Dave Blanchett has also written up a report, which he shared with me, but I am still waiting for his permission to post it publically. When he does that, I’ll post it for everyone.

Michael Burke

Thanks for your report. You said, “Those at one end of this curve seemed to have come to the conclusion that there was no longer room for them at the table in the Episcopal church.”

Who are the ‘those’ and ‘what’ is it that they believe? The ‘those at one end of the curve’ are those who hold to the biblical, catholic and traditional view of human sexuality, and who when I first entered ministry in 1974 would have been very much mainstream – right down the middle in the center of Episcopal orthodoxy. Now, since the ‘default’ on such matters has so radically changed, what was once considered biblical and orthodox is now ‘those at one end of the curve’

Jim Basinger

The thought here comes out out a larger discussion about Desmond Tutu’s use of the African concept of Ubuntu to discuss Christian trinitarian theology. Bishop Michael Battle has developed this to some degree in his book “Ubuntu,” which all deputies were sent and asked to read prior to General Convention. Much of our discussion centered around a Christian reading of Tutu’s theology of Ubuntu.

If the inner life of the Holy Trinity, as held throughout Christian history, is one of mutuality, relationship, and indwelling, then the “Western” concept of the individual, so well espoused by Rene Descartes, is indeed an “incomplete truth,” (a common definition of “heresy” in Christian theology.) It is incomplete to the extent that it conceptualizes the self as arising out of either nothing or out of self, when others would argue that the self is an emergent whole arising out of our relationship with God and one another.

Crassly put in shorthand, this view argues that there is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian, with just “me and Jesus;” but that the very nature of Christian identity is found in being a part of the Body of Christ, and that we are only in “right relationship” with God as we are also striving to be in right relationship with others. In that sense, salvation is never purely about me alone, it is always about me in relationship with Christ and therefore in relationship with my sisters and brothers. And that my sins agianst God are often also manifested as sins against others.

What perhaps is lacking in some formulations of the “sinners prayer,” especially the condensed versions popularly found in handout tracts, is some acknowledgement that our relationship with God is inseperable from our relationship with others in the Body of Christ.

Anyway, that is my recollection and reading of where our Presiding Bishop was coming from and going to, in her address.

I don’t hear her to be denying a personal salvation, but hear her questioning the Descartian “Western” concept of self as being the centerpoint for all we are and all we value. That, she argues, is the rightful place of God and God alone. Anything less is the false and idolatrous exaltation of the self.

Much of our conversation around Ubuntu was in recognizing that other cultures, including many banta language cultures of Africa, cannot conceieve of the idea of self except as self-in-relation. I think we see this, in various deghrees, in many indigenous cultures as well, some of whom even extend the concept of self-in-relation to include the dead, the land, and the animals. This moves us into territory outside of much of the Western philosophical tradition. I think the point +Katherine was making was that a truer Christian understanding of “personal” salvation would more African and less Western, to infer her meaning in the larger context of the discussion we have been having at General Convention.

Interesting times, these are, these are…

Blessings,

Michael Burke

“The crisis of this moment has several parts, and like Episcopalians, particularly ones in Mississippi, they’re all related. The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of use alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of all being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention.”

You can find it here:

http://www.americananglican.org/presiding-bishop-s-opening-address/#

I stand corrected, my friend, and have made the appropriate re-edits to my post.

Thanks for following along on our postings.

I didn’t catch the PB’s opening address, or at least I don’t remember anything about the “heresy” of individual salvation. I’ll have to go back and see if I can find that. If you have it handy, please post it in the comments.

Thanks.

I’m available if you want a cup of coffee or conversation. Just give me a ring; it would be good to see you.

- Michael

We appreciate your enthusiasm, your hard work and your reports while at the GC.

However, this comment stood out.

“There will, of course, be those at the extremes who cannot abide by any compromise or comprehension that permits legitimacy for those viewpoints they disagree with …and we hold them in our love and prayers as well, as they seek a different path to be faithful to the Lord as they understand his will and Word.”

It seems that those who continue to hold the faith ‘once for all delivered to the saints’ are now relegated to the status of ‘extreme.’ Further, while I do not deny the “legitimacy” of other view points, such points of view can be very wrong, both theologically and pastorally – which I judge to be the case.

The PB’s opening address concerning the ‘heresy’ of individual salvation was uninformed and frankly embarrassing, and this wasn’t lost on even some sympathetic observers.

I can only speak for myself, however, I find myself more alienated from TEC than ever before.

Jim Basinger

A lot of flavor from the many countries and jurisdictions in The Episcopal?Church.?Today’s presider was the new Bishop of the Diocese of Ecuador Central, and Brian?McLaren was our preacher.?

The music was from our GC Gospel Choir.