John Hayward Anglican Church Decline in the West – The Data
Anglican Church Decline in the West – Possible Reasons
Christopher Whitby Church Times Smug and weird — no wonder it’s a turn-off
Carey Lodge interviews Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon for Christian Today Meet the man who’s in charge of leading 85 million Christians
Andrew Brown The Guardian Signs of hope in a ‘secular’ land
Giles Fraser The Guardian The migrants’ church in Calais is a place of raw prayer and defiant hope
+Josiah caught my attention with this “”First and foremost, my conviction has always been this and it hasn’t changed: most of these crises we ascribe to religious differences [between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria] have very little to do with religion. Religion is a façade,” Good for him. As Human Rights Watch’s report on conflict in +Josiah’s region of Nigeria lists numerous causes, generally in the realm of inequalities in civic and economic life, as well as a lack of a criminal justice system that can rein in perpetrators of violence on both sides. This is a step forward from… Read more »
Giles Fraser does a very effective job of focusing on the issues of solidarity and ethics in the migrant crisis. In so doing, provides an effective counter to those who want to monetize the issue.
Commenting on this issue in an earlier TA post about Calais (below), Robert Ian Williams writes, “Did our Lord dehumanize us, when he talked about us being sheep? The current illegal migration is a swarm …” What a fatuous analogy.
I’ve attached a link to an article published by The Pontifical Council For the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/corunum/corunum_en/pubblicazioni_en/Rifugiati-2013-INGL.pdf
“Just as he opposed the anti-gay laws, he believes that the Episcopal Church in America, for example, should oppose the legalisation of gay marriage.” Archbishop Idowu-Fearon bases this upon Lambeth Resolution 1:10, which TEC’s bishops rejected in 1998, and how much MORE so (w/ the rest of TEC) now. His equivalency simply doesn’t apply. “Christians in positions of authority and responsibility are always very timid, they allow the secular world to overcrowd them, so that fine line is missing”. Well, to the extent that the Church has sold out to the homophobia of The World (because it certainly doesn’t come… Read more »
” The late Terry Pratchett summed up my reservations when he wrote: “The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it.” “ An excellent article by Christopher Whitby, This sums it up very well indeed for many of us inside the church as well. But try saying it on a website such as Stand Firm in Faith or Anglican Mainstream. Not only do those who run such websites think they’ve found the truth, they think they have found an extremely exclusive version of it. And the version… Read more »
JCF, in line with 1st century Jewish norms, Jesus of Nazareth would almost certainly have believed homosexuality to go against the law of Moses.
On this, as on his view of Canaanites, and his belief that Adonai was about to end history, Jesus was wrong, and that fallibility can be accepted without undermining the entirety of his life and teaching.
I doubt Idowu-Fearon could say that, which is why he’s able to draw the false equivalence between opposing homophobia and opposing equality. This nonsense is, I guess, the “moderate” position, a position that I want no part of.
“in line with 1st century Jewish norms, Jesus of Nazareth would almost certainly have believed homosexuality to go against the law of Moses” JamesB, I simply disagree—for 3 reasons. 1) I don’t accept that “homosexuality…go[es] against the law of Moses”, for the simple reason that I don’t believe that ANY ancient texts speak to “homosexuality” (that is, *immutable same-sex sexual orientation*) as we know it in the 21st century. 2) I reject “Jesus would have” arguments. If Jesus didn’t address it, we don’t know WHAT Jesus felt about a particular subject, beyond general principles of “Love God, Love Your Neighbor… Read more »
JCF, I agree that nither Jesus, nor the biblical authors, is likely to have had any concept of sexual orientation. By “homosexuality,” I simply mean sex between people of the same gender. For men at least, this is explicitly condemned in the Mosaic law, under penalty of death. While I also agree that we should be careful with arguments from silence, given the overwhelming religious, cultural and legal taboo, I believe that we can reasonably infer that Jesus would’ve condemned homosexuality, an inference that survives mere implications about a relationship between a pagan master and his slave. It should be… Read more »
“[I]n line with 1st century Jewish norms, Jesus of Nazareth would almost certainly have believed homosexuality to go against the law of Moses.” Just to expand on JCF’s comments. One of the main problems with this statement is that, of course, Jesus on so many occasions expressly went against “1st century Jewish norms.” These are epitomized by the “you’ve heard it said, but I say to you” statements from the Sermon on the Mount (but they’re certainly not limited to these). For example (as paraphrased to meet the 400-word limit): You’ve heard, don’t murder. But I say to you if… Read more »
Dr. Primrose, in demanding people be held to a higher ethical standard than the Law of Moses, Jesus wasn’t violating its prohibitions — he was extending them. This was thoroughly in-line with contemporary Jewish thinking (particularly the Pharisees, whom the Gospels later demonized). The one area in which Jesus did go against contemporary norms — his departure from some purification rituals — was tied to his belief in an imminent eschaton, itself a mainstream Jewish belief. So yes, Jesus might’ve supported loving gay relationships, but given what we know of his setting and thinking, it’s unlikely, and more importantly, shouldn’t… Read more »