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| Ichabod Photoshop and Witty Label: Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori |
GJ - It gives me great satisfaction to find my graphics being used elsewhere. No credit is expected. No permission is required. Not that long ago an ELCA-bishop-as-Satan graphic made its way to the bishop's staff. The bishop's staffmembers were not amused.
I have followed Virtue Online for several years. I have written to David Virtue, a man who follows the legal and doctrinal issues, reporting them carefully. He added his comments to the interview with the notation VOL. That will give readers a better perspective on the Bishop Kate disaster.
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Episcopal Presiding Bishop Spins Church and Its Future
The following interview with Katharine Jefferts Schori took place on Lutheran Public Radio withIssues, Etc. hosted by Todd Wilkens
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
January 10, 2012
WILKEN: What do you mean by that phrase "Heartbeat of God"?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: That's how I've talked about our understanding of God's "mission" to heal the world and that when people-of-faith are engaged in that work they're participating in the lively creativity of God.
VOL: What and where exactly is TEC healing the world? Pouring its limited resources into Haiti (largely into a cathedral) is a pittance compared to what agencies like World Vision Inc., Food for the Poor and multiple evangelically based organizations are doing in that country. Most congregations in TEC are now in double digits with the average age in the mid 60s. They are running out of time and money and they are more engaged in getting Medicare and Social Security than "healing the world." Those socially (read sexually) engaged are pushing the LGBTQI agenda with liberal bishops led by Jefferts Schori and her compliant HOB getting in the faces of dioceses like South Carolina to make them conform to their agenda.
WILKEN: On that issue of "people-of-faith" the subtitle of the book is "Finding the Sacred in the Middle of Everything." so it might sound to some like pantheism. Do you believe that the "sacred", as you define it, is found in all religions?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: Yes, I think it probably is. We're not pantheists, many Episcopalians might be understood to as "panentheists". The difference being that pantheists see everything as God and panentheists see God reflected in all of God's creation. When we talk about human beings being made in the image of God that's a piece of what we are talking about and we would extend that to all of creation. VOL: So Episcopalians are now panentheists. Really. Panentheism is a belief system, which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it. While pantheism believes that God is the whole; in panentheism, the whole is in God. In panentheism, God is viewed as the eternal animating force behind the universe. Some versions suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifest part of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. Panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe. Much Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism. Theism, on the other hand, conceives of God as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe but is distinct from it. Episcopalians, by and large, that is those who have not completely lost their minds believing what Jefferts Schori, Jack Spong, William Countryman and Mott the Hoople are still orthodox in their faith. For a full and complete analysis of Jefferts Schori's book read Sarah Francis Ives, Ph. D. two articles here: http://tinyurl.com/83ndbph and here:http://tinyurl.com/7nhuupx
WILKEN: But you contrast, or appear to contrast Jesus of Nazareth with the Christ of generations and millennia to come. Is there is difference of the "Jesus of Nazareth' and "the Christ of generations and millennia to come"?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: Christians would understand both terms. Non-Christians would not necessarily. Jesus as a human figure is someone about Whom Muslims can speak and understand and certainly recognize and revere. And people of other faith traditions would as well. They're not going to have access or interest in "the Christ of millennia to come" the way that Christians do.
VOL: Separating the Jesus of History from the Christ of Faith is an old saw. The truth is there is no dichotomy between the Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History. Anglican theologian N.T. Wright In his book Jesus and the Victory of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2, says that the historical Jesus is very much the Jesus of the gospels: a first century Palestinian Jew who announced and inaugurated the kingdom of God, performed "mighty works" and believed himself to be Israel's Messiah who would save his people through his death and resurrection. "He believed himself called," in other words says Wright, "to do and be what, in the Scriptures, only Israel's God did and was." So you have a choice dear readers, believe what Jefferts Schori says or N.T. Wright.
WILKEN: You talk about hearing the "Voice of God"; I think you devote a whole chapter to it. Where is The Episcopal Church USA today hearing the Voice of God?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: OK, let me correct that. We are not The Episcopal Church in the USA. We're The Episcopal Church in 16 different nations including the United States. So we're certainly hearing the Voice of God and meeting God in Ecuador and Honduras and Venezuela and Taiwan and in Europe, as well as we are in the United States. There is an ancient understanding that God is met, perhaps most intensely in the poor and the marginalized. I know that St. Francis [of Assisi] called the poor "our treasure"; and that when we encounter the poor the marginalized, we're more likely to meet Jesus, we're more likely to see God present with us in the midst of suffering as well as joy. VOL: Prior to the year of our Lord 2006 (when Jefferts Schori was consecrated) no Presiding Bishop touted TEC's offshore ecclesiastical holdings, but with the rise of the Global South and Mrs. Jefferts Schori's face offs with Dr. Rowan Williams, she has pushed this handful of "overseas" Episcopalians to let the whole Anglican world know that she has some muscle and must be reckoned with even as TEC innovates over sexuality issues and its fortunes sink. It no doubt gives her a feeling of power. For the record TEC has a total of 487 churches in "foreign" dioceses and territories, with an overall ASA of 11,258. There are single churches almost as big as this. St. Martins Episcopal Church in Houston has 7,812 baptized members and nearly 3,000 ASA.
WILKEN: What then is The Episcopal Church hearing in that Voice of God?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: A call to attend to the people on the margins as well as creation that is being abused. Our work, as part of God's mission, is to respond to the needs of the suffering - human beings as well as the rest of creation.
VOL: TEC talk. This is spin for pushing for the acceptance of a variety of pansexual behaviors which the Global South find revolting and unacceptable and which Rowan Williams waffles over. She taunts the Archbishop for being double-minded which is usually termed a 'failure of nerve' for not coming out totally for gay priests, same-sex marriage and rites for same.
WILKEN: You also talk about climate change - manmade climate change I should say - and the Church's obligation there. Do you regard it as sinful to deny manmade climate change or to not take part in combating man's part in that change?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: Well, human beings have certainly been responsible for accelerating the pace of climate change. I only have to look at the carbon dioxide affluent that has been produced since the Industrial Revolution to see that. I think it is incredibly short sighted, in the sense of blind, to refuse to see evidence in the change of climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. There are clearly people who choose not to see that. I think that is not using all the gifts that God has given us.
VOL: And she took her House of Bishops to Quito, Ecuador for an expensive gabfest, which increased the global carbon footprint enormously. She could have held a FREE conference call (dot com) with her bishops then she would never have had to see who was falling asleep listening to her whine about "marginalized peoples" and push the church's pansexual agenda one more time and listen to her liberal bromides about saving the world for God.
WILKEN: Short sighted, but is it sinful in your opinion?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: Sin, in our understanding, is separation from God. And if you cannot see the abuse that human beings have caused to creation, I think that you are in some sense separating yourself from God's creation.
WILKEN: So, is that a yes?
JFFERTS SCHORI: That's certainly a way in which I would understand it.
VOL: Sin is much more than that. It is about rebellion against God himself, against the moral order, selfishness, and unrepentance. It is about missing the mark. One might also add this: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8: 38-39)
WILKEN: When I spoke a moment ago and said Episcopal Church USA, you corrected me and said Episcopal Church in a number of nations. Do you make the distinction between The Episcopal Church and worldwide Anglicanism?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: We're [The Episcopal Church] a separate province of the worldwide Anglican Communion. There are 38 national or regional provinces in the Anglican Communion. We're a part of Anglicanism, but we're one part in relationship with a number of other parts.
VOL: ...and a very small part at that. TEC now has an average weekly ASA of less than 700,000 and declining yearly. That is the size of a small diocese in Rwanda.
WILKEN: There has been some tension between The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. How would you say that tension has been created? How do you think it resolved, if possible?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: Well, you know, churches going back to the First Century of Christianity have always been in tension, because people never share all of the same ideas and understandings. You know the first great Church fight was about whether or not Gentiles could join the "Jesus Movement". Those tensions have continued through the ages. We're not going to finish with them until the Second Coming. And they can be creative, if they are used creatively. If conflict simply results in division, then it is not creative; it's destructive, generally. But when we can stay in relationship and explore our differences and continue to dialogue about them, usually everybody grows in the process and it ends up being creative rather than destructive.
VOL: The early church attended to Judaizers and those who wanted to keep some aspect of the law in order to be saved. The "differences" today also involve salvation issues. Dialogue is all but dead. There is already a de facto schism if not a de jure one. The vast majority of the Global South primates are in "impaired and/or broken communion" with TEC. GAFCON/FCA was formed to declare that the Global South was no longer in communion with the ABC. A Lambeth Conference and a Primates meeting in Dublin saw one third of the Archbishops of the Communion in a no show thus declaring that the Anglican Communion was broken. Whether it can be repaired with Dr. Rowan Williams still at the helm is the issue. With him gone and an Evangelical at the head of the Communion it would be a whole new ball game. What about that does Jefferts Schori not understand?
WILKEN: In 2003, I believe, you consented to the election of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in The Episcopal Church, Now that's been almost 10 years, I think. Do you have any regrets about that move?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: I knew at the time that it would be a very difficult decision for the wider church, both in The Episcopal Church and across the world. But, no, I believe that I, and others who voted to do that, understood that we were doing that out of a sense of great faithfulness to where we are in this church and to the Call of God in the midst of it. It's not been easy, but at the same time I think that people across the [Anglican] Communion and within this [The Episcopal] Church - a number of them who disagreed with that decision have to realize that it is not a decision that has to divide a community, that we can continue to exist together in a community even if we don't agree. VOL: Total nonsense. A third of the all Anglican Primates are no longer in communion with her over the Robinson consecration and they represent nearly 80% of the entire Anglican Communion. TEC is a sideshow with only money to manipulate poor Anglican African provinces.
WILKEN: You said that the issue of whether or not to ordain active lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgendered persons should not be a "church dividing issue". But, Bishop, as you know, many disagree entirely. Dioceses, parishes, many individuals have left The Episcopal Church for that and other reasons believing that they are "church dividing issues".
JEFFERTS SCHORI: Some people have left some congregations and some people have left some dioceses over this issue, that's correct. And, yes, they do believe that it is a "[church] dividing issue". At the same time, many people who disagreed with the decision - most people who disagreed with the decision - have remained in The [Episcopal] Church and continue to make common cause with their fellow Episcopalians in the work of healing the world. They believe that our engagement in mission together is more important than disagreement about that [homosexual] issue.
VOL: Really. Then how can she explain four entire dioceses leaving TEC, hundreds of individual churches leaving, with four bishops heading to Rome (with one now heading up the Pope's personal Ordinariate)...and millions of dollars spent on litigation for properties. Two thirds of the entire Diocese of Pittsburgh has left TEC, nearly 80% of the Diocese of Ft. Worth. Those orthodox Episcopalians who stay do so because they don't want to get into a legal battle over property issues like the Church of the Good Samaritan in Paoli, PA and prefer to remain under the radar of a revisionist bishop like Charles Bennison. Another group of Episcopalians quietly scream, "Not in my parish" and politely go their way. The doctrine of inclusion is also not for them.
WILKEN: What are the similarities, how would you describe the similarities and the differences between your church body [The Episcopal Church] and the newly formed Anglican Church in North America?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: Well, the Anglican Church in North American seems to have its primary identity as being opposed to decisions of The Episcopal Church. I certainly hope that they will come to have an identity that's positively rooted in their unique identity, and I think that when they come to do that, that we should be able to build some ecumenical relationships with them.
VOL: That is a false characterization of ACNA. At the beginning when the AMIA was formed it was in reaction to TEC. ACNA was formed as a safe place for orthodox Episcopalians being hounded out of TEC because of TEC's theological and sexual innovations. More than 100,000 in nearly 1,000 parishes have fled TEC in the last few years and there is no sign that is letting up.
WILKEN: In the last generation - 40 years or so - The Episcopal Church has seen the ordination of women. I think that was in the early 70s. It's first openly gay bishop more recently; and the ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons to the priesthood. Where do you see The Episcopal Church headed in the next generation - the next 40 years?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: I think the next 40 years are going to be time of significant reformation in the sense of expanding the variety of faith communities -- expanding the ways in which we "make a church" together. You can see examples of that already - things like [the] Common Cathedral Movements; where groups of people gather outside it on a regular basis for church services that those communities often serve the homeless. Where you see people who gather -- there's an example in New York City. Something called a "Dinner Church" where primary beginning of the community has been to gather to cook a meal, and out of that has grown a worshipping community. The phrase that is often used is "emergent" or "emerging church" communities, and I think we are going to see a great flourishing of that. And those communities may or may not be tied to permanent buildings in the way that most mainline denomination congregations are today.
VOL: At the present rate of decline there is every reason to believe that within 26 years The Episcopal Church will cease to exist in any sense as a denomination unless there is serious reformation, renewal and revival. Numbers don't lie. The evangelically driven ACNA will only prosper, but not without problems and "issues" like the ordination of women yet to be resolved. Narrow pathways always come with thorns and sharp rocks.
WILKEN: Do you see a connection the early 70s ordination of women [the Philadelphia 11 on July 29, 2974] to the priesthood of The Episcopal Church and the early 2000's ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons to the priesthood?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: Yes, and I would certainly take it farther back. I think it is deeply connected with the ordinations of the first African-Americans [Absalom Jones in 1804] to this tradition and the first Native Americans [Enmegahbowh of the Ottawa Tribe in 1867] in this tradition and the first Asians [Wong Kong-chai in 1863] in this tradition. The challenge particularly in the United States, a part of our context has been expanding the understanding of what a normative human being is. And it is not just a "white man". It includes people of other ethnic origins, includes people of the other gender, it includes people of other sexual orientations. One of the significant changes in our prayer book of the late 1970s was our admission of children to [Holy] Communion before they were confirmed. You use to have to wait until you were a teenager and had been confirmed before you could come to Communion. We said: "No, children as soon as they are baptized are full members of this community." I don't know what the next iteration of that journey will look like. But I think there will be one.
VOL: Dumbing down the Prayer Book and lowering entry requirements will not build churches, and comparing a person's skin color with same sex attractions angers a lot of Black people who don't like the comparison.
WILKEN: What do you see the central message of Scripture is, Bishop?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: Love God and love your neighbor.
VOL: One wonders if that applies to Archbishops Bob Duncan, Rowan Williams or Nicholas Okoh. Talk is cheap.
WILKEN: I think that the central message is: of man's sin ...his fallen condition - alienation from God, thereby loss of the image of God, thereby... And it's complete restoration in the Incarnation ... the perfect life -- sinless life ... death and resurrection ... the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And I think that is the central thread of Scripture. Am I wrong?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: I think that is a piece of it. But clearly God is at work communities and contexts beyond the Christian one. If you see that as the primary thrust of the Jewish Scripture I think that is a misreading. Certainly the Jews are understood as "Chosen People" in our Biblical texts. God is clearly at work in all of creation and part of our task as Christians is to discern and affirm at where we find God at work beyond our comfortable places.
VOL: In other words Christianity is not exclusively the way to the Father there are other pathways - Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu. The Presiding Bishop is on record saying she would never seek to convert a Muslim to Christ as their pathway to God is just as valid as her pathway, which, presumably, is still Christian. She also publicly denied the need for personal salvation.
WILKEN: The passage that I guess I go to repeatedly in taking that position is to Jesus, Himself, where He says: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me." [John 14:6] Jesus is claiming to be the ONLY revelation of God; the ONLY revelation of the sacred in His Incarnation; and most certainly, the ONLY way to the True God. What are your thoughts there?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: He also says in another place [John 10:16] that He has flocks, that He is called to care for flocks - sheep that aren't already in a particular fold, and that He has words of truth for them as well.
WILKEN: So what do you think He is referring to there, specifically?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: I think He is referring to people beyond our comfort zone.
WILKEN: Beyond Christianity?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: Could be...
WILKEN: Well, do you think it is beyond Christianity?
JEFFERTS SCHORI: I think the work of Jesus has changed reality for all human beings whether they acknowledge themselves Christians or not.
VOL: Scripture says, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor. 12:3). So if she cannot say unequivocally that "Jesus is Lord", can she be called a Christian? Again St. Paul: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
Jesus did not die on a cross "to change reality for all human beings," He came to change hearts and lives through his death and resurrection.
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Issues, Etc. is Christ-centered, Cross-focused Talk Show Radio program of Lutheran Public Radio a ministry of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
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