First of all, Rowan Williams gave an address yesterday to the World Council of Churches meeting, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The archbishop’s website has the full text.
For more background on this meeting, see the ACNS report, and also the WCC assembly website itself. Earlier Lambeth Palace press release here. Subsequent WCC press release here. And see also this. Update And this WCC press release.
Back in England, the newspapers offer:
Guardian David Monkton Methodist chaplain to Nottingham police, writes about his work in Face to Faith.
The Times Tony Bayfield thinks that Believers are at home in a secular society and Lavinia Byrne says The internet is new ground for the Gospels — some stony, some good.
In the Tablet Robert Mickens has an interesting piece on Indulgences, He who holds the keys to the kingdom.
Good grief! I found myself agreeing almost exactly with what ++Rowan was saying in large parts of his talk. For instance: “In what sense is this an exclusive claim? In one way, it can be nothing except exclusive. There is no Christian identity that does not begin from this place. Try to reconstruct the ‘identity’ from principles, ideals or whatever, and you end up with something that is very different from the scriptural account of being ‘in Christ’.” …… “Yet in another sense exclusivism is impossible here, certainly the exclusivism of a system of ideas and conclusions that someone claims… Read more »
“I found myself agreeing almost exactly with what ++Rowan was saying in large parts of his talk”
Me, too. Rowan sounds “evangelical”, alright — precisely in the sense that a progressive Anglican should: bringing *GOOD* news! 😀
Dave, I think your comments say more about you than they do about ++Rowan. Ever since he was named as the next ABC, there has been a heavy anti-Rowan campaign from conservative evangelicals, mainly based on a caracature of what he is supposed to believe rather than on the actual realities. I suspect that if you were to take the time to read his sermons and lectures, you would actually find a lot more to agree with. Believe it or not, we are actually on the same side and what unites us is far FAR greater than what divides. Contrary… Read more »
Dear JCF It’s nice to be able to agree on something !
Actually, I thought the passages above sounded a little reminiscent of Benedict XVI, especially with regards to sloppy “postmodern” thinking. So perhaps he’s actually a closet (or not-so-closet Anglo) Catholic. Haven’t yet gotten to read the whole transcript yet, though.
Dear Robert, Postmodern is the way most European intellectual discourse is expressed at the moment (it’s supposed to be much more advanced than pre-modern, superstitious discourse based on belief in absolutes and revealed truths). My surprise was that ++Rowan acknowledged revelation and absolutes (“for us” at least)!