JUDEO-CHRISTIANITY IS NOT AN EMPOWERMENT WORKSHOP

Truth should be more important than unity (Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, The Telegraph, June 26th, 2006)

In many ways, the United States is a study in contrasts. It is full of clashing colours and jangling messages. Socially and politically, it is very divided. The "neocons" have clear views on everything from Iraq to abortion, and the "progressives" have the opposite - but also equally clear - opinions on such matters. We would expect, then, to find these divisions reflected in broadly-based organisations such as the Churches and we would not be wrong. All of the so-called "mainline" Churches have this fault-line running through them.

Why, then, should I have been shocked on entering the Greater Columbus Convention Centre in Ohio, where the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (the Anglican Church in the USA) was being held? Should I not have expected tension, difference and debate? There was, first of all, culture shock. It felt to me like a trendy exhibition put together by some ultra-politically-correct organisation, with all the favourite causes of the fashionable prominent. There was, however, a more profound reason for feeling uncomfortable: it became plain quite quickly that this was not a conflict merely of styles, attitudes or even opinions but of two quite different views of religion.

One tendency that was informing the culture of the convention, in a major way, was to do with the diffuse religiosity of the present-day West. Such religiosity, in my view, has much in common with New Age ideas, vague as these often are, such as nature mysticism, or a sense of oneness with the world around, and pantheism, the belief that everything is divine: God is identified with Mother Nature and also with our own souls. Jesus then becomes just a special example of a god-self. Such a world-view is likely to be optimistic, inclusive and non-judgmental. It regards the world and the people in it as more or less as God intended them to be. Such people should be accepted as they are and, if they wish to be, fully included in the life of the Church without further question.

My natural friends in ECUSA, however, are those who want to hold on to the historic, Biblical and catholic faith as it has been received through the ages and in every part of the world. Such a view sees the value of God's creation and regards human beings as made in God's image but it also takes seriously what is wrong with the world and ourselves. We need to be saved from the consequences of our own thoughts and deeds as well as from the "wrongness" of the world. People need not just acceptance and inclusion but conversion and transformation. The work of the Spirit is not formless, vague and without direction, as some "progressives" would have us believe. It is, rather, that of witnessing to Christ, making plain the words and works of Jesus to us and glorifying both Christ and the Father who sent him. The Spirit is continually forming us so that we attain to the fullness of life in Christ.

Such a view of the Christian faith and of the Church that holds it need not be backward-looking. It should be able to engage with the moral and spiritual issues of the day. It can, for instance, uphold fundamental human dignity in the debate about beginning and end of life issues. Because we are in God's image, from the earliest to the last moments, there is an inalienable dignity that cannot be taken away. The abortion debate, for example, is showing us that change as a result of increasing knowledge need not always be in the permissive direction. A properly Christian view of marriage is desperately needed for the sake of family stability and the bringing up of children. Single parents can be heroic in what they do but it is generally recognised that a two-parent family is best for children. The prophetic books in the Bible and the ministry of Jesus himself enable Christians to give sacrificially to charity, to be involved in caring for the poor, needy and ill and to struggle for justice, compassion and peace.[...]

As Christians, it is our duty to pray for the unity of all those who call themselves followers of Jesus but unity does not come at any price and it as well to be prepared for the worst.