experience of the divine."

Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and life for us, Canadian Anglican Bishop Michael Ingham argued in his 1997 book Mansions of the Spirit, but there are other "diverse paths to God." The Bible stands as an account of "emerging God-consciousness," he argued, but our knowledge of God is not solely confined to Scripture, as there is "a yet wider view of God's self-disclosure" through human mystical experiences.

"We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine," Jefferts Schori told Time magazine in its July 10, 2006, issue. "But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box."

Protestant and Catholic Church leaders have largely rejected these views, from the Council of Florence's 1438 declaration that there was "no salvation outside the church" to the 1974 Lausanne Declaration by evangelicals that there was "no salvation outside a personal and explicit confession of faith in Jesus Christ."

Anglican theologian J. I. Packer defended the exclusive role of Jesus in his 1994 book, Jesus Christ the Only Savior, while Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the current Pope Benedict XVI, in 1996 called this interreligious relativism "the fundamental problem of faith in our time."

In 2000, the Roman Catholic Church clarified its position in Dominus Iesus, which stated "the thesis that the revelation of Jesus Christ is of a limited, incomplete, and imperfect character, and must be completed by the revelation present in other religions, is contrary to the faith of the Church. … This position radically contradicts the affirmations of faith according to which the full and complete revelation of the salvific mystery of God is given in Jesus Christ."

"If Billy Graham or Pope Benedict" were asked the questions Episcopal leader Jefferts Schori were asked, they would respond that "Jesus is the Way, the Truth and Life," Harmon said. In a time of doctrinal confusion, "good leadership claims its particular identity from the stability of its historical faith," he argued.

"It's the leadership of this church giving up the unique claims of Christianity," Harmon said. "They act like it's Baskin-Robbins. You just choose a different flavor and everyone gets in the store."

Druid priests

The question of multiple paths leading to the divine has also been a professional question for some Episcopal clergy.

At the Episcopal Church's 2000 General Convention—the triennial meeting of its governing body—a booklet entitled Resources for Jubilee was distributed to deputies; it carried an endorsement from the convention's secretary that it could serve as a "possible source of ideas to carry with you." Enclosed in the booklet was the Summer 2000 issue of Spirituality and Health with articles promoting "witchcamps," the Wiccan "Pentacle of Iron," and a "shamanic journey into the underworld and back again" taken by an Episcopal priest with the guidance of a "raccoon spirit."

[sr4402]

Responding to PING: Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori should LISTEN TO JONAH "SALVATION IS OF THE LORD"

It is Not of Man, otherwise a person could lose it after they got it. No "SALVATION IS OF GOD"

. God Implants the Faith to Believe for "It (faith) is the Gift of God.... that no one should boast"

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori needs to go back to Theology School and learn about THE DEATH OF MANKIND.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

There really is a movement towards fascism on a global level. Who could have imaged any of this 20 years ago?