Episcopal Head Clarifies 'Heresy' Comments

From Christian Post-

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori released a statement Thursday defending an address she made last month in which she called individualistic salvation "the great Western heresy."

Acknowledging the national attention and criticism her comments from The Episcopal Church's General Convention drew, Jefferts Schori said the varied reactions came from people who weren't there or who read her statements out of context.

"Apparently I wasn't clear!" she wrote on Episcopal Life.

"In my address, I went on to say that sometimes this belief that salvation only depends on getting right with God is reduced to saying a simple formula about Jesus," she said. "He (Jesus) is repeatedly insistent that right relationship depends on loving neighbors – for example, "those who say, ‘I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars."

In her opening address to the General Convention in Anaheim, Calif., in July, Jefferts Schori spoke about the crisis facing The Episcopal Church as its members remain divided over the authority of Scripture and homosexuality and as its relationship with some Anglican provinces overseas is impaired.

She said the "overarching connection in all of these crises 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," she told Episcopal delegates. "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. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention."

More here-

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090828/episcopal-head-clarifies-heresy-comments/index.html

Our Collective Faith and Heresies 1

From Beliefnet -

The word "heresy" appears on this blog every now and then, and I have long wanted to do a series on heresy and heresies and have now found a perfect reason: B. Quash and M. Ward, Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe . I want to get this conversation started today. I begin with a set of questions:

How do you define "heresy"? Who defines "heresy"? What have you heard -- profound and absurd -- that was called heretical? Do you think it is important to point out heresy? What are the dangers in pointing out heresy?

This book is an edited collection of readable, brief, and incisive chps on various heresies: Arianism, Docetism, Nestorianism, Eutychianism, Adoptionism, Theopaschitism, Marcionism, Donatism, Pelagianism, Gnosticism, Free Spirit, and the book closes with a study of Bibical Trinitarianism and the purpose of being orthodox.

Hauerwas writes the Foreword and makes the following (always provocative) statements:

"Given the diminished state of the Church some Christians might even believe that if we could gain more members by being heretical so much the worse for orthodoxy." But, if orthodoxy "is used as a hammer to beat into submission those we think heterodox" it "betrays itself." So instead of a hammer, "orthodoxy is displayed as an act of love that takes the form of careful speech." There are limits, and not all stick to the limits: "orthodoxy is the hard discipline of learning to say what needs to be said and no more." And this one: "Orthodoxy shows why what we believe cannot be explained but can only be prayed." So Hauerwas.

More here-

http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2009/03/our-collective-faith-and-heres.html

An End to Heresy?

"Now Episcopalians seem on their way to almost complete rejection of the concept (of heresy). This is one of the major recommendations in a report made public last week by the church's committee on theological freedom and social responsibilities, which labels the sin "anachronistic" and suggests that ideally it be abandoned except in the historical context "of the radical, creative theological controversies in the early formative years of Christian doctrine.""

From Time magazine in 1967. Its interesting that the idea of heresy and trials for it was being rejected forty years ago. Another piece of the puzzle falls into place.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,841043-1,00.htm