When the split comes… I notice how Andrew Goddard has hardened his position via Wolfhart Pannenberg that it is now one with Conservative Evangelicals. Pannenberg writes some incredible rubbish, that the place to put homophile inclinations is inside a heterosexual marriage, and following this Andrew says that Giles’s position is schismatic. This means, therefore, that GAFCON’s position is not schismatic. It is a position far harder than previously when I thought his view was no more than cultural, because the Church could change, but then he said no and would have to think why – and his pendulum is the… Read more »
I wonder how they are going to break the news to their women folk. After all, Asia was one of the first regions to accept female priests.
badman
16 years ago
A pompous and legalistic response from South East Asia. Not a whiff of the gospel in it.
Graham Ward
16 years ago
SEA isn’t completely “Global South fundies”; Singapore and Sabah maybe, but that description wouldn’t be accurate for Kuching or West Malaysia. I don’t think the participation of either of those dioceses was ever in doubt.
We used to think Pannenberg was the bee’s knees, the great theologian of the future. But just as in the case of Ratzinger his true colors have long been apparent. He sells out Lutheranism to his drab pseudoHegelian metaphysics, and now to fundamentalism.
Esprit du concile: Thanks for the Sebstian Moore link. It cheered me up to read something that made so much sense of the presenting issue for once.
cp36
16 years ago
I can’t see why Singapore is involved with the Global South when it has no historical, economic or cultural links with Africa or South America. English is the first language here and, in my opinion, most English educated Christians here will find non-British or American Christianity quite uncomfortable. The Anglican liturgy is so well structured that even changing one word can make a difference and affect one’s focus in the worship of Almighty God. Anglican theology is unique.
“I can’t see why Singapore is involved with the Global South when it has no historical, economic or cultural links with Africa or South America.”
It’s the theology. You might want to find out about Trinity College in Singapore and the kind of stuff they’re teaching there.
cp36
16 years ago
>>It’s the theology. You might want to find out about Trinity College in Singapore and the kind of stuff they’re teaching there.
What Theology? Anglicanism is neither Radical Protestantism nor Roman Catholic. In my opinion, they have the best Theology and Liturgy. You have to actually go and experience all the different Protestant Churches to really appreciate Anglicanism. You can’t learn such things form a Theological College.
Ren Aguila
16 years ago
A few questions: are you from Singapore? Have you ever been to the Anglican Church there? I may not have been there, but I am aware that the Anglicans in Singapore are, with very few exceptions, different from the Anglicans around here. Let me make myself a little clearer. Anglicanism has evolved into several different forms, and one such form is more “evangelical” than the rest. (A point which no doubt many here are aware of.) The South East Asian province happens to generally be in that category, mainly because the people who came to Singapore and Malaysia were of… Read more »
cp36
16 years ago
In Anglicanism we have the Low, High and Broad Church. After the 1970s there is also a MCharismatic wing in the Anglican Church. So the Anglican Church can caterer to the needs of many kinds of people. The nice thing about being an Anglican is I can feel High on Sunday, Broad on Wednesday and Low on Friday. An Anglican is free to think for himself and even sometimes disagree with the Bishop or Priest because there is no “infallible authority” in Anglicanism. In Singapore, the majority of the Anglicans are unaware of the war that is currently going on… Read more »
Ben W
16 years ago
cp36, Good quote from St. John of D for Easter. “The current problem is caused by people who want to free themselves from Western Culture. They said so themselves. Hence I see it as a cultural war and I honestly don’t see why are fast developing world-class city like Singapore should be involved with such things.” Failure to comprehend on more than one level! You say so yourself. One reason perhaps people in Singapore want to and need to shake off much of “Western culture,” it has largely abandoned any rooted connection to the faith represented in the quote. It… Read more »
cp36
16 years ago
Singaporeans don’t need to or want to get rid of Western Culture. We know what Western Culture is. English is the first language here and more and more families here are speaking English at home and have full exposure to Western Culture all the time. Many foreigners form Western countries love it here. What is wrong with the Enlightenment? If it is not for the Enlightenment, Europe will most probably be ruled by the Arabs. They were leading in science and mathematics at that time. Imagine what could have happened if it was not for the Enlightenment. There will probably… Read more »
Ben W
16 years ago
cp36, The very fact that they are rejecting some things from the West is enough to show they do not want to simply swallow all that is represented by “the Enlightenment” as such. Yes there are some things that thoughtful people have developed through this time they are ready to receive and welcome (after the 20th century “Enlightenment developments” we need to be able to distinguish between realities represented by things like electric power and the nuclear bomb or people like Ghandi and Stalin). But there are basic realities they affirm (you do not understand – you yourself said so)… Read more »
Pat O'Neill
16 years ago
Ben:
You are aware that Anglicanism is very much a part of the Enlightenment?
cp36
16 years ago
The age of Enlightenment is over. Now it is Post-modernism and Globalization. These are also Western concepts. The rest of the world, whether they like it or not, have to change with the West unless they want to remain in their poverty. Anglican Church leaders have to change too if they want to remain relevant or people will switch-off, go church-hopping or leave the church. Merely quoting the Bible and commenting on it will not do anymore. The world has become a very complicated place to live in nowadays. The fundamental question is what is the Gospel? Five Christians will… Read more »
Ford Elms
16 years ago
“Anglican Church leaders have to change too if they want to remain relevant or people will switch-off, go church-hopping or leave the church.” I don’t think it’s so much about changing to remain relevant, actually. I live in a place that is overwhelmingly culturally Christian, but where Church affiliation has dropped off because of societal changes combined with horrible abuses of power by several different branches of Christianity. In my experience, what is criticized in the Church is not Her lack of relevance, but the manifest betrayal of the Gospel by those who loudly insist everyone OBEY. It is rebellion… Read more »
Ren Aguila
16 years ago
cp36:
I think you’re talking about John Polkinghorne. I’ve read some of his work and it is indeed brilliant.
Ben W
16 years ago
Pat,
“You are aware that Anglicanism is very much a part of the Enlightenment?” Yes, one reason we are in the terrible predicament we are in now.
The present moral eclipse or the theological reductionism of people like Don Cupitt, J S Spong, or bishop Jenkins did not come out of nowhere! To great extent having followed it far enough it has now begun to refute itself. Postmodernism has begun to deflate the arrogance of Enlightenment rationalism.
Ben W
Ben W
16 years ago
Ford,
You hit the right note with your point that what is needed is for the church to be true to what it is called to be. The Canadian sociologist Reginald Bibby in some ways stronly makes the same point (see for instance his The Restless Church). On all sides there is need for real repentance.
Certainly this includes change with the attitude still around that “thoughtful prayerful consideration cannot be applied to gay people as well.” Considerartion goes both ways.
Ben W
Ford Elms
16 years ago
Ben, I realize it isn’t fair to expect you to speak for all Consevos, but what is currently going on is thoughtful prayerful consideration being given to gay people. Why is it that Consevos are so much against it, then? What’s more, why trot out the old canard of Spong? Would it surprise you to know that I am on a VERY left wing Anglican mailing list, much of what is said and talked about is way to the left of anything I connect with, and yet they all base their faith on the Incarnate God who bodily rose from… Read more »
Pat O'Neill
16 years ago
“”You are aware that Anglicanism is very much a part of the Enlightenment?” Yes, one reason we are in the terrible predicament we are in now.”
So, in order to “preserve” Anglicanism, you would deny it the very things that brought it into existence? Anglicanism without the Enlightenment is like the US Declaration of Independence without the Enlightenment…simply impossible to imagine.
cp36
16 years ago
Hi Ford, You hit it right on the dot. We have an Anglican priest who is obsessed with “obedience” as a condition of salvation. According to him you are not a Christian if you don’t obey. So he modifies the liturgy and it is absolutely irritating and distracting. It is quite impossible to stay focused on God the Father and Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, when he is the celebrant. Sometimes it difficult to get through to God even edgewise because he is so boisterous. This sort of thing is quite common in a Fundamentalist Churches but rather… Read more »
cp36
16 years ago
Hi Ren, Yes, you are right. It is John Polkinghorne. I have several of his books but haven’t got down to reading them yet. One of them is “The Faith of a Physicist” which is an exposition of the Nicene Creed. Reading his books is not easy and requires a lot of thinking. I have been very interested in why strange things happen to Christians which is not according to our expectation. Why prayers are not answered and what God is really like. Regarding why prayers are not answered the common answer is you have no faith or your faith… Read more »
“the discussion and debate on the acceptance and adoption of the proposed Anglican Covenant at Lambeth 2008”
Selective reading of the Windsor report strikes again – or are the Provincial Synods not to get a chance to discuss and approve the final draft.
Kennedy
Oh, well, when the split happens they will be off with their ‘Global South’ fundie mates no doubt
When the split comes… I notice how Andrew Goddard has hardened his position via Wolfhart Pannenberg that it is now one with Conservative Evangelicals. Pannenberg writes some incredible rubbish, that the place to put homophile inclinations is inside a heterosexual marriage, and following this Andrew says that Giles’s position is schismatic. This means, therefore, that GAFCON’s position is not schismatic. It is a position far harder than previously when I thought his view was no more than cultural, because the Church could change, but then he said no and would have to think why – and his pendulum is the… Read more »
I wonder how they are going to break the news to their women folk. After all, Asia was one of the first regions to accept female priests.
A pompous and legalistic response from South East Asia. Not a whiff of the gospel in it.
SEA isn’t completely “Global South fundies”; Singapore and Sabah maybe, but that description wouldn’t be accurate for Kuching or West Malaysia. I don’t think the participation of either of those dioceses was ever in doubt.
We used to think Pannenberg was the bee’s knees, the great theologian of the future. But just as in the case of Ratzinger his true colors have long been apparent. He sells out Lutheranism to his drab pseudoHegelian metaphysics, and now to fundamentalism.
But here’s something to cheer you all up: http://sebastianmoore.blogspot.com/2007/11/irrepressible-reflection.html
Here is an account of how Pannenberg sells Luther down the river: http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0802828566/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
I tried playing the wordsearch game that is frequently applied by conservatives to statements from Presiding Bishop Schori and other liberals.
The score wasn’t too good.
See http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/10971/#198897
Esprit du concile: Thanks for the Sebstian Moore link. It cheered me up to read something that made so much sense of the presenting issue for once.
I can’t see why Singapore is involved with the Global South when it has no historical, economic or cultural links with Africa or South America. English is the first language here and, in my opinion, most English educated Christians here will find non-British or American Christianity quite uncomfortable. The Anglican liturgy is so well structured that even changing one word can make a difference and affect one’s focus in the worship of Almighty God. Anglican theology is unique.
Thank you, Badman! Your B.P.I. (found at http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/10971/#198897) has a general utility at least as great as that of Sturgeon’s Law (http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/s/SturgeonsLaw.html)
“I can’t see why Singapore is involved with the Global South when it has no historical, economic or cultural links with Africa or South America.”
It’s the theology. You might want to find out about Trinity College in Singapore and the kind of stuff they’re teaching there.
>>It’s the theology. You might want to find out about Trinity College in Singapore and the kind of stuff they’re teaching there.
What Theology? Anglicanism is neither Radical Protestantism nor Roman Catholic. In my opinion, they have the best Theology and Liturgy. You have to actually go and experience all the different Protestant Churches to really appreciate Anglicanism. You can’t learn such things form a Theological College.
A few questions: are you from Singapore? Have you ever been to the Anglican Church there? I may not have been there, but I am aware that the Anglicans in Singapore are, with very few exceptions, different from the Anglicans around here. Let me make myself a little clearer. Anglicanism has evolved into several different forms, and one such form is more “evangelical” than the rest. (A point which no doubt many here are aware of.) The South East Asian province happens to generally be in that category, mainly because the people who came to Singapore and Malaysia were of… Read more »
In Anglicanism we have the Low, High and Broad Church. After the 1970s there is also a MCharismatic wing in the Anglican Church. So the Anglican Church can caterer to the needs of many kinds of people. The nice thing about being an Anglican is I can feel High on Sunday, Broad on Wednesday and Low on Friday. An Anglican is free to think for himself and even sometimes disagree with the Bishop or Priest because there is no “infallible authority” in Anglicanism. In Singapore, the majority of the Anglicans are unaware of the war that is currently going on… Read more »
cp36, Good quote from St. John of D for Easter. “The current problem is caused by people who want to free themselves from Western Culture. They said so themselves. Hence I see it as a cultural war and I honestly don’t see why are fast developing world-class city like Singapore should be involved with such things.” Failure to comprehend on more than one level! You say so yourself. One reason perhaps people in Singapore want to and need to shake off much of “Western culture,” it has largely abandoned any rooted connection to the faith represented in the quote. It… Read more »
Singaporeans don’t need to or want to get rid of Western Culture. We know what Western Culture is. English is the first language here and more and more families here are speaking English at home and have full exposure to Western Culture all the time. Many foreigners form Western countries love it here. What is wrong with the Enlightenment? If it is not for the Enlightenment, Europe will most probably be ruled by the Arabs. They were leading in science and mathematics at that time. Imagine what could have happened if it was not for the Enlightenment. There will probably… Read more »
cp36, The very fact that they are rejecting some things from the West is enough to show they do not want to simply swallow all that is represented by “the Enlightenment” as such. Yes there are some things that thoughtful people have developed through this time they are ready to receive and welcome (after the 20th century “Enlightenment developments” we need to be able to distinguish between realities represented by things like electric power and the nuclear bomb or people like Ghandi and Stalin). But there are basic realities they affirm (you do not understand – you yourself said so)… Read more »
Ben:
You are aware that Anglicanism is very much a part of the Enlightenment?
The age of Enlightenment is over. Now it is Post-modernism and Globalization. These are also Western concepts. The rest of the world, whether they like it or not, have to change with the West unless they want to remain in their poverty. Anglican Church leaders have to change too if they want to remain relevant or people will switch-off, go church-hopping or leave the church. Merely quoting the Bible and commenting on it will not do anymore. The world has become a very complicated place to live in nowadays. The fundamental question is what is the Gospel? Five Christians will… Read more »
“Anglican Church leaders have to change too if they want to remain relevant or people will switch-off, go church-hopping or leave the church.” I don’t think it’s so much about changing to remain relevant, actually. I live in a place that is overwhelmingly culturally Christian, but where Church affiliation has dropped off because of societal changes combined with horrible abuses of power by several different branches of Christianity. In my experience, what is criticized in the Church is not Her lack of relevance, but the manifest betrayal of the Gospel by those who loudly insist everyone OBEY. It is rebellion… Read more »
cp36:
I think you’re talking about John Polkinghorne. I’ve read some of his work and it is indeed brilliant.
Pat,
“You are aware that Anglicanism is very much a part of the Enlightenment?” Yes, one reason we are in the terrible predicament we are in now.
The present moral eclipse or the theological reductionism of people like Don Cupitt, J S Spong, or bishop Jenkins did not come out of nowhere! To great extent having followed it far enough it has now begun to refute itself. Postmodernism has begun to deflate the arrogance of Enlightenment rationalism.
Ben W
Ford,
You hit the right note with your point that what is needed is for the church to be true to what it is called to be. The Canadian sociologist Reginald Bibby in some ways stronly makes the same point (see for instance his The Restless Church). On all sides there is need for real repentance.
Certainly this includes change with the attitude still around that “thoughtful prayerful consideration cannot be applied to gay people as well.” Considerartion goes both ways.
Ben W
Ben, I realize it isn’t fair to expect you to speak for all Consevos, but what is currently going on is thoughtful prayerful consideration being given to gay people. Why is it that Consevos are so much against it, then? What’s more, why trot out the old canard of Spong? Would it surprise you to know that I am on a VERY left wing Anglican mailing list, much of what is said and talked about is way to the left of anything I connect with, and yet they all base their faith on the Incarnate God who bodily rose from… Read more »
“”You are aware that Anglicanism is very much a part of the Enlightenment?” Yes, one reason we are in the terrible predicament we are in now.”
So, in order to “preserve” Anglicanism, you would deny it the very things that brought it into existence? Anglicanism without the Enlightenment is like the US Declaration of Independence without the Enlightenment…simply impossible to imagine.
Hi Ford, You hit it right on the dot. We have an Anglican priest who is obsessed with “obedience” as a condition of salvation. According to him you are not a Christian if you don’t obey. So he modifies the liturgy and it is absolutely irritating and distracting. It is quite impossible to stay focused on God the Father and Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, when he is the celebrant. Sometimes it difficult to get through to God even edgewise because he is so boisterous. This sort of thing is quite common in a Fundamentalist Churches but rather… Read more »
Hi Ren, Yes, you are right. It is John Polkinghorne. I have several of his books but haven’t got down to reading them yet. One of them is “The Faith of a Physicist” which is an exposition of the Nicene Creed. Reading his books is not easy and requires a lot of thinking. I have been very interested in why strange things happen to Christians which is not according to our expectation. Why prayers are not answered and what God is really like. Regarding why prayers are not answered the common answer is you have no faith or your faith… Read more »