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Presiding Bishop Michael Curry's Flawed "Word to the (Episcopal) Church"

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry's Flawed "Word to the (Episcopal) Church"

NEWS ANALYSIS

By David W. Virtue DD
www.virtueonline.org
January 1, 2016

"This is the Jesus Movement, and we are The Episcopal Church, the Episcopal branch of Jesus' movement in this world," Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry says in his first address as Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. "Now is our time to go. To go into the world, let the world know that there is a God who loves us, a God who will not let us go, and that that love can set us all free."

VOL: Jesus told his followers, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation" (Mk 16:15). Jesus never mentioned love as the goal only its motivation. His message was to make "disciples of all nations" built on the foundation of repentance as the only means whereby we enter His kingdom. God's love is the basis for Jesus' entry into the human sphere, to live and die that we might have life in Him. There is no mention of Jesus' death setting us free from sin in Curry's paean to love.

CURRY: God came among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to show us the Way. He came to show us the Way to life, the Way to love. He came to show us the Way beyond what often can be the nightmares of our own devising and into the dream of God's intending. That's why, when Jesus called his first followers he did it with the simple words "Follow me." "Follow me," he said, "and I will make you fish for people."

VOL: Actually what Jesus said is that he was "the way, the truth and the life" and that no one comes to the Father except through him. No specific mention is made of love. The references to being "fishers of men" Mt. 4:21 relates specifically to Jesus' calling of the twelve to equip them to announce the Good News of the Kingdom. That seems to be missing in Curry's call. It is also probably why he could not call himself an evangelical when asked at a press conference at the last General Convention in Salt Lake City.

CURRY: Follow me and love will show you how to become more than you ever dreamed you could be. Follow me and I will help you change the world from the nightmare it often is into the dream that God intends. Jesus came and started a movement and we are the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement.

VOL: Is that agape -- unconditional "God" love, Eros love, philia love (friendship), or Storge (empathy bond)? Curry does not tell us. With this being the Episcopal Church and all, it would have to be Eros love, though of a distorted and biblically prohibited form.

If TEC is the "Episcopal branch" of the Jesus Movement, (and when was that decided), one wonders what its priests and bishops have been selling (or sniffing) for the last 40 years. The Church has embraced sodomy, gay marriage, rites for same, and a whole variety of sexualities. It has focused on any number of social issues including racism and abortion which it approves of. Despite this, there has been no visible uptick in membership or people clamoring to pass through its "The Episcopal Church Welcomes you" red doors. The Episcopal Church is visibly dying, with aging men and women and no replacements are coming up through the ranks from millennials or Gen Exers.

Perhaps what Presiding Bishop Curry has in mind is a new rendition of the Beatles' famous song, "All You Need is Love."

CURRY: Now is our time to go. To go into the world to share the good news of God and Jesus Christ. To go into the world and help to be agents and instruments of God's reconciliation. To go into the world, let the world know that there is a God who loves us, a God who will not let us go, and that that love can set us all free. This is the Jesus Movement, and we are The Episcopal Church, the Episcopal branch of Jesus' movement in this world.

VOL: This begs the question what has TEC been doing or trying to do for the last 40 years that he suddenly now wants the Episcopal Church to do? Perhaps Curry could begin his own personal path of "reconciliation" in Canterbury in January when he comes face to face with ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach. He could embrace Beach as a brother in Christ and acknowledge that he is a legitimate Anglican archbishop and, if need be, tell Canadian Archbishop Fred Hiltz to stuff his mouth with Canadian bacon and just shut the hell up.

CURRY: God bless you, and keep the faith.

VOL: Presumably he means God bless you [and may you] keep the faith. God apparently has no difficulty keeping it. The Episcopal Church is probably the best church evangelistic field in America today and the only reason one might stay and proclaim 'the faith once for all delivered to the saints'. Most Episcopalians no longer know what they believe and many now think that the Nicene Creed has been replaced by the five Millennium Development Goals.

END

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