Speaking "positively", what would you have to "believe" in order to convince other people (as empty as yourself) that you were one of the "good people" and not one of those noisy troublemakers who make life with one's head in the sand seem dark and constricting?
Read moreHowever, even in the depression and anxiety of Anglican life, there is talk concerning the renewal of Anglicanism in North America and the forming of a new Province of the Anglican Communion (to take the place of the present "sick" ones). Concerning this, I have made several proposals-or adapted ideas first articulated by others or in dialogue. Here they are.
Read moreIn the 1980s, Protestant denominations experienced considerable distress because, as one Methodist put it, the "ministers are Mondale Democrats and the parishioners are Reagan Republicans." It was close to the truth then and may be close to the truth now in the Episcopal Church.
Read moreIt's one of those passages of the Prayer Book that sounds very much like the Bible, doesn't it?
Read moreToday, we're asking God what he would say to us about this teaching from Paul on Holy Communion. You know, there's a problem about us human beings and it keeps cropping up and that is that we tend to take the good things that God has for us and we profane them. Whatever God does, whatever God makes, whatever he says, it's pure and beautiful and holy. But we have a way of desecrating these things. The creation-beautiful beyond words. But we pollute and destroy. Human life-sacred.
Read moreThe first seven promises have a parallel in the 1928 BCP in the service of baptism for adults (pp. 277-278), where the candidate responds to a series of questions similar to those contained in the '79 Baptismal Covenant, except for the final one.
Well, what could be wrong with adding a promise to strive for justice and peace? Sure, you could put a radical spin on it, I suppose; but can't it just be taken as the sort of lofty idealism you'd expect in a religious service?
Read moreMr Slee seems not to have noticed that this is not 'King James Version language' (as he puts it), but a quotation from the Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough.
In his poem 'The Latest Decalogue' Clough parodied attempts to update each of the Ten Commandments in turn, with such couplets as 'Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat/When it's so lucrative to cheat', or the one quoted above, and they are obviously deeply ironic.
Read moreWhat we have, of course, are the twin evils of syncretism and subjectivism. The mixture of religions, together with the endorsement of any religion without discrimination, is what the gospel delivered us from. The idea that we are the source of God's life ('the god who is God in your judgement') takes us back to the idolatry of old, where the gods were made according to the imagination of our hearts, rather than the God who reveals himself to us in spirit and in truth.
Read moreFirst up was Rowan Williams. He's a very clever man, who held a lectureship in Cambridge and a Chair in Oxford before moving onto higher things. (You can find an excellent introduction to his theology by the religion editor of the TLS, Rupert Shortt.) The interview in fact had more of the feeling of a Cambridge supervision than a Today programme grilling. But Williams got into severe difficulties at various points.
Read moreIn moving terms, the prophet, speaking for the LORD, uses the powerful metaphor of marriage to speak of Israel's relation to her God. The period from the Passover in Egypt to the receiving of the Covenant at Mt Sinai was like betrothal, espousals. There was constant love for the LORD from the people he was delivering.
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