In Western North Carolina the Presiding Bishop Discusses Controversy, Faith and the Pilgrims Role

Posted by Kendall Harmon

“Vigorous conversation is a good thing,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said, “and not something to be afraid of.” She said disagreement is to be expected. “The body has many parts with different roles. That’s what unity looks like—people working together in spite of their differences to serve the people of the world.

“If everybody’s a little uncomfortable, I think it means we’re doing our job. We have something to learn from people who are most irritated with us.”

A responsibility of all church members, she said, is “getting outside our beautiful buildings” into the community and “speaking the good news” about Jesus who “is friend, prophet, fully human and fully divine, a challenger of the status quo and of being too comfortable, healer, feeder of the hungry and challenger of the demons who say there is no hope.

“We are a pilgrim people,” she continued, “and not allowed to settle down until all people find a home in God. I think that is the kind of people we need to be, to know we have no permanent home except in God.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

11 Comments
Posted November 26, 2008 at 5:31 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Larry Morse wrote:

I would be nice if I thought her words were sincere, but in fact I find them self-serving. The evidence is only too clear about how TEC gets along with those who disagree with it. I hardly need to review the evidence. Her words blow a fair land breeze; her acts are a bitter breeze off a cold ocean. I continue to be astonished that she is apparently unable to perceive the difference between what she says and what she does.  Larry

November 26, 9:46 am | [comment link]
2. Phil wrote:

Mrs. Schori continues to misappropriate traditional Christian concepts to suit her own agenda.  Sure, we shouldn’t be comfortable, and, sure, we should start to wonder if we feel as though we’ve settled down.  But, the Christian subtext to that is that we should feel that way because we know our real home is not this world.  Mrs Schori and her friends, in contrast, are eager to make peace with the world and encourage us to gratify our desires to the max, especially if those desires are sexual, and especially if those sexual desires deviate in some way from traditional societal norms.  In that case, we are not only to indulge ourselves, but the church is to bless and celebrate our orgy as we do so.

November 26, 9:58 am | [comment link]
3. Dan Crawford wrote:

Does she mean “fully human and fully divine” in the creedal sense? What do her words, all of them, mean? When she attempts to explain them, they mean nothing at all - at least, in a Christian sense.

November 26, 10:39 am | [comment link]
4. DaveG wrote:

Why bother to help anyone to find a home with God?  If all paths lead to the same place, and all ways are equally valid—- if morality is subjective and relative, there is no good reason to venture out beyond our doors except perhaps to ask others (suckers) for money to help pay for our clubhouses.

November 26, 10:50 am | [comment link]
5. A Senior Priest wrote:

Purest Pelagianism.

November 26, 11:05 am | [comment link]
6. Cennydd wrote:

Kinda late, isn’t it, Kate?  TEC should’ve thought about this forty years ago.

November 26, 11:45 am | [comment link]
7. dwstroudmd+ wrote:

ALL your unity ARE US.
Luv,
the PB

November 26, 12:25 pm | [comment link]
8. Harry Edmon wrote:

What happened to Jesus as SAVIOR from sin?  Again ALL LAW, NO GOSPEL.  Pelagianism in spades!

November 26, 1:19 pm | [comment link]
9. Jim the Puritan wrote:

Sigh, so many fine words; so little understanding of what God calls us to.

November 26, 1:55 pm | [comment link]
10. Bob Lee wrote:

Does “devine” mean Son of God?

November 26, 6:37 pm | [comment link]
11. Larry Morse wrote:

I read this again, and it makes me despair. There is something nightmare-ish about her apparent dissociation from the real world.
If she’s a pilgrim, I choose to be Sassacus. Larry

November 27, 12:48 am | [comment link]
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