There have been several interviews:
Time 10 Questions For Katharine Jefferts Schori or without graphics here.
Living Church Bishop Jefferts Schori: Open to the Spirit’s Leading.
Back in June, PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly had a TV interview: you can read the transcript or watch the video here.
Tonight, CBS Nightly News will probably run an interview with her. British viewers of Sky News can also see it.
Update See Bishop Jefferts Schori: Take two
Update see article based upon the interview here. Also links to video clip.
OK, now here’s an example of why “The Living Church” must always be treated w/ a degree of “Who are these people, and what’s up their wazoo?” *apprehension*: “TLC: With both you and Bonnie Anderson (president of the House of Deputies) being women, do you feel any special obligation to reach out to men…?” To which, +KJS responds naturally enough: “Bishop Jefferts Schori: Let me turn that question around and ask you whether there were similar concerns raised when the PB and president of the House of Deputies were both men?” This is where “a reporter from ‘The Living Church'”… Read more »
From the Time interview: “Our focus needs to be on feeding people who go to bed hungry, on providing primary education to girls and boys, on healing people with AIDS, on addressing tuberculosis and malaria, on sustainable development. That ought to be the primary focus.”
Interesting, any politician could have given this answer. But for a bishop not to mention bringing the world to Christ, very revealing.
She says in all here:
Quote:
Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?
We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.
A-P-O-S-T-A-S-Y
What we need to remember is that “she” could just have easily have been a “he” with the same views and beliefs. Liberalism is not gender specific.
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Exactly so, and I doubt whether an orthodox female PB would have caused quite such reactions among most of the US conservatives. But GC chose to shoot itself in both feet, not just one.
“Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven? We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box. A-P-O-S-T-A-S-Y” prophetjck, I guess that you also accuse the Archbishop of Canterbury of the same offence: I attended a session a couple of years ago when +Rowan said that it was perfectly possible for Muslims to go to heaven and that this should not be a surprise to any Christian who… Read more »
Yes indeed – if the ABC is apostate for believing Muslims can get to heaven, then so is Dante for imagining in the Divine Comedy that some virtuous pagans who lived before the time of Jesus could also do so. When Dante the character asks how this can be, the answer is something like – and I have not read the “Comedy” for some time – that to doubt God’s willingness and ability to bring these into salvation is to imagine God too narrowly. As for the PB-elect’s concern for the poor, the hungry, the sick – Hmmmmmm. I seem… Read more »
Ms. Gilliatt, I suggest that it is you who is picking at nits. Of course Christ commanded us to feed the hungry, care for the sick, befriend the friendless and so on. But Salvation through Christ comes first. Without Christ good works have no merit. As I said above, without Christ any politician could have given the same answer. There is a very good discussion over at Titus 1:9 about Salvation under the topic of comments made by the Dean of South Carolina. In a nutshell, Salvation can occur outside the Church (Jews, Hindus etc) but no matter who God… Read more »
“It is not clear to me that Dr. Schori understands this.” Oh I don’t know. I expect she does. I expect she made the same promises and pledges that I did when she was ordained deacon and then priest [and additonal ones when she was concecrated bishop]. You could look them up. I expect she recites the same reaffirmation of Baptismal Vows that I do every time there is a baptism. I expect she recites the Nicene Creed at every celebration of the Eucharist just as I so. You could look those up too. Should she have to affirm and… Read more »
“It is not clear to me that Dr. Schori understands this.” Tom on Monday
It IS clear to me that God understands Dr. Schori perfectly and that Christ has commanded her/us to feed the hungry, care for the sick, befriend the friendless (including LGBT Christians/Muslims/Buddists/Hindus) and so on.
Thanks be to God Bishop Schori is amongst us to promote tolerance and NOT hate, NOT discrimination and NOT bitter exclusion/exclusivity or the making of silly judgments as to who has been Saved (or not/and when).
Leonardo Ricardo (traveling on el Martes)
Tom quoted :”From the Time interview: “Our focus needs to be on feeding people who go to bed hungry, on providing primary education to girls and boys, on healing people with AIDS, on addressing tuberculosis and malaria, on sustainable development. That ought to be the primary focus.” Tom’s comment : ‘Interesting, any politician could have given this answer. But for a bishop not to mention bringing the world to Christ, very revealing.’ I ask, “How else shall the world be brought to Christ ?” Bishop Katherine’s agenda is informed by Jesus’ words at the start of his ministry,( when he… Read more »
Thanks for this Leonardo Ricardo, I find what you say today, very encouraging.
Never forget the words of Dr John Knox, the Calvinist reformer of Scotland:
The monstrous regiment of Women!
(Dear Queen Bess had a thing to say about what he was due the Lord’s Anointed the next time he had to “cross the border”).
Wish I’d been there ;=)
Written but not invented…
Mr. Roberts asks “How else shall the world be brought to Christ?” By preaching and teaching salvation through Jesus Christ obviously. Again I repeat what I said before: without Jesus social programs are without merit. Faith must precede good works, it is not a by-product. My concern is not the list that Bp. Schori cited (sorry Ms. Gilliatt, she’s got a PhD – here in the Midwest she’s earned the right to be respectfully called “Dr.”). It’s that she did not see fit to put Jesus in that list.
Tom, you’ve got your head on backwards. “without Jesus social programs are without merit. Faith must precede good works, it is not a by-product” For a Christian, this is the way it happens. But are you really suggesting a Christian view of mission is to force everyone to profess some kind of “faith” before you dig wells to provide them with clean water? Oh, and going back to your first groundless criticism, “But for a bishop not to mention bringing the world to Christ, very revealing.”… also balderdash. You can’t legitimately argue anything based on *absence* of a point. After… Read more »
Tom – Maybe she felt that as a Bishop, putting Jesus on the list explicitly was not neccessary, it was assumed by most readers/listeners that Jesus was the primary focus of a Christian organisation. My teenage daughter has a word for this – duh.
I agree with others – this is nit-picking (especially when we are working from edited reports).
I too hold a PhD [in English literature] but prefer in church contexts to have people use appropriate church titles. That’a all. And I still think those who are fastening limpet-like on this one answer to a set of short response questions from a journalist as defining Bp Schori’s whole theology are nit picking. Why do you assume that for Bp Schori faith does NOT precede good works? I’m imagining a TIME interview with Jesus … TIME: How will you know if your followers believe in you and love you? Jesus: They will feed my sheep. TIME: What does that… Read more »
Here in England the ABC is frequently referred to as Dr Williams, and it is considered respectful.
Many of his episcopal brethren like to be known as “Dr”, even those who are not entitled to the appellation having never earned a doctorate. Some even put honorary degrees on their notepaper as if they had achieved academic distinction in their own right!
THanks Cynthia for your extract from the interview with Jesus. It made it all very clear for me. I feel encouraged. Sometimes, I feel I’m losing my sense of Jesus, let alone God, in some of these churchy discussions. You grounded me again.
I am so glad you happened to find this interview, so hidden away and overlooked, and so unfashionable — my word, they certainly gave Jesus short shrift !
I really get the feeling that some of you are really working too hard to misunderstand.
One other comment on doing good works and its relationship to faith in Christ. In her collected letters, there is an exchnage between the Southern American writer Flannery O’Connor, a devout Roman Catholic, and someone writing to her about matters of faith. As I remember it, the exchange goes something like this.
Seeker: How can I have faith in Jesus? It all seems so remote and abstract.
O’Connor: Do alms. Perform the corporal acts of mercy.
Thanks for this. The heart of the matter.
TIME: How will you know if your followers believe in you and love you?
Jesus: They will feed my sheep.
TIME: What does that have to do with their belief in you?
Jesus: Feed my sheep.
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Actually, I always understood this to be one of the many references to spiritual “food.” Jesus isn’t telling Peter to start up a soup kitchen, he’s telling him to spread the Gospel, to evangelize.