MEGA-ANGLICAN ANGST: A family reunion that's not!

Quarter of world's Anglicans boycott conference - Yahoo! News

When 25% of a royal family's princes stay away from a once each century family reunion ... you've got a regal knot in your imperial breeches!

Church officials said that 230 of the 880 bishops in the Anglican worldwide communion were staying away from the Lambeth conference being staged in the English cathedral city of Canterbury, spiritual home of the deeply divided church.

Referring to Gene Robinson, the queer Bishop from New England, who was forced to stay away from Lambeth, and remains the catalytic issue for the boycott, Reuters said ...

Robinson, whose decision to be open about his homosexuality provoked so much Anglican angst, agreed it was time for the church to stop being so self-obsessed.

"With young men knifing each other in the streets of London [a reference to the "growing knife" culture of the capital city] and a billion or more people going through life on less than a dollar a day, what a shame , what a waste it is for the Anglican communion to be tearing itself apart over two men or two women who want to make a Christian family together," he told Reuters.

How magnanimous!

Your denomination has just certified you a heretic in the least offensive and most unofficial-official way possible (like a director of a corporation being excluded from the firm's annual meeting by the other directors) and you wax eloquent about their corporate failure to stop English violence and global poverty. Not a word about the cause of it all: your personal failure.

Simultaneously, you reveal an extremely low opinion of Scripture's infallibility and inspiration, dissing (by extension) the Creator of the Living Word, thus disparaging the nature and magnitude of it, and ignoring two thousand years of biblical scholarship, as-well-as the collective wisdom of the men and women who were motivated to that scholarship.

Wow! What arrogance!

Apparently Robinson and the Reuters reporter did combine to forecast one likely outcome ...

... it will end with a typically fudged Anglican consensus, [the Gay cleric] said "It will drive the press crazy. There will be no resolutions, no proclamations, no lines drawn in the sand."

And this is a once in a century conference ... ho-boy! Forgive us all sweet Jesus, Your heart must be heavy these days.

Anglican, Christianity, Heresy,
Gene Robinson, Lambeth, Religion

ANGLICAN ANGST: Statement by Jefferts Schori will have little eternal impact!

A just-concluded meeting of conservative church leaders in the worldwide Anglican Communion will have little lasting impact, the head of the Episcopal Church, the faith's U.S. branch, said on Monday.

"Much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission" from the Global Anglican Future Conference issued on on Sunday in Jerusalem, said Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

So too spoke Phillip Franklin, White Star Line Vice President, the day prior to the maiden launch of the Titanic:

"There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers."

The day after her maiden voyage sinking:

"I thought her unsinkable and I based my opinion on the best expert advice."

And the Lord God Almighty said:

There is a way which seems right to a (wo)man, But its end is the way of death. [Proverbs 14:12]

Anglican, Christianity,
Conservatives, Religion

FUNDAMENTALS: What They're Not!

Al Mohler's got it right! In a recent address the young (soon to be President) SBC leader pointed to the dangers of religious conciliation at the practicing level.

[Mohler] expressed concerns this week about the recent Christian response to a historic Muslim letter in which signers appeared unclear about their Christian identity and different beliefs of God.

Geopolitics aside, faith is a serious business and not truly of this world. If the world is in trouble it is not the first time, nor will it be the last time!

[Mohler pointed out, correctly, that the response to the Muslim missive] failed to clearly define the Christian understanding of God as the trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Muslims and Mormons are in the same barrel concerning the object of their faith; their deity is not remotely similar, let alone equal to, the God of Scripture. As much as mankind wants reconciliation and peace on earth, Christian's must not allow a common humanity to define the object of their faith.

Mohler explained that Muslims also believe in Jesus but only as a prophet, not as the son of God. Therefore, Christians must distinguish what kind of God they believe in when responding to the Muslim letter, which emphasized love for a common God.

We do not have "a common God"! Concerning Jesus Christ, specifically, Mohler said ...

He is the incarnate Son of God. He is the second person of the Trinity. He is the Lord over all. Any minimization of that is a huge problem.

Amen! And Amen! The full-page letter, "endorsed by nearly 300 Christian leaders," ...

... appeared in a December issue of The New York Times. The letter was drafted by scholars at Yale Divinity School’s Center for Faith and Culture in response to an October letter signed by 138 Muslim scholars, clerics, and leaders that encouraged Muslims and Christians to work more closely for world peace.

At the heart of the Muslim letter was the “common ground” that believers of both faiths share – love for God and love for neighbors.

There is no common ground with Muslims, or any other belief system ... for has God not said and does He not mean ...

[We must] not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?

For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.

Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18

When Christian leaders such as ...

Rick Warren, founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and author of The Purpose Driven Life; Bill Hybels, founder and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill.; Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; and David Neff, editor-in-chief and vice-president of “Christianity Today” Media Group ...

... sign on to such a regretful document the cause of Christ and the furtherance of the Kingdom are seriously damaged.

This effort on the part of well-meaning, but misguided leaders, is nothing like the document addressing issues concerning American morality, signed awhile back by evangelical leaders ... this document is an offer of capitulation to an avowed and prophetic enemy of Jehovah God.

Mohler goes on to comment on the event in some detail, it's worth clicking over to and get the full text.

Apostasy, Christianity, Religion

CHARITY: How I envy this effort of love!

Dan Edelen of Cerulean Sanctum has linked to a neat Wall Street Journal story on philanthropy.

Marie Delahoussaye, a widow in Texas, asked for money to replace an obsolete hearing aid that “whistles.” In neat, black cursive script on green-lined memo paper she wrote, “Please consider helping me. I live very frugally. I don’t waste anything.”

Ms. Buffett paid for two hearing aids that cost about $1,800 total. Ms. Delahoussaye—who says she never expected to receive a response—says the devices have helped her reconnect with friends and her community. Before getting the hearing aids, “I couldn’t hear the phone ring,” she says. “I would go to church and couldn’t hear the sermon.” She says the experience has reaffirmed her faith in strangers. “This has made me realize there are still good people in the world,” she says.

Though the WSJ piece is worth reading in and of itself, its Dan's comments on the story that makes clicking over worth the trouble.

A story that makes the heartstrings sing, right?

But did anyone here catch the deeper issue? This elderly widow couldn’t hear the sermons at her church. She writes to Warren Buffett. Doris Buffett comes to her assistance. And this hearing-impaired widow gets her new hearing aids. She says it reaffirms her faith in strangers.

But at whose expense does that reaffirmation come?

You see it? I hope I’m not the only one asking, “Where was her church?” I hate to think that she mentioned this to people at her church and no one did anything. It seems that way, though, doesn’t it? [CRIB emphasis]

Back in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries the church abdicated her throne for social issues; relinquishing control of all sorts of Christian responsibilities to the government and the welfare state. We've paid a heavy price for doing that!

Paul taught this ...

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Philippians 2:3-4

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Benevolence, Body of Christ, Charity,
Christianity, Church, Sanctification