Thinking Anglicans

opinions on Easter Eve

John Polkinghorne writes in The Times about Motivated belief and the stringent search for truth.

And Tom Wright writes there also, see The Church must stop trivialising Easter.

Nick Jowett writes in the Guardian about the tradition of laughter at Easter.

Alan Wilson wrote on Comment is free: Belief about hearing the Easter story as if for the first time. Read Just tell Olive to get stuffed.

Jonathan Bartley wrote in last week’s Church Times about how the Church is in danger of undermining its own message. Read Actions speak louder than words.

Yesterday’s leading article in The Times is related to the preceding item, see The spiritual challenge.

Giles Fraser wrote in the Church Times about The real vampirism in society today and last week’s column was The ultimate rebrand of the cross.

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Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold)
14 years ago

I think Tom Wright continues his descent into who knows what. It is relatively simple. Jesus is telling his disciples the son of man will come before the generation passes away, or similar, and Jesus is doing what a Jew would do – acting to give God a nudge to bring in the Kingdom. But Jesus is dead, which means either that Jesus is the Messiah or he is nothing, and can no longer be a go-between. If Jesus sees his own coming end as part of a suffering servant plan, then despite any deflation the disciples will have the… Read more »

Richard Ashby
Richard Ashby
14 years ago

No reference here to Giles Fraser’s article in today’s Guardian about the iniquity of the substitutional sacrifice theory of the meaning of the cross? ‘..a disgusting idea and morally degenerate’ which permeates so much of our hymnody and imagery for Good Friday. There is a New Life ‘church’ down the road from where I live, which proclaims this pernicious doctrine proudly on its website along with all its family friendly activities. Steve Chalke called it ‘cosmic child abuse’ and raised a storm but surely he is right as is Giles. The trouble is the doctrine does two things. It absolves… Read more »

JCF
JCF
14 years ago

If Tom Wright is TRYING to drive seekers out of the Church—not to mention the millions of convinced Christians who know the difference between a “fact” (which can ONLY be established through empirical evidence, not by anyone’s bombastic “logic”) and FAITH—he’s doing a very good job.

…fortunately, not a good enough to keep me from celebrating tonight Christ’s rising, that I have faith in. 🙂

JCF
JCF
14 years ago

Oh, and one more thing:

“Tom Wright writes there also, see The Church must stop trivialising Easter.”

Bishop, de-trivialize thyself!

Father Ron Smith
Father Ron Smith
14 years ago

“When the Church begins to work with Easter energy on the twin tasks of justice and beauty, we may find that it can face down the sneers of sceptics, and speak once more of Jesus in a way that will be heard.” The Right Rev Dr Tom Wright One thing we might all agree on in Bp. Wright’s essay is the idea that he expresses in these words. Once the Church follows up its rhetoric about truth and justice by action, especially in the area of women and the LGBT community, then the world – which seems to understand these… Read more »

Göran Koch-Swahne
14 years ago

Either, or… Metafor or Fact ;=)

Why ever not both?

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
14 years ago

“The Church has turned Jesus’s Resurrection into a “happy ending” after the dark and messy story of Good Friday, often scaling it down so that “resurrection” becomes a fancy way of saying “He went to Heaven”.” I find this really funny coming from an Evangelical. I think the majority of catholic minded Christians understand the Resurrection as something more than just a happy ending. It is Evangelical theology that bumps the Resurrection down a few notches. If redemption comes about because of the death of an innocent victim to appease an angry, corrupt judge, then that is accomplished once Jesus… Read more »

Christopher Shell
Christopher Shell
14 years ago

hi Richard Ashby Crossed lines here. The question is not whether we, if we were God, would act in a substitutionary way, or approve substitutionary atonement. After all, we are not God, and assuming God exists, God is quite free to act in ways we either misunderstand, disapprove of, or both. One surely can’t deny that. You’re confusing two questions which are poles apart: (1) ‘do I approve of it?’ and (2) ‘is it true?’. There are, and always will be, plenty of things we approve of that are not true, and plenty of things we disapprove of that are… Read more »

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
14 years ago

“massively” If Substitutionary Atonement is so “massively” evident in the New Testament, why did it take over 1500 years for it to be developed, and only then by some branches of the faith, and why is it still rejected by a significant number of Christians? I think the problem here is that some people are taking one particular, and quite valid if somewhat peripheral, understanding of Atonement and making it into a central doctrine, then falsely claiming that it was central all along. For me, it is the falsehood of the latter claim that is so infuriating, especially since PSA… Read more »

Christopher Shell
Christopher Shell
14 years ago

Hi again Quite clearly scripture/tradition is a false either/or, and in fact for two separate reasons. (1) The primary ‘scriptural’ documents are part of the tradition. (2) They are generally the earliest part of it, and for that reason generally to be preferred to any alterations or misunderstandings that came later. I am not speaking about any dogma of substitutionary atonement, whenever that may or may not have first arisen. I am speaking only of the primary documents (which predate and should undergird any dogmatic formula) in which SA is found. I suppose one good reason that people often treat… Read more »

Father Ron Smith
Father Ron Smith
14 years ago

“Anyone who proposes that God must always act in ways we both understand and approve of either has delusions of grandeur (effectively substituting themselves for God), or has no fear of God, or has no belief in God’s reality.” – Christopher Shell – Precisely, Christopher. This is why your assertion; that the Scriptures are immutably the final and irrefutable ‘Word of God’, and that references to women and same-sex relationships are ‘God’s’ final word on sex and gender matters, is so presumptuous. The Holy Spirit did not cease ‘speaking’ with the publication of the Bible. Nor should we consider every… Read more »

Christopher Shell
Christopher Shell
14 years ago

Hi Fr Ron I have no idea (what-so-eva!!) what you mean when you say ‘your assertion’. When did I make any such assertion? References please! I would not make any such assertion at all. If you read back over what I have written, you’ll see that I always distinguish the question ‘What does the Bible say?’ (a question which is so often answered wrongly) from the question ‘Is it true/right/correct?’. It is only logical to admit that whatever the Bible correctly says to be the case will have been true before (often, long before) the Bible said it. So how… Read more »

Father Ron Smith
Father Ron Smith
14 years ago

“I always distinguish the question ‘What does the Bible say?’ (a question which is so often answered wrongly) from the question ‘Is it true/right/correct?’.” – Chriostopher Shell – Forgive me, Christopher if I have misjudged you. Perhaps there is another ‘Christopher’ whose bloggings are so obviously conservative on the issue of biblical fundamentalism that one is provoked into defence of the ‘Reason’ element of the Anglican ‘Scripture, Tradition and Reason’ philosophy. My own ‘fundamentalism’, if that is what you choose to call it, is based on the New Testament revelation of the inclusivity of Jesus in his outreach to all… Read more »

Christopher Shell
Christopher Shell
14 years ago

If after examination and research some conclusions are what you call ‘conservative’ how can one avoid that? I am not about to lie about the results of research, or cook the books in any other way. No doubt some of my conclusions are conservative, some radical and some moderate. But that could not be less relevant. What is relevant is whether they are reac hed in integrity by a truth-seeker, and also whether they are provisional, open to further enlightenment (which of course will, logically, not always be in what you’d see as a modernising direction. Sometimes it will be,… Read more »

Theodore A. Jones
Theodore A. Jones
14 years ago

PSA, substitutionary atonement, paying a ransom for you, or any other statement that explains the concept “in place of” relative to Jesus’s crucifixion is error. For according to God there cannot be a direct benefit for anyone whenever any male human’s life is lost by bloodshed. Gen. 9:5 NIV.

One fact that you all have missed is that a change has been made to God’s law AFTER Jesus’s crucifixion. Heb.7:12. Whom will you crucify in your places to rectify your disobedience of this law?

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