I ask because I'm not a member of the Episcopal Church, and thus
have no personal experience from which to judge articles like
this.
Reports
the Associated Baptist Press:
The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church called the
evangelical notion that individuals can be right with God a
"great Western heresy" that is behind many problems facing the
church and the wider society.
Describing a United States church in crisis, Presiding Bishop
Katharine Jefferts Schori told delegates to the group's
triennial meeting July 8 in Anaheim, Calif., that the
overarching connection to problems facing Episcopalians 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,"
Jefferts Schori, the first woman to be elected as a primate in
the worldwide Anglican Communion three years ago, said. "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 being."
Jefferts Schori said countering individualistic faith was one
reason the theme chosen for the meeting was "Ubuntu," an
African word that describes humaneness, caring, sharing and
being in harmony with all of creation.
"Ubuntu doesn't have any 'I's in it," she said. "The 'I' only
emerges as we connect -- and that is really what the word
means: I am because we are, and I can only become a whole
person in relationship with others. There is no 'I' without
'you,' and in our context, you and I are known only as we
reflect the image of the One who created us."
Jefferts Schori said "heretical and individualistic
understanding" contributes to problems like neglect for the
environment and the current worldwide economic recession.
It certainly isn't my job to pronounce judgment on other churches
(I attend a nondenominational
Evangelical fellowship). But I can only wonder at
people who gain their authority from the historic Christian
church while simultaneously trashing the doctrinces of the very
same historic Christian church.
