Reflections on Lambeth

Accepting that religions are transient would change the basis on which arguments are made between Christians as well as between all the adherents of the major faiths, because their central beliefs would be recognised as being human claims without divine authorisation. I make this claim in an article on my website: http://myhome.iolfree.ie/~andrewfurlong/whatcomesafterchristianity.html . All religions I maintain have a shelf life and are transient. I acknowledge that most adherents of the world’s main religions still believe in divine revelation or in God choosing people to be God's representatives. Such beliefs developed within a pre-scientific worldview in which the major faiths began. I hold that some liberal theologians do not consider these beliefs to be consistent with a postmodernist perspective.

Andrew Furlong

Former Dean of Clonmacnoise

I have officially hit Lambeth Info-Glut...

Lambeth conference: Archbishop blames liberals for church rift. Consecration of gay clergy must stop to end Anglican crisis, says Williams.

The church doesn't care about gays.

Dear ++Rowan, it's time for you to stop denegrating LGBT Anglicans/Christians and others throughout the Communion and the world...I've been worried for you but you've dug yourself into a whole...now, you're ministry is on equal footing with GAFCON destructionists...you've lost your loyal audience and I don't even think you know it yet...too much spiritual blundering, puffed-up pretending and mind-blowing gaps of common sense THINKING from such a brilliant man.

Lord have mercy on all of us for the mess you've made as you take up the sword to EXCLUDE!

Those missing for whom Rowan holds such angst and such a prayerful heart are clearly not the LGCTBQ folks he has been so careful to exclude from media-exposed Anglican church life.

I think Rowan still finds the typical Anglican closet to be the best tradition of all, though we must still wonder whether he has ever really understood how dark Anglican life is, in such a closeted milieu.

Oh well. Now back to daily life, and the good must continue - work, witness, service, worship, and committed relationships that are trash talked as if nobody decent can imagine such a thing.

God willing, not even Rowan will be able to slow my roll. Inside, or outside of global Anglicanism, just as he seems so dearly to wish. See you down at the food kitchen, then, Rowan, not so much at common prayer reserved for straight folks and closeted queer folks of the more traditional-invisible Anglican sorts. Be sure you chum up with Akinola or Orombi and tut-tut properly about how we queer folks are lower than dogs.

Simon,

Is there any particular reason you have removed all reference and links to Bishop Roskam's remarks last Wednesday and to the ensuing comments?

Also, are you aware that your search engine doesn't work?

Terence

drdanfree: What does the C stand for? I'm almost afraid to ask. And how much longer can this already-ungainly alphabetism possibly grow? Back in the days when the G came before the L (why did they switch?) and before the trendy addition of Q, a friend of mine used to refer to GLBT people simply as "Gilberts." An elegant solution, I rather think.

I must admit the second week has not been so good. But surely there are reasons for optimism:

(1) the whole show is still on the road;

(2) the 'punitive mechanisms' are going to be slow;

(3) RW has certainly shown leadership - sometimes surprisingly frank;

(4) TEC isn't going to do it;

(5) Nor, on their side, are conservatives of the Minns/Gafcon type;

(6) Within the UK, the ABP of Wales has made it clear how he'l handle things;

(7) Individual churches aren't going to be bullied;

(8) In Durham there are priests in civil partnerships and there's nothing Tom Wright can do;

(9) Liberals aren't about to dump gay Christians.

(10) TEC, C of E., et al. simply cannot afford to move too far out of step with their larger societies;

(11) history is undoubtedly on our side;

(12) despite everything (and I know it can seem cold comfort), there is great affection - even love - between many Liberals and Traditionalists/Evangelicals.

Terence

The "Cathy Roskam story" is linked to, in three versions, from
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/003340.html

I have not yet linked to her own explanation of what happened, this is coming soon (there is a mound of items yet to come).

We know all about our Search engine not working. We hope this may be fixed when the software is next upgraded. Meanwhile Google searches on the TA URL will generally get you what you need.

Apologies to all for any typos.

The acronym is LGBTQ .. and yes cumbersome meets generational efforts, often in high schools, community colleges, and four year colleges, to be fair and fair again.

So L started to come before G, so that lesbians would not feel ahead of time that they always took back seat to gay men, and bisexual B got added mainly because we need to constantly remind ourselves that this matter of sexual orientation is not a categorical either/or but a continuum instead. Then T got added because transgender people felt invisible and irrelevant even though the larger research domains suggest they are part of the research puzzles, too. Then Q got added, particularly in high schools and community colleges where Questioning folks wanted to know if they were welcome even though they hadn't settled their places on the Kinsey Scale Adjusted For Sexual Orientation.

In even later generations of youth in USA, queer became the umbrella term, then a whole generation grew up who stopped labelling themselves altogether, preferring to simply be know as human. This tosses a wrench of sorts into the huge apparatus of the religious machinery, since it pushes back against the conservative religious views that being human must be vague, superficial, and either not important at all for salvation or only important when somebody gets bloodied in public (enough to make the USA evening news, alas).

The real narrative struggle is just that, one against the constant loud preachments that embodiment naturally comes in two categorical flavors, mutually exclusive, all gay or all straight. But the empirical data do suggest otherwise across so many studies that we now wonder why our research eyes were blind to the continuums for so very, very, very long. Could this penchant for religious-based categorical thinking have something to do with our blindness?

The constant thorn in our intellectual sides, right or left or middles, is that our thinking in embodiment is open ended and still changing fast, as these things go. No shorthand narrative will yet do for the sheer size of this sea change, though it is not a tip on everything ethical, everything theological, or everything important in daily life.

That's what is so wonderful about standing around the altar at a community Eucharist. If one is there, it is assumed that one wants to be part of the action - part of the continuum of God's unconditional love - in the Elements of the Mass.

This is why our worship is more important than our words. The Word-made-flesh in Christ is always ready to forgive, to heal, to re-energise for the sake of the Good News - the Gospel, that Jesus commissioned to be brought to everyone.

It is good to be constantly reminded, as dear Archbishop Desmond Tutu does so well, that Jesus said, before he was crucified: "And I, when I be lifted up will draw ALL People to myself"
Thanks be to God!

"This is why our worship is more important than our words."

Continuing the Evangelical/Catholic comparison, I think this is another source of difference. Look at how Evangelicals who post here will occasionally "affirm" something, often when everything else they say contradicts that "affirmation". Look at requests for "a clear statement that Jesus is Lord" as though the meaning of that is clearly understood by anyone else, and is actually the way one expresses that Lordship in one's life. I read once of a dichotomy between "Word and Table" Christians and "Book and Pulpit" Christians. I am trying not to be demeaning here, but I fall into the first group, and I think that the "materialism" of that style of Christianity speaks to my soul in the way that B and P Christianity never can. I suspect they feel the same. But it cuts deeply into how we understand the faith, and I think puts a huge barrier between us. Not only that, but since we come from the same roots, we tend to use the same terminology, though with radically different meanings, and we don't recognize those differences in meaning. Like England and America, we are separated by a common language. I don't think any Anglican Evangelical would take kindly to being accused of denying the Sacraments, but it is pretty clear that when Evangelicals speak of sacraments they mean something very very different from what I mean when I use the word.

Yes, Ford; and this is why the Global South Primates who refused to sit at the Lord's Table with the 'Publicans and Sinners' (the rest of their colleagues, who believe in the unity with one another that Christ gives - by his presence in the Eucharist) would not understand the offence their action has caused.

To absent one's self from the Eucharist - under any pretext - especially of the prospect of defilement by one's co-religionists - is nothing less than a scandal in the Anglican Catholic world. This is what marks out 'Tent-Christianity' from the orthodox and traditional Church.

"To absent one's self from the Eucharist - under any pretext - especially of the prospect of defilement by one's co-religionists - is nothing less than a scandal in the Anglican Catholic world."

Indeed. I simply can't imagine doing it. I read in Love's Redeeming Work a piece by some divine of a bygone time, asking people how they can come to communion and not receive. He had an answer for every excuse, but it all boiled down to this:
We are invited by God to take part in His bounty. We can have no excuse to refuse.

I say that if we refuse God's grace because we don't like some others He has invited, that reflects very poorly on us. Not only that, but if we reject it because we think someone else is essentially crashing the party, that's even worse. How dare anyone take offence on behalf of God! That's hubris, no? I don't understand: if I am willing to receive the Mysteries next to someone who, I think, is in grievous error by actively refusing to perceive the Mystery in what he thinks is only a piece of bread, in essence consciously refusing to recognize God, why would he refuse to receive next to me because I do not accept his radical redefinition of Church authority? I am willing to receive next to someone whose beliefs I find repugnant and suspiciously close to blasphemy, yet that person cannot do the same for me. It's as if in their vehement affirmation of their own rightness, they never stop to think that others whose beliefs are just as strongly held might think exactly the same way about them. It's not about being Christian, it's about being right. It's humbling to think that someone on the other side of the fence is as faithful as you are, so maybe that's it, they really can't stand anything that might make them humble. Sorry, I couldn't help the sarcasm. Mea culpa.