By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
February 10, 2014
An Oxford Don and Anglican sociologist described the announcement as "disastrous and derisory...I'm ashamed of my alma mater." Episcopal liberals and progressives rejoiced in the announcement while one blogger described it as Scandalum magnum.Across the Atlantic, Archbishop Justin Welby welcomed news that the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, is to be awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity by the University of Oxford. He commented, "I am delighted by the news that the Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori is to receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity from the University of Oxford. This award, richly deserved, reaffirms Bishop Katharine's remarkable gifts of intellect and compassion, which she has dedicated to the service of Christ."
Conservative bloggers were so shocked by the announcement that there was immediate disbelief that Welby had either not written the announcement or had simply bought into a press release from 815, the Episcopal Church's national headquarters in New York City.
However, a spokesman from Lambeth Palace wrote VOL confirming that, "the press release was issued with the full knowledge and endorsement of the Archbishop."
While his endorsement of this award has sent shockwaves around the Anglican Communion, it should be noted that the Archbishop of Canterbury has said nothing about her [lack of] spiritual gifts and theological utterances that puts her at odds with 90% of the Anglican Communion.
Over the course of her tenure, the Presiding Bishop has received a total of nine honorary doctorates all from liberal Episcopal seminaries. She has not received such accolades from Nashotah House or Trinity School for Ministry. The secular academy, it seems, has taken no notice of her.
The surprise announcement Thursday (Feb. 6) left many in the Anglican world, other than the Archbishop of Canterbury, scratching their heads in wonderment and disbelief, considering the American Presiding Bishop's well known and thoroughly documented trail of unChristian and anti-Christian actions and theological stances boarding on heresy and apostasy.
Consider the following:
In Katharine Jefferts Schori's version of reality, Jesus Christ is not necessarily male nor is He "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." She thus repudiates Christ's claim in John 14:6 that "no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me."
Just days after the 2006 General Convention, where she stated: "Mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation -- and you and I are his children," TIME magazine asked the XXVI Presiding Bishop-elect a pointed question: "Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?" She answered: "We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box."
Then on July 7, 2009 at the Opening Eucharist for the 2009 General Convention, she declaimed "the great Western heresy" in Anaheim, California where she questioned if "We can be saved as individuals, [or] that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God."
The Presiding Bishop has made worldwide headlines with some of her unique theological pronouncements.
Jeff Walton, Anglican program director at the Institute on Religion & Democracy, says that the Presiding Bishop "has a long record of first establishing theopolitical positions and then conforming Scripture to align with her predetermined purpose."
This was clearly visible last May. While making a pastoral visit to Curacao, Venezuela, the Presiding Bishop denounced the Apostle Paul for his actions in Acts 16:16-34 where he exercised the spirit of divination from a slave girl. The American primate claimed that St. Paul was "depriving her of her gift of spiritual awareness.
"Paul can't abide something he won't see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to destroy it," Jefferts Schori told her Venezuelan congregation. "It gets him thrown in prison. That's pretty much where he's put himself by his own refusal to recognize that she, too, shares in God's nature, just as much as he does - maybe more so."
Mere Comments, a blog by the Fellowship of St. James, dedicated to the promotion of fidelity to Jesus Christ, encourages greater Christian unity, and defends traditional Christian doctrines and moral teachings, says that Katharine Jefferts Schori's sermons are remarkable for what is not said, "Bishop Schori's sermons make little mention of the cross, or of Jesus' death, or of His rising again."
To prove that point, she said in her 2012 Easter message, "We talk about greenness and new life and life springing forth from the earth when we talk about resurrection." The name of Jesus never crossed her lips. She is uncomfortable with belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, preferring to see it as a spiritual rising.
As a trained oceanographer, the Presiding Bishop couches much of her orations in scientific terms and creation references.
"Both science and religion lead people to see the world with enormous awe. The response can either be a burning desire to understand the workings of the physical world, or an equally burning desire to connect with whatever has brought this world in existence," Jefferts Schori told a Corvallis (Ore.) Gazette-Times reporter in 2007. "Both kinds of passion can help us to care for this world and all its inhabitants and both are going to be needed if we are going to relieve the suffering of many and bring increasing hope to our own species and all others."
For those who have listened to her, the former oceanographer turned presiding bishop is more interested in protecting the environment than in proclaiming the Gospel.
Theologically, a Doctor of Divinity (DD) degree is usually conferred because the conferee is an outstanding religious scholar of distinction. In the UK, the Doctor of Divinity (DD) has traditionally been considered a "higher doctorate" thus the highest earned religious studies doctorate, even above a theological Ph.D., granted by a university such as Oxford. In the United States, a DD is traditionally an honorary degree granted by a church-related college, seminary, or university to recognize the recipient's ministry-orientated accomplishments.
As a trained oceanographer, Jefferts Schori earned a Ph.D. in Oceanography from Oregon State University (Corvallis, Ore.). As an Episcopal clergywoman, she earned Master of Divinity from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the same Episcopal seminary that awarded her first honorific Divinitatis Doctor.
Since Jefferts Schori does not have a qualifying body of theological works nor is she a religious scholar of standing and distinction, the conferring of the Oxford scarlet and black academic robes comes as a result of "...her enduring deep commitment to the environment [which] has evolved into a profound dedication to stewardship of our planet and humankind, especially in relieving poverty and extending the love and hospitality of Christ to those on the edges of society ..." explains the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The English archbishop is a strong proponent of women in the episcopate and is lobbying to see women break through the stained glass ceiling and become bishops in the Church of England, and even, perhaps, one day the Archbishop of Canterbury. Therefore he lauds his American counterpart as a shining example of "a powerful model for women seeking to pursue their vocations in the church."
Katharine Jefferts Schori was a weak Bishop of Nevada. Her weakness was highlighted in 2004 when she allowed a self-professed Roman Catholic pedophile monk-priest, -- Bede Parry -- who was dismissed from his Catholic Benedictine abbey for sexual misbehavior with young men, to convert to The Episcopal Church. She received him, recognized the sacramental validity of his Catholic priesthood, and gave him sacerdotal faculties that allowed him to minister in a Las Vegas church that has an attached school.
Even when the sordid story broke during the summer of 2011, and the priest (who has since died) resigned his position, Jefferts Schori remained mum while the media clamored for answers and explanations.
In singing Katharine Jefferts Schori's praises, the Archbishop of Canterbury said, "This award, richly deserved, reaffirms Bishop Katharine's remarkable gifts of intellect and compassion, which she has dedicated to the service of Christ."
The charge that she has an "authentic Christ-centered Christian "compassion" is unknown to the Presiding Bishop. Under her tenure, she has revamped Title IV and amassed enormous centralized power. Her clergy quake in fear. More than 700 deacons, priests and bishops have been defrocked by her hands with a stroke of the pen. One case in point involved retired Bishop Edward MacBurney (VII Quincy) who on April 2, 2008 was inhibited by the Presiding Bishop; on April 4, his son died, leaving the grieving father and bishop unable to conduct his son's funeral rites.
The Presiding Bishop, too, is the powerful force behind the legal scenes, which have seen more than $30 million funneled into litigation as departing Episcopal congregations, vestries, and clergy -- including bishops -- fight for their long-held church edifices and real estate. She would much rather see an Episcopal church building fall into the hands of Moslems for non-Christian worship or become a museum, or a private home or even a bistro than be compassionately placed into the hands of devoted North American Anglicans.
Inherently, the Oxford's famed Encaenia (yearly academic awards celebration) takes place on the Wednesday of the ninth week of Trinity Term or the third term of the academic year. So on June 25, 2014, the Presiding Bishop will be one of six leading figures from Britain, the United States and France to travel to Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre to receive honors in their chosen fields of endeavor -- science, the arts or religion. In addition to being the youngest so honored in this term, the American clergywoman is to be presented with an honorary Degree of Doctor of Divinity. Other honorees include British sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor and American magazine editor Robert Silvers who are slated to receive honorary Degrees of Doctor of Letters; while honorary Degrees of Doctor of Science are to go to Professor Wallace Broecker of Columbia University and French chemist Jean-Marie Lehn, an earlier recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry; finally the honorary Degree of Doctor of Music is to go to Sir Harrison Birtwistle, a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music.
Nothing has been mentioned of Jefferts Schori's failure to proclaim the Christian Gospel and to adhere to Scriptural standards, biblical truth and the ancient apostolic faith. Nothing, because in truth she doesn't believe it. Oxford University should have known better.
VOL correspondent Mary Ann Mueller contributed to the story
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