I would have welcomed stronger words about the Middle East and Iran
David Keen
10 days ago
Alleluia, Christ is risen!
Nigel Jones
10 days ago
“The leadership of the Church of England in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was largely silent on the whole question of slavery and the slave trade.” My reaction to this is concern about where we may be making a similar mistake today. We seem to have right now such a clear opportunity publicly to call out and distance ourselves from the perversion of Christianity in power today in the US. Recently Trump has been likened to Jesus by the unhinged Paula White. “Jesus is my Savior: Trump is my President” flags abound. Trump claims to be Christian. And so… Read more »
I think that the crazy evangelical Marjorie Taylor Greene has it right. The war is evil and Trump is not a Christian. If ++Sarah and the Pope made a statement along these lines that might have its effect. But there would be an almighty Press campaign against Sarah. Five or six abuse cases which were All her Fault would be discovered within a week
Whilst I understand your sentiments, the Pope has the great advantage of being American, so his comments will carry weight in USA. By contrast any non-American uppity foreigner making even mildest criticism of USA will find themselves at best ignored, and more likely subject to serious abuse.
I hope that ++Sarah will ‘be her own person’ and not respond to this lobby wanting her to do and say this and that faction to do and say that; nor that she nshould need to ‘consult’ with fellow bishops nor General Synod. I would like to think she is well-guided by the Holy Spirit. Similarly the Pope, though as a ‘Thinking Anglican’ I have no ‘skin in the game’ beyond that of a being a fellow follower of Christ. BTW- who is James Talarico, some kind of charismatic Mike Pilavachi or John Smythe figure to follow?
James Talarico resembles neither of the above. He is a Texas state representative and now Democratic nominee for the Senate who is also training as a Presbyterian minister. For the purposes of the present conversation he is also a powerful and outspoken opponent of the Christian Nationalism which is now the dominant ideology in Washington. I sincerely hope that opposing that ideology – responsible so far for destroying US international aid – with many consequent deaths, not least of children – rounding up and exporting immigrants, abandoning environmental protections and denying climate change, threatening long-standing democratic allies while praising dictators,… Read more »
He is Democrat candidate for the coming Senate election in Texas. He intended at one stage to become a Presbyterian minister and still makes much of his faith
Talarico is a Presbyterian with quite a huge web following. He is a Democrat nominee for the Texas senate. He has an M.Div. Seems to me relatively sane compared with many US ‘christian’ politicians.
James Talarico is a Texas state representative and Presbyterian seminarian, very active in his local church, who recently won the Democratic primary for the United States Senate from Texas. Some comments from the Wikipedia article on him gives some insight about his political positions as a Christian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Talarico “As a Presbyterian and a progressive, Talarico has championed gun control, abortion rights, increased education funding, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, gaining national recognition for framing progressive policies through his Christian faith.” “Talarico is a critic of Christian nationalism, calling it ‘a cancer on our religion’, and has often… Read more »
The Church is trying to present itself as an unwitting beneficiary, or ineffective opponent, of slavery. Yet what seemed clearly wrong from a humanitarian perspective was given moral support and theological justification by the Church. Slaves were told disobedience or resistance or mere eye service was the way to hell.
Andrew
8 days ago
As an American, with educational, social, and professional ties to England of half a century, now living also in Paris, I urge Archbishop Sarah to make her moral voice heard now. Leo is a Pope for our time. ABC is the second most visible Christian in Europe. We Americans need support from eminent Christians in these times of ethical and political peril. This is no time for silence. Moral leadership is the central role of the ABC.
Nigel, you want +Sarah to call out Trump, adding that ‘leadership sometimes requires a little courage.’ I never saw a lack of that when she was a suffragan; what I did see was a bishop wanting the Church to be a little more humble. Calling out Trump is all too easy; knowing that the outcome is likely to be indifference shows humility. And anyway, isn’t a bishop’s ‘central role’ to proclaim the Gospel and guard the faith? Everything else, including confronting injustice and working for peace, depends on this.
Allan- I think actually we are agreeing about the centrality of the need for bishops to proclaim the gospel and guard the faith. It’s not Trump I would like to see ++S critique but the sick version of Christianity that supports him. We have two very different things claiming the name of Christian. The public in the UK, the US and all the world could be forgiven for dismissing Christianity altogether, knowing for example that so much of Trump’s base identifies itself as Christian, even though it directly ignores the teaching of Jesus about loving one’s neighbour, caring for the… Read more »
Albanian
7 days ago
Anyone wishing to ponder the merits or otherwise of Jeremy Morris’ piece may like to have a look at:
I would argue that a major problem with our discussion of the church’s responsibility for such issues is that in England we look at colonialism almost entirely through the lens of slavery. What was the church’s involvement in the institution of slavery, and where does the church’s guilt or lack of guilt lie? That’s the only question we ever ask. But the problems of colonialism, and the long term damage to the colonised, go much wider than slavery. There was the theft of productive land. Land use patterns in many once-colonised countries are still based on what was imposed in… Read more »
Simon, thank you. I am troubled by the lurking idea that reparations in themselves will sort things out. As with renaming streets and buildings to distance ourselves from slavery, I think it would be better to name and recall, but use resources to amend our current exploitative practices, such as sending our decaying ships to be dangerously broken up on a distant shore, our surplus clothes to wallow in decrepitude on African beaches, our glass bottles to be recycled somewhere somehow, but the detail is obscure to us so not a real concern. Our western lifestyle is sustained by exploitation… Read more »
Indeed. Some of the things that the west now thinks virtuous are exploitative – how many drivers of electric vehicles realise that the cobalt in their car’s batteries may have been mined by child labour in the Congo?
Which perhaps gives the lie to the idea that humanity can somehow perfect itself, and society, and the created order, through its own technology, ideological progress and political striving?
Well, I’m not really into knitting hair shirts for the morally anxious and I’m not sure perfectibility is widely offered as an outcome as you suggest, but I do think we could/should devote more resource to understanding and addressing the poor consequences for others, usually a long way away, of our pursuit of all sorts of ‘improvements’.
I would have welcomed stronger words about the Middle East and Iran
Alleluia, Christ is risen!
“The leadership of the Church of England in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was largely silent on the whole question of slavery and the slave trade.” My reaction to this is concern about where we may be making a similar mistake today. We seem to have right now such a clear opportunity publicly to call out and distance ourselves from the perversion of Christianity in power today in the US. Recently Trump has been likened to Jesus by the unhinged Paula White. “Jesus is my Savior: Trump is my President” flags abound. Trump claims to be Christian. And so… Read more »
I think that the crazy evangelical Marjorie Taylor Greene has it right. The war is evil and Trump is not a Christian. If ++Sarah and the Pope made a statement along these lines that might have its effect. But there would be an almighty Press campaign against Sarah. Five or six abuse cases which were All her Fault would be discovered within a week
The Pope has already done so, more than once, although not in such specific language.
Whilst I understand your sentiments, the Pope has the great advantage of being American, so his comments will carry weight in USA. By contrast any non-American uppity foreigner making even mildest criticism of USA will find themselves at best ignored, and more likely subject to serious abuse.
Yes, well, leadership sometimes requires a little courage.
I hope that ++Sarah will ‘be her own person’ and not respond to this lobby wanting her to do and say this and that faction to do and say that; nor that she nshould need to ‘consult’ with fellow bishops nor General Synod. I would like to think she is well-guided by the Holy Spirit. Similarly the Pope, though as a ‘Thinking Anglican’ I have no ‘skin in the game’ beyond that of a being a fellow follower of Christ. BTW- who is James Talarico, some kind of charismatic Mike Pilavachi or John Smythe figure to follow?
James Talarico resembles neither of the above. He is a Texas state representative and now Democratic nominee for the Senate who is also training as a Presbyterian minister. For the purposes of the present conversation he is also a powerful and outspoken opponent of the Christian Nationalism which is now the dominant ideology in Washington. I sincerely hope that opposing that ideology – responsible so far for destroying US international aid – with many consequent deaths, not least of children – rounding up and exporting immigrants, abandoning environmental protections and denying climate change, threatening long-standing democratic allies while praising dictators,… Read more »
He is Democrat candidate for the coming Senate election in Texas. He intended at one stage to become a Presbyterian minister and still makes much of his faith
Talarico is a Presbyterian with quite a huge web following. He is a Democrat nominee for the Texas senate. He has an M.Div. Seems to me relatively sane compared with many US ‘christian’ politicians.
James Talarico is a Texas state representative and Presbyterian seminarian, very active in his local church, who recently won the Democratic primary for the United States Senate from Texas. Some comments from the Wikipedia article on him gives some insight about his political positions as a Christian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Talarico “As a Presbyterian and a progressive, Talarico has championed gun control, abortion rights, increased education funding, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, gaining national recognition for framing progressive policies through his Christian faith.” “Talarico is a critic of Christian nationalism, calling it ‘a cancer on our religion’, and has often… Read more »
The Church is trying to present itself as an unwitting beneficiary, or ineffective opponent, of slavery. Yet what seemed clearly wrong from a humanitarian perspective was given moral support and theological justification by the Church. Slaves were told disobedience or resistance or mere eye service was the way to hell.
As an American, with educational, social, and professional ties to England of half a century, now living also in Paris, I urge Archbishop Sarah to make her moral voice heard now. Leo is a Pope for our time. ABC is the second most visible Christian in Europe. We Americans need support from eminent Christians in these times of ethical and political peril. This is no time for silence. Moral leadership is the central role of the ABC.
Thankyou, Andrew.
“This is no time for silence. Moral leadership is the central role of the ABC.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Nigel, you want +Sarah to call out Trump, adding that ‘leadership sometimes requires a little courage.’ I never saw a lack of that when she was a suffragan; what I did see was a bishop wanting the Church to be a little more humble. Calling out Trump is all too easy; knowing that the outcome is likely to be indifference shows humility. And anyway, isn’t a bishop’s ‘central role’ to proclaim the Gospel and guard the faith? Everything else, including confronting injustice and working for peace, depends on this.
Allan- I think actually we are agreeing about the centrality of the need for bishops to proclaim the gospel and guard the faith. It’s not Trump I would like to see ++S critique but the sick version of Christianity that supports him. We have two very different things claiming the name of Christian. The public in the UK, the US and all the world could be forgiven for dismissing Christianity altogether, knowing for example that so much of Trump’s base identifies itself as Christian, even though it directly ignores the teaching of Jesus about loving one’s neighbour, caring for the… Read more »
Anyone wishing to ponder the merits or otherwise of Jeremy Morris’ piece may like to have a look at:
https://www.psephizo.com/life-ministry/truth-history-the-church-commissioners-and-reparative-justice/
I think that anyone who does so would be wise to read the comments as well as the article itself.
I would argue that a major problem with our discussion of the church’s responsibility for such issues is that in England we look at colonialism almost entirely through the lens of slavery. What was the church’s involvement in the institution of slavery, and where does the church’s guilt or lack of guilt lie? That’s the only question we ever ask. But the problems of colonialism, and the long term damage to the colonised, go much wider than slavery. There was the theft of productive land. Land use patterns in many once-colonised countries are still based on what was imposed in… Read more »
Simon, thank you. I am troubled by the lurking idea that reparations in themselves will sort things out. As with renaming streets and buildings to distance ourselves from slavery, I think it would be better to name and recall, but use resources to amend our current exploitative practices, such as sending our decaying ships to be dangerously broken up on a distant shore, our surplus clothes to wallow in decrepitude on African beaches, our glass bottles to be recycled somewhere somehow, but the detail is obscure to us so not a real concern. Our western lifestyle is sustained by exploitation… Read more »
Indeed. Some of the things that the west now thinks virtuous are exploitative – how many drivers of electric vehicles realise that the cobalt in their car’s batteries may have been mined by child labour in the Congo?
Which perhaps gives the lie to the idea that humanity can somehow perfect itself, and society, and the created order, through its own technology, ideological progress and political striving?
Well, I’m not really into knitting hair shirts for the morally anxious and I’m not sure perfectibility is widely offered as an outcome as you suggest, but I do think we could/should devote more resource to understanding and addressing the poor consequences for others, usually a long way away, of our pursuit of all sorts of ‘improvements’.