The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada is currently meeting. Here is a sermon given at the Anglican Essentials daily meetings.
Transcript of Rev Jonathan Gibson's sermon given 19/6/07
Bill Cosby tells us that there is a difference between Mother’s Day
and Father’s Day. Mothers, he says are much better organized. They give
their children a list of the things they would like. They then ask
their children to go and ask their father for the money needed. With
money in hand “go buy me something nice from this list and come home
and surprise me.”
Fathers on the other hand do not have it so good. Cosby says that
before Father’s Day he gives each of his kids $20.00. They then pool
the money and spend $10.00 on two, three pair packages of underwear.
They each wrap a pair separately and give the sixth pair to the
Salvation Army. After Father’s Day, Cosby’s kids have done their duty
and are then walking around with $90.00 of his money in their pocket. I
think Bill Cosby was short changed by his kids.
I want to show you in this essay how we have shortchanged the Father
by the way we have reduced the Gospel and its message. He has given us
his resources and we have often used them for our self-serving ends.
I will do three things in this essay:
i) Give a Historical Context that will show us how we have over the
past 110 years we have been short-changing the Father;
ii) Illustrate how the teaching of Bishop Michael Ingham exemplifies this;
iii) Show how we within Essentials are called to recognize this and
return to the Father what is rightfully his due.
The Historical Context:
i) Thirty Years’ War:
Between 1618 and 1648 Europe was wracked by a series of wars that
together was known as the Thirty Years’ War. Overall, the struggle was
between the Holy Roman Empire, which was Roman Catholic and Habsburg,
and a network of Protestant towns and principalities that relied on the
chief anti-Catholic powers of Sweden and the United Netherlands, which
had at last thrown off the yoke of Spain after a struggle lasting 80
years.
Its destructive campaigns and battles occurred over most of Europe,
and, when it ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the map of
Europe had been irrevocably changed.[1]
According to Philip Schaff this was the context in which the motto
for Essentials had its genesis. In 1628 a Lutheran pastor named
Rupertus Meldenius wrote a treatise commenting on the war that was
ravaging Europe. It was in this context that it was first said:
“IN ESSENTIALS UNITY, IN NON-ESSENTIALS LIBERTY, IN ALL THINGS CHARITY.[2]
I find it to be an encouragement to know that when there was such
turmoil in the church and society that the originator of the Essentials
motto articulated words that have outlasted their generation and have a
new significance for those of us faced with the challenges and
conflicts of this present time.
ii) Parliament of World Religions
In 1893 in Chicago 400 clerics gathered for the first Parliament of World Religions.
Many of the speakers at the 1893 gathering focused on how the world’s
religions fit into a global, evolutionary move toward Christianity,
broadly defined. One of the delegates was Swami Vivekananda of
Calcutta. He said
“Truth takes many forms and believers must learn to share each other’s truths—even if they clash”
The essence of his thought is articulated in this quotation:
“Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas or sects or
churches or temples; they count for little compared with the essence of
existence in each man, which is spirituality. All religions, from the
lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, are so many attempts of the
human soul to grasp and realize the Infinite, as determined by the
condition of birth and association. . . . Every religion is only an
evolving of God out of material man.” [3]
Now contrast this with the comment of Edward White Benson, who in
1893 was the Archbishop of Canterbury. In responding to why he did not
attend this Parliament his response included these words:
“I do not understand how that one religion can be regarded as a
member of a Parliament of Religions, without assuming the equality of
other intended members and the parity of their position and claims.”
Four years later at Lambeth 1897 Benson’s words were echoed by the Bishops gathered:
“The tendency of many English-speaking Christians to entertain an
exaggerated opinion of the excellence of Hinduism and Buddhism, and to
ignore the fact that Jesus Christ alone has been constituted Saviour
and King of mankind, should be vigorously corrected.” [4]
At the turn of the twentieth century it was clearly stated by the
Anglican episcopacy that there was still a clear understanding of the
uniqueness of Jesus and his universal claim on human lives. However by
the time we get to 1986 the office of the Archbishop in the person of
Robert Runcie was expressing a very different understanding of the
Gospel’s relationship to other religions.
“Dialogue can help us recognize that other faiths than our own are
genuine mansions of the Spirit with many rooms to be discovered, rather
than solitary fortresses to be attacked. From the perspective of faith,
different world religions can be seen as different gifts to the Spirit
of humanity.”
I find it interesting that the exclusivism marked by Archbishop
Benson’s words are replaced with a statement celebrating religious
pluralism. In expressing his position Archbishop Runcie caricatures
those of an early generation as being aggressive in their approach to
other religions. While it is true that at times this may have happened,
I would suggest his words are exaggerated because religious pluralism
is seen as a highest good. But lost in this is the centrality of Jesus
Christ and the clear understanding of his person Archbishop Benson
articulated with such clarity.
So why is it that there could be such a change in perspective? To
answer this I turn to the year 1966. In that year Bishop James Pike
said: “the Church’s classical way of stating what is represented by the
doctrine of the Trinity is . . . not essential to the Christian faith.”
[5]
The Episcopal Church queried about the best way to respond to him.
Should there be a heresy trial? It was decided that no, this would
create an oppressive image for the Church and present a tone and manner
unbecoming of Episcopalians. Pike’s utterances were, they said,
“irresponsible” for one holding Episcopal office. Bishop Pike’s fault
was a certain degree of irresponsibility and a lack of tact rather than
false doctrine.
This was the report of the majority. There was a minority report
that forty years later has become the common mind of many North
American Anglicans.
“We believe it is more important to be a sympathetic and
self-conscious part of God’s action in the secular world than it is to
defend the positions of the past, which is a past that is altered by
each new discovery of truth.”[6]
From these disputes of forty years ago the Anglican Church has
answered the question What Kind of Church are we to be by saying: “We
want to be an enlightened denominational option on the North American
religious scene. A “prophetic” lever to pry people loose from the incrusted positions of the past.
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