St Albans: dean interviewed
Last week Rachel Harden of the Church Times interviewed the Dean of St Albans, Jeffrey John.
You can now read this here.
The sermon mentioned in the interview can be found here.
Last week Rachel Harden of the Church Times interviewed the Dean of St Albans, Jeffrey John.
You can now read this here.
The sermon mentioned in the interview can be found here.
Cool, that interview makes enjoyable reading.
Funny, I was in a large evangelical church in central London at the time of the Jeffrey John debacle. That was where I learnt it’s possible to get a bee in one’s bonnet about a narrow interpretation of a particular passage of scripture, and yet act in a way contrary to the rest of it.
Quite glad that quietened down – even if only to pop up like a paint-bubble elsewhere.
“I can’t sum up the “Bishop of Reading débâcle”. I still can’t make any sense of it. But I would say it was my biggest regret. [In 2003, Dr John was nominated as Bishop of Reading, but withdrew after a campaign against him because of a gay partnership, even though by then he was living in accordance with the Bishops’ 1991 statement.]” Jeffrey John I would like to nominate the Very Reverend Jeffrey John for Bishop of the Very next open Diocese in TEC (any of several)! Surely he meets the NEW standard of acceptance as he is a celibate… Read more »
WOW thanks for that sermon link. A fav part: The temptation for us, and maybe for them, is to try to lighten their load by pretending they are above the ambiguities and difficulties of normal life. If we pretended that the Bishops lived in the comfort of doctrinal and moral certainties and episcopal unity, we would have neutralised them in such a way that they can bring no good news to us. Much more useful would be an episcopate that reflected a real discipleship, a journey of faith. In this journey we might relearn from the passionate disputes of the… Read more »
Tim- It’s not correct to say that the relatively literal interpretation of Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6 is ‘narrow’. It is common sense (as all trained NT scholars I have read will confirm – unless you know any different) because there is no reason to believe in these particular passages that Paul did not intend to be taken literally. In fact, the same goes for the rest of his writings. There is nothing strange, and everything natural, about what someone writes in a letter being intended to be taken literally. What are the arguments that he did not intend… Read more »