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Andrew Nunn Southwark Cathedral sermon preached at the Memorial Service for The Very Revd David Edwards
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Guyer is wrong. The young aren’t leaving because of a lack of theological rigor (because theology is not at all the same as trying to understand God, just mental games; everyone, but everyone, has their own understanding of God, which no systematic theology will encompass entirely), but because TEC does not stand up for what it says it believes – it allows Love of Albany to go on with his vitriol and hatred, it tries politeness towards the far-right schismatics, it doesn’t dare tell Canterbury that he is not a pope. It is a weak leadership that speaks of “the… Read more »
Absolutism is never, ever the answer. A church that relies on authoritarianism, intimidation, and fear will become all that it claims to hate.
Obviously, I disagree. If it stands for nothing, it *is* nothing.
I do also have to point out that you’ve made a bit of a straw-man, there. Telling the truth to power is not “authoritarianism, intimidation and fear.” You admire the right-wing for their dedication to their view without calling it such. I wish them well, but well gone. They clearly have a different vision for action in God’s world, and we are both hampering one another. To tell outcasts from the status quo that they are welcome requires providing a space for them to be welcome without attacks from within, otherwise, it is simply words. It is always a muddle… Read more »
So, “what do you mean by ‘absolutism’?” I’m happy to parse the differences between early modern and more recent definitions of the term, but your original words – “strong, even high-handed, absolutism” – bluntly asserts that holistic meanings and applications are ipso facto excluded.
A dismissive response. This is hardly unexpected, given the snobbery that sets academics and graduate students above those of us who are simply too poor – or understood to be too undeserving – of that educational status. You see, we’re too busy down here actually living in the fallout of the great thinkers; all we can do is tell you what we see on ground level, and tug our forelocks when corrected that we don’t live in abstract thought enough to have an opinion. TEC is every bit as elitist as the CofE, in that respect.
I do wonder what could possibly turn around a now 500K ASA, which you note. I think TEC would do well to figure out where all the attrition went. As you also note, it certainly isn’t ACNA simpliciter; the numbers do not add up and for many ACNA isn’t an option anyway. If one could determine where everyone is heading when they leave, it would offer an insight into what is going wrong. Presumably a lot of the decline is due to aging and dying. But that cannot be the entire story. TEC has been pretty good at tracking numbers… Read more »
Yes, I totally agree. Some churches do note this sort of thing; I don’t know why we don’t. Maybe those in leadership just don’t care?
It would be just as valuable to try and understand why there is such a remarkable lack of young people. This is a complicated matter, I think, due not just to current squabbles but to a Boomer rejection of the Protestant mainline in the USA (a decision that not only shaped evangelicalism, which saw a considerable influx of young Boomers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but also a host of other, non-Christian religions).
Much as I cheer the emphases in Andrew Nunn’s sermon, there is more to say. Stephen Cherry says it well (even if I would like to have a focused conversation about some of his points) at https://stephencherry.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/leadership-and-theology-the-need-for-a-better-debate/
Excellent piece by Stephen Cherry. I particularly liked this part: ‘the church should also be bolder in raising genuinely difficult theological questions (i.e. those that matter to the population at large and not just those that threaten to divide what remains of the church).’
The good intentions in Andrew Nunn’s sermon, and his call for intellectual rigour, are somewhat undermined by his unfortunate historical sloppiness. David Edwards a successor of Lancelot Andrewes? When was David Edwards ever Bishop of Winchester, or Dean of Westminster, let alone Bishop of Ely? If future deans need to spend more time in the Divinity Faculty here in Cambridge, perhaps Andrew Nunn should join them.
Will Richards’ criticism Of The Dean of Southwark seems, to speak generously, somewhat misplaced. Andrew Nunn describes David Edwards as successor of Lancelot Andrewes ‘in this place’, that is, in Southwark. There is no suggestion that he was a successor to him in every post he ever held, and no one reading the sermon would understand this to be what he was saying. He was his successor in ‘doing the theological task of wisdom and revelation for the enlightenment of the whole people of God’. Why comments have to be made in the discourteous and dismissive tone on Richards’ last… Read more »
My point, @David Exham, is that Lancelot Andrewes did not serve in any office at St Mary Overie (now Southwark Cathedral) and his only decisive connection to the place is his burial there, by virtue of the fact that the church was, at the time of Andrewes death, in his Diocese (Winchester), and close to the location of the Bishop’s Palace. How that makes David Edwards a ‘successor’ to Andrewes in the normally accepted sense of the term, I do not know. I know I am not the only person to have noted that, in welcoming the sentiments in Dean… Read more »
Thank you @Will Richards for your measured response to my post. My point is that I do not think Andrew Nunn was talking about the offices that either Lancelot Andrewes or David Edwards held, though both had connections with Southwark that leads the cathedral community to regard them, as David Emmott says, as ‘one of their own’. Rather, Edwards was Andrewes’ successor because he did ‘the theological task of wisdom and revelation for the enlightenment of the whole people of God’ as I have already suggested. I would have thought that the ‘normally accepted sense of the term (successor)’ would… Read more »
I am in no way an intellectual, let alone a rigorous one. But I understood Nunn’s call was for wisdom and understanding in our leaders and not pedantic literalism. As anyone with any knowledge of Southwark diocese and its cathedral is well aware, Lancelot Andrewes has always been held in high regard and treated as ‘one of our own’. For the depth of his theology, rooted in prayer, not for his management skills or ability to tick the right boxes.