AUDIO
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Phillip Jensen speaks on Anger as part of a series on emotions in the Christian life, delivered at the Australia Day Convention 2010
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‘That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.’ Neil Armstrong’s words come readily to mind for those who watched (on television) the first ‘man on the moon’. That was 40 years ago.
Two weeks ago, in her opening address to General Convention, the Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori included these words:
‘The crisis of this moment has several parts… 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 us 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.’
Two thousand years ago, before ‘western civilisation’ took shape, the Apostle Paul wrote:
(Romans 10:9-10)‘because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.’
Add to this the pivotal gospel verse of John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life’ and Bishop Schori is unequivocally denying the heart of the Christian message.
This weekend there are celebrations around the world to mark the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Every Sunday Christians gather to thank our heavenly Father for sending his son Jesus to ‘rescue us from the wrath to come’.
In 40 years time, Bishop Schori will only be remembered for her ‘Declaration of Independence’ from the Lord of all creation.
Luke 17:1-2
That is, take the high ground by stating something that is unarguably true - that God has saved a people for himself, not just individuals. And then switch - anyone who says they are 'individually' saved is a heretic! The sub text is that because my first statement was right, you better believe my second statement too!
Jefferts Schori is engaged in systematically promoting something other than genuine Christianity. The sooner the Anglican Communion is prepared to recognise this the better for all concerned.
John 11:35 ( The context is different - but the tears are still of great sadness. )
When will we stop playing word games with these heretics ? This is a sickening cancer on the church - and needs to be cut out.
Well, it does seem to be a great Sydney Anglican pastime to play word games, so I can't imagine that it will stop anytime soon.
Of course individuals are saved, but we are never saved as individuals. We are saved as part of the church and our salvation outside of this context simply does not make any sense biblically or historically. The presiding Bishop is right to challenge this most narcissistic heresy, which does has no real precedent outside of 20th century neo-evangelicalism.
Perhaps what concerns me most is the myopic manner in which Mr Tong views Scripture himself, in which context and literary considerations are almost completely negated. Take for instance his appeal to Romans 10:9. The facile nature of his analysis can be exposed once it is realised that Paul's audience here is not a particular individual, but rather a church. Again, this is not to deny that an individual can be saved, but that their saving relationship occurs within the context of the church as testified throughout the history of Christendom from Cyprian to Calvin. His application of John 3:16 is similarly concerning, as he overlooks the fact that God so loved the world. It doesn't say that God so loved Robert Tong, so that by reciting the sinner's prayer Robert Tong could have a personal relationship with Jesus.
Agreed, the audience is a group, but that doesn't demand what appears to be your conclusion.
One response to the decisions of ECUSA would be to see them as a kind of hyper-Protestantism whereby the experience of the individual, whether gay/straight/transgendered/womanist/whatever becomes the touchstone of authenticity. 'Being true to myself' (and its up to me to define the self) is all important.
But central to the Christian faith is the truth that our selves are bound together and defined in Christ. Authenticity in relationships is primarily about understanding the other rather than expressing my self.
Now I'm aware that by this standard a lot of conservatives have fallen short. It's easy to substitute generalisations about 'the gay lifestyle' for relationships with gay people.
But what about ECUSA? I still don't think they have comprehended the impact of their decisions on their brothers and sisters throughout the Communion. Already the actions of ECUSA are exacerbating divisions amongst Anglicans in Sudan and elsewhere in Africa. We are heading for a replay of earlier colonialism, whereby the two-thirds world becomes the battleground for competing Western interests.
Now ECUSA may say none of this is their responsibility. But they were warned repeatedly this would be the inevitable outcome if they acted in certain ways. That they still to chose to do so in order to be true to themselves betrays the same error the PB decries.
Even the most cursory reading of Romans 10 will clearly show that the passage is about the salvation of the Jews, a community of people. Perhaps this is not well appreciated or acknowledged in evangelicalism, because its treatment of the bible seems to very piecemeal. For some reason, the biblical literacy of its practitioners, even those with formal theological training, seems not to have progressed beyond the Sunday School stage, where isolated proof texts of one or two verses are merely recited with little appreciation of how these verses should be understood within the broader context of the passage. It always amazes me how often Romans 10:9 is pushed forward as a proof text and how little consideration is given to the rest of Romans 10.
Mark, I think you make a very good point. There is a strong argument that ECUSA has made unjustifiable use of its liberty to the detriment of its weaker brothers and sisters. There is a large extent to which their actions have caused a significant stumbling block for others in the Communion. At the same time, this is also a response to the failure of the more conservative elements of the Communion to engage in the process of seeking to dialogue with and understand the perspective of more liberal brothers and sisters, as passed by resolution at the 1998 Lambeth Conference.
There are any number of examples in the scriptures where the people saving God deals with, saves if you like, individuals. It just doesn't follow that because God saves a people, and saves individuals into that people, that he doesn't save individuals. Humans are not either individuals or members of a group, but both, surely.
Your reasoning very much like the kind of 'because they're wrong I must be right' kind of argument that Jefferts Schori seems to adopt.
Precisely for the reasons I've discussed above. That individuals are saved does not make their salvation as individuals axiomatic.
I'd suggest that the primary paradigm is God's relationship with Israel and Christ's relationship with the Church. The concept of a "personal relationship with God" is simply not biblical and the covenant is always with a community.
Is this not what you are doing also?
I'm not denying that God saves a people because he saves individuals. So no, I'm not using that pattern of reasoning.
My position does not privilege corporate salvation over individual salvation, or individual salvation over corporate salvation so as to subsume one into the other.
But I really can't see how the things you've said so far lead anywhere other than to exactly what Jefferts Schori says, that because God saves a people that therefore individual salvation is heretical.
In my view both aspects of salvation are true. The heresy is in denying individual salvation on the basis of corporate salvation. Jefferts Schori's rhetoric does that, in my view.
Either/or, depending on what you mean by "individuality".
And nor am I, now that I understand what you're saying. I'm not denying that God saves people as individuals because he saves them as a church - merely that I find no warrant for this position on biblical or historical grounds.
I'm not sure why you wish to strawperson Jefferts Schori's comments in this manner. But yes, I'm happy enough to be associated with her perspective in this respect.
Since this individualistic focus is purely the product of 20th century neo-evangelical thought, the term "heresy" is somewhat inaccurate.
I'm trying to understand your assertions about individualistic focus being only C20th. For sure, I'd agree that there are unbiblical elements of individualism in C20th Christianity. But I understand you to be saying something more than this. That there is no individual salvation. And that to assert another position is heresy. HAve I got you right?
So, for instance, trying to flesh that out, are you saying that there is no individual repentance for Christians? Is there any act of the individual will involved in salvation?
Your claim that the covenant is always with a community is neither true in fact eg Abraham, nor does it, in itself, deny individual salvation. You'd want to provide evidence that individual salvation is denied, I would think.
Some contrary prima facie evidence would seem to be passages like Jeremiah 31:30-33, where individuals are specifically identified, and a pattern for the new covenant is elucidated.
What do you think?