Commentary, letters, and meetings are focusing on life after Lambeth 2008. From New Mexico to Europe to Pittsburgh, bishops are talking about the “now and
Episcopalians in The Falls Church, VA, who did not vote to leave the Episcopal denomination last December have stepped in to claim the historic name
… the struggle makes it a great time to be an Episcopalian. You can’t avoid tough questions, you have to know what you believe, you have to delve into God’s embracing heart of love and justice. We are trying to find ourselves in ubuntu theology–the theology expressed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu–that “I am a person insofar as you are a person.” In mutual humanity, we find wonder, love, and God.
Despite the fact most religious Americans are moderate or progressive, in the news media it is overwhelmingly conservative leaders who are presented as the voice of religion. This represents a particularly meaningful distortion since progressive religious leaders tend to focus on different issues and offer an entirely different perspective than their conservative counterparts.
What is important for Episcopalians is what the arc of the Methodist trajectory tells us about ourselves. Once the Methodists became so much like Episcopalians in terms of organization, methods, demands of membership, and a professional seminary-trained clergy they became just as unsuccessful as we’ve always been in terms of evangelism.
Today we remember Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth. In the Magnificat, Mary proclaims her vision of a new world in which the hungry are filled and the lowly are lifted up. Here Monika Hellwig writes that “the dynamics of the prophetic are in the creative imagination. A fundamental task of Christian spirituality is imagination.”
The bishops of Latin American and the Caribbean “call to the whole Communion to overcome the intolerance and rediscover the richness of our diversity. Distinct perceptions concerning the human sexuality are not essential to define who is or not orthodox. We cannot let the fundamentalism destroy the Spirit – who is dynamic and updates every time and every generation the God’s project for the world.”
Carey: The circumstances facing each Archbishop of Canterbury will vary according to the needs
of the hour. For these reasons, I believe, that Dr Rowan Williams should not regard
the advice he has evidently received that this matter [inviting AMiA and CANA bishops] is ‘fixed’ as necessarily binding
on him in the very different circumstances of 2007.
God created humans with free will. Christians must combine faith and common sense to forge a future that serves the whole. That doesn’t mean coming to agreement on issues that divide us. Often, people think of resolution in just such a way. They advance their position over and over in the hope others finally will see the light. Yet proponents of the other side have the same hope. We need to develop a larger vision. When will this be resolved? When will they see it our way? Maybe never.