tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post3731885403941243674..comments2024-02-19T07:24:42.397-08:00Comments on Anglican Curmudgeon: Feudal Morality? Or Blind Perversity?A. S. Haleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05108498446058643166noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-34785204470770243662008-08-04T10:34:00.000-07:002008-08-04T10:34:00.000-07:00Yes, Perpetua---the ABC is not the easiest of Engl...Yes, Perpetua---the ABC is not the easiest of English speakers to parse, but I agree with your reading of his concluding address. It also ties in with his <A HREF="http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2008/07/most-important-teaching-of-lambeth-thus.html" REL="nofollow">teaching delivered before the start of the Conference</A>, in which he said:<BR/><BR/>"Therefore bishops can <B>never</B>, however much they’d like to be, <B>become the spokesperson of a single nation, or cause, or group</B>, however worthy they may be. . .<BR/><BR/> ". . .It would be much easier to be turn the church into <B>an association of people who sign up to particular ideas, or reflect the nation in some vague way</B>.<BR/><BR/> "What we actually have to do is express in our living the whole new humanity that is being gathered up in Christ. Therefore <B>we can never simply be servants to one subgroup</B>."A. S. Haleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05108498446058643166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-14240645484468929262008-08-04T10:11:00.000-07:002008-08-04T10:11:00.000-07:00I was glad to see that the ABC said in his Conclud...I was glad to see that the ABC said in his Concluding presidential Address these sentences:<BR/>"St John’s gospel has been reminding us that the place of Jesus is not a place where ordinary, fallen human instinct wants to go. Yet it’s where we belong, and where God the Father and Our Lord Jesus Christ want us to be, for our life, our joy and our healing.<BR/>That’s the unity which is inseparable from truth. It’s broken not when we simply disagree but when we stop being able to see in each other the same kind of conviction of being called by an authoritative voice into a place where none of us has an automatic right to stand. Christians divided in the sixteenth century, in 1930’s Germany and 1980’s South Africa because they concluded, painfully as well as (often) angrily, that something had been substituted for the grace of Christ - moral and ritual achievement, or racial and social pride, as if there were after all a way of securing our place before God by something other than Jesus Christ."<BR/><BR/>Maybe I am reading to much into it, but it sounds to me that he is saying that no one has a "right" to be in leadership in the church. It is a gift that no one deserves. Thus implying the whole sacrifice argument is theologically off base.Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16632860530530786486noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-5984772993696635732008-08-04T08:59:00.000-07:002008-08-04T08:59:00.000-07:00We should remember what the "Claiming the Blessing...We should remember what the "Claiming the Blessing" crowd is really after:<BR/><BR/>"Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men..."<BR/><BR/>Dishonorable=shrewd=cunning=agenda driven?Undergroundpewsterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10182191422663119484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-73189373789402442362008-08-02T18:22:00.000-07:002008-08-02T18:22:00.000-07:00It is not a "sacrifice" to give back something tha...It is not a "sacrifice" to give back something that you stole.<BR/><BR/>Their attitude is expressed in the name of the organization <A HREF="http://www.claimingtheblessing.org/index.html" REL="nofollow">Claiming the Blessing</A>. As I understand it, this is based on Jacob's obtaining the birthright from his older brother Esau. I guess, like Jacob, they have gotten the rightful heirs to sell their birth right for the equivalent of a bowl of porridge (feeling associated with a civil rights cause?), and then tricked the father figure (the bishops?) to bless them by wearing a disguise.<BR/><BR/>But didn't Jacob know he had behaved dishonorably? Surely that is not a story that we are to emulate?Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16632860530530786486noreply@blogger.com