The first is the need for the Church to grow in numbers, and in spiritual depth. I am in the middle of planning, with my colleagues, a long-term program of evangelization which will involve three or four missions a year across the diocese, covering the entire diocese every five years. In each of those, both bishops will live in the area of work and two years will have been spent in preparation. We are trying to avoid an “up with the rocket down with the stick” approach, and going rather for a steady-state push that does not exhaust people but leads to a cultural change that says it is normal for us to share our faith. So that would be one thing.
Secondly, for that to happen in this area it has got to be clear that the Church is working effectively with those on the edge. The biggest issues we face at the moment are around loan sharking and its consequent evils, and very high youth unemployment. It would be really wonderful to see headlines about the churches’ contribution to facing these social issues. In terms of the local economy we are quite a major employer, and because of our huge number of extremely old buildings (one of our churches has been in continual use since A.D. 640 and many since the 10th or 11th century) we are able to generate significant employment when we can find the funds to do work on our churches.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops
Posted November 9, 2012 at 9:30 am
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The URL for this article is http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/45966/
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2. this is not my name wrote:
Of course, I am not talking about refusing to love. What I am talking about is the matter of how we love the other in relation to the reality of the situation. Reconciliation is desirable, but reconciliation under anything but the Gospel would inevitably be a denial of the Gospel and a detriment to both parties. To put it another way, I cannot be reconciled to my “Christian” brother or sister, if they are not in fact Christian, and are not themselves reconciled to God through the Gospel. In that case, the most loving thing I think I could do for them would not be to treat them as something they are not, but to share the Gospel with them.
If the differences are over core points of doctrine, then whatever we agree on would be inconsequential. We cannot achieve unity through the agreement of inessentials. Unity can only be a unity of essentials. If our differences go all the way down to the nature of the Gospel and Biblical authority, then isn’t everything else just window dressing? November 9, 2:04 pm | [comment link] |
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3. driver8 wrote:
This seems to me to be quite a claim - and goes some way further than Our Lord himself. November 9, 2:39 pm | [comment link] |
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4. MichaelA wrote:
Not very much about the gospel or Christ’s saving work in this, although I suppose he is just responding to the questions asked. I hope that he has a sound theology, firmly grounded in scripture. November 10, 7:13 am | [comment link] |
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5. Phil Harrold wrote:
An interesting discussion at BBC-WORLD-radio yesterday. Justyn Terry, dean president of Trinity School for Ministry, is one of the panelists who expresses his hopes for the new archbishop: |
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6. Phil Harrold wrote:
Sorry, hopefully this link will work: |
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7. pendennis88 wrote:
To the extent that Williams talked reconciliation, in practice it involved excluding the orthodox in the global south and US who offended TEC. If Welby means to practice actual reconciliation, it is he who has a lot of work to do to repair the relationships and damaged trust with the global south primates and the orthodox in the ACNA. I hope and pray he chooses to do so. November 10, 3:51 pm | [comment link] |
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8. Cennydd13 wrote:
He can start by dumping the relationship between the Church of England and The Episcopal Church…...and that’s just for starters. November 11, 12:43 am | [comment link] |
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What if our differences are so fundamental and profound that we cannot recognize the other as Christian?
November 9, 1:38 pm | [comment link]