Nothing much going on at the moment so let me take you back a couple of weeks to a matter that deserved comment before I had got this blog up and running.
In The Times 15 October 2008, under the heading "Parishes urged to rise against liberal bishops" it was reported that "Evangelicals at a conference in Central London were told that the Church of England now consists of two religions, one liberal and pro-gay and the other conservative and strictly biblical". Presumably the statement was made by someone who considered themself to be in the latter camp as the conference attendees were then urged to seek alternative oversight from another bishop if their own diocesan bishop expounds "unbiblical" teaching from the pulpit.
This stance is fundamentally flawed. It assumes that "conservative" Christians are biblical and that "liberal" Christians are either not biblical or only partly so. I have not got time to go into all the arguments at the moment, so I'll just outline the two most obvious ones.
1. By urging splits and dissention in the Church the speaker himself is being just about as unbiblical as you can get. Jesus prayed that his disciples "may be one", just as he and his father are one. To advocate finding another bishop just because you don't like what your own bishop says hardly gives the impression that this man is following the will of Christ.
2. The general reviling of "liberal" Christians as somehow "unbiblical" conveniently overlooks the fact that Jesus himself was a liberal. That may come as a shock to the rather blinkered "conservative" group, but it shouldn't do. If they are as biblical as they claim, they should have realised that all the evidence points to the fact that Jesus was the prototype liberal. The Concise Oxford Dictionary has three main definitions of "liberal":-
(i) "directed to general broadening of mind" - which Jesus certainly was. He spent most of his ministry not destroying the existing system but trying to show people what was really important in life; trying to show the Pharisees that they were not "wrong" just extremely blinkered.
(ii) "giving freely, generous, not sparing of " - again the definition fits Jesus perfectly when we consider the feeding of the five thousand, the wedding at Cana, his teaching on giving etc.
(iii) "favourable to democratic reform and individual liberty" - See Luke 4: 16-21 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me....He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners...... to release the oppressed........ Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing".
Jesus kept on saying "He that has ears to hear - let him hear." So what is the problem with these so called "conservative, biblical" Christians? Do they not have ears? Or do they just not listen to what Jesus himself says?
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