Jane Williams continues her Comment is free belief series: The Book of Genesis, part 6: Patriarchs and others. “What is to be made, theologically, of the unabashedly male-dominated, hierarchical world of Genesis?”
Derek Olsen writes a three-part article for Episcopal Café about Communion without Baptism.
Part I Part II Part III
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times about Seeking out unity in the wilderness
Baroness Warsi delivered a lecture about Islamophobia on Thursday this week: University of Leicester Sir Sigmund Sternberg lecture. The Guardian has published these three responses to the lecture.
Giles Fraser: Islamophobia is the moral blind spot of modern Britain
Andrew Brown: Lady Warsi and the concept of extremism
Ghaffar Hussain: Lady Warsi is right to confront anti-Muslim prejudice
At the beginning of her lecture Lady Warsi refers to an earlier speech to the College of Bishops; we linked to that here.
Ralph McMichael writes for The Living Church about God’s Mission is the Eucharist.
“Unity for the Roman Church seems to be on her terms, and hers alone.”
Yes, Giles…and when hasn’t this been the case?
Giles Fraser preaching at Westminster Cathedral is as ill suited and judged as Ian Paisley preaching at St Peters in Rome.
Christian unity indeed! What a farrago of nonsense this has become.
Yes, RIW, because heaven forfend a Roman Catholic should hear something that didn’t originate in the Vatican.
The speech by Baroness Warsi has provoked a lot of criticism, not least in the Telegraph. But two people have also written in support of her at the Telegraph:
George Pitcher
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/georgepitcher/100073007/stand-up-for-baroness-warsi-its-a-christian-and-conservative-thing-to-do/
Peter Oborne
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100072900/hatred-of-muslims-is-one-of-the-last-bastions-of-british-bigotry/
I also wish to express my support for her.
Ian Paisley would never be invited to preach at St. Peter’s. Giles Fraser was obviously invited to Westminster Cathedral. Such ecumenical gestures are still an important witness.
Mrs Williams’ piece strangely accepts the definitely late Modern Heresy (post 1955) that the Sodom story (sexualised by the philosophers of Alexandria, as DS Bailey showed) is about rape. No it isn’t! It is about the Command to Hospitality, essential to pre Modern Societies.
And incidentally, Lots permission makes the (hinted at) rape of his daughters Permitted!!! cf Gen 12:14ff, Gen 20:2ff, 26:7ff and contrast alias John 8:1-11 (originally Luke 21:39ff), where it is not permitted.
Well said, Simon.
I also support everything she says.
“Christian unity indeed! What a farrago of nonsense this has become.” – Robert I.Williams –
Yes, Robert! And while you continue your raging like this on the web, there will be no prospect of ever fulfilling the prayer of Christ: “That all may be one”. If you think you’ve done your bit towards it by jumping the Tiber, think again. Your rhetoric does nothing for the ecumene. Your longing for your own ‘safety’ from perdition has soured your outlook on the task of ecumenism.
The patriarchy of Genesis is no more obnoxious than that of the Iliad, the Odyssey or the Aeneid, or of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. I taught it as literature last year and found it not only a great, gigantic work, but one pervaded by the deepest humanity throughout I simply skipped the Sodom story, which clearly embarrassed the redactors themselves, for they invent a wonderful dialogue between Abraham and God where God agrees to spare Sodom if a handful of righteous can be found; I also skipped Dinah. In the rest of the book there is almost no violence, in… Read more »
Christ’s prayer has been answered and the Church is one under the successor of Peter.Have you not read the Pope’s Encyclical where he affirms this…the Church is one..but sadly because of unfaithful Catholics like Luther, Calvin , Cranmer etc Christian people are divided..and there were faults ( non theological though) on our part as well.
RIW ‘Christ’s prayer has been answered and the Church is one under the successor of Peter.’
Blimey? And what do the Orthodox Patriarchs have to say about THAT one???
Glad to hear that Rome is without theological blemish, though. Only leaves moral, philosophical, sociological, anthropological………
Oh! Am I right in thinking that Aquinas was agin the Immaculate Conception btw? Just checking whether he was a good catholic, or whether he was theologically in error…. You know how it is, church history is SO inconvenient.
R. I. Williams, please understand that Catholic theologians today respect the great theological wisdom of Luther and Calvin; and ecumenical catholics who are fighting to overcome sectarian reflexes love and respect the Lutheran and Calvinist churches, so we are united with them at the very deep level of love and shared mutually enlightening faith in Jesus; in this sense Christ’s prayer (Jn 17) is indeed being answered — and this sense may be enough. Unity need not mean bureaucratic uniformity.
Unfortunately, in her unsuccessful 2005 bid to be elected to Parliament, Warsi published alarmist anti-gay statements (in leaflet form) which would be illegal today.
Imagine my reluctance to be lectured at and chivvied by her. She has done nothing for the standing of Islam in Britain.
The Church *is* one – there is only one Christ, we are all called to Him. It’s only the people like popes and preachers who make money off the illusion of “many churches” who make the illusory difference.
All this nonsense about ecclesial law prohibiting one or another – even worse that such law is *FROM GOD* – is a blight on the Faith.
‘Christ’s prayer has been answered and the Church is one under the successor of Peter.Have you not read the Pope’s Encyclical where he affirms this…the Church is one,’ – Robert I Williams – Robert, throughout much of the history of Christianity we have been deluged with a great deal of Papal Bull – most of which has not even survived the ground is was emptied out on to. What really does provide the only effective nurturing of the soul is that which comes from God in Chris, not the Pope, not the magisterium, but from the Body of Christ Himself… Read more »