"According to The Christian Post, as many as ten Church of England bishops indicated they may boycott the Anglican church body's decennial Lambeth Conference in protest of the liberal stance of the U.S. and Canadian branches of the Anglican Communion on homosexuality. A boycott by bishops from the Church of England would be an unprecedented event in Anglican history and would signify a new low in the current arguments taking place in the communion. The Rt. Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt, one of the most senior bishops in the Church of England, has said that between six and 10 bishops in England would discuss a boycott if The Episcopal Church in the United States did not give up its liberal attitude towards homosexuality in the Church."
The Nigerian Anglican Church, growing fast while the English are forced to sell churches to finance their cakes, finds itself shunned by the White Church. Rowan is concerned.
"Archbishop Peter Akinola, the leader of Anglican churches in Nigeria, may lead a boycott of the 2008 Lambeth Conference, following news that two controversial bishops did not receive invitations from the Anglican Communion’s spiritual leader." [More.]Rowan and his American counterpart on the Episcopalian side are in the back room working on a friendlier version of the Book of Common Prayer.
It ain't the same no more. The Establishmentarian Left is dictatorial and often fascistic, wrapped in velvet as they may be. It is the revolutionary community of free people who will take up banners against the privileged and go forth into battle. Western atheists and Nigerian Christians will find themselves arm-in-arm against the system of oppression, joined by women from the suburbs and boys from the basketball court. It's a whole new revolution, and still, most people don't get it. It becomes clearer each day, the line is drawn, deciding for us where we stand.
Some of us have the sense to realise that the religious establishment is really more than a TV sitcom with incense, and that the iconic saints are more than pictures on tee-shirts, not Che, not Charles Manson. Church is not really a love fest, not a laugh-in, not a singles bar. When the establishment of Death Hippies controls the rite, then find me outside brooding.
Makoko, you.
5 comments:
Gil Bailie, again
He seems like a decent and thoughtful man, one I wouldn't mind sitting with for hours and hours chatting. There are many like him, and there are more and more coming out, as it were, to make themselves known as people I want to sit with, to chat with, to have fun hanging out with.
Each of us has a different style, a presentation that others don't have, and yet we all have the same concerns and the same basic feel for things right and wrong. We are many. We become more.
Hey, just for the public record: abortion makes me puke. Doing it, having it, supporting it, remaining silent about it, it makes me puke.
There are other things I'll get around to at some point.
I'm going to curl up with a good book for the rest of the evening, maybe Ecclesiastes.
In "Exodus: Why Americans Are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity", by Dave Shiflett, he has a remarkable anecdote from one of his many interviews in the book.
A student in a seminary is constantly getting into arguments with his classmates and instructors. One day a fellow student sits down next to him at lunch, turns to him and says: "we've figured out why you are so unhappy here. You're the only person in this place who still believes in God."
I was nearly sick when I found myself having to at least attempt to teach the fundamentals of morals and ethics to Princeton Divinity students. Graduate students! Divinity! They were not only clueless, they were upset with me and my silly moral absolutism. Well, what do I know?
I accused them of atheism, but now that I've listened with some attention to those who speak at our weekly meetings I think I prefer the term nihilists, though it comes to roughly the same thing. I can be an atheist to some extent without being a nihilist. Those kids can't be anything but time-servers and careerists. What a terrible shame it is to see our public intellectuals dig themselves into such a pit so early in life with little hope of ever finding themselves climbing back to the light of Reason and decency. It looks like I will remain an outsider because at this late stage in life I still haven't mastered the needed cynicism of the average 25 year old.
I was nearly sick when I found myself having to at least attempt to teach the fundamentals of morals and ethics to Princeton Divinity students. Graduate students! Divinity! They were not only clueless, they were upset with me and my silly moral absolutism. Well, what do I know?
I accused them of atheism, but now that I've listened with some attention to those who speak at our weekly meetings I think I prefer the term nihilists, though it comes to roughly the same thing. I can be an atheist to some extent without being a nihilist. Those kids can't be anything but time-servers and careerists. What a terrible shame it is to see our public intellectuals dig themselves into such a pit so early in life with little hope of ever finding themselves climbing back to the light of Reason and decency. It looks like I will remain an outsider because at this late stage in life I still haven't mastered the needed cynicism of the average 25 year old.
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