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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Sea of Faith - thoughts and experiences
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
I came across the Sea of Faith 23 years ago in the university town to which I was appointed. Two were chaplains at said university, one was a parish priest with a congregation of 6! and the other was a village vicar somewhere nearby. Oh, and another was a Congregational minister.
I found that they were all joyless, sneering, and downright deceitful.
They caused a hell of a lot of trouble in the town.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
That mirrors my experience of Sea of Faith: our parish has one couple who've been involved in it for years and they do nothing but foment trouble. Everything about the church is wrong: the time of the services, their format, the music, subjects covered at Sunday School, etc, etc, etc.
Latest nasty is to hassle the Archdeacon and Bishop saying the parish is anti-ecumenism! This based on the fact we "don't interact with other Christians" - a load of sh**e since the regular congregation includes people nominally RC, URC, and a few Quakers. Interacting with other denominations is hard to do when the nearest outpost of one is in a Big Town over 10 miles away and 2 out of 4 of those are on the brink of closing up.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I came across the Sea of Faith 23 years ago in the university town to which I was appointed. Two were chaplains at said university, one was a parish priest with a congregation of 6! and the other was a village vicar somewhere nearby. Oh, and another was a Congregational minister.
I found that they were all joyless, sneering, and downright deceitful.
They caused a hell of a lot of trouble in the town.
That's a shame. I hoped they'd been a change from the more mainstream church.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I came across the Sea of Faith 23 years ago in the university town to which I was appointed. Two were chaplains at said university, one was a parish priest with a congregation of 6! and the other was a village vicar somewhere nearby. Oh, and another was a Congregational minister.
I found that they were all joyless, sneering, and downright deceitful.
They caused a hell of a lot of trouble in the town.
That's a shame. I hoped they'd been a change from the more mainstream church.
A shame indeed.
I haven't encountered any who were 'joyless, sneering, and downright deceitful', but quite the opposite.
There are certainly people like Cupitt who have given up God, but many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA but continue, in Robin Myers' words, to 'follow Jesus rather than worshiping Christ', in a non-dogmatic environment, and where each can relate to the God of their understanding..
GG
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Hmm. I suppose it could work for some people. TBF I don't consciously know any Sea of Faith people, but would you count someone like (+) Richard Holloway? Read his memoir Leaving Alexandria with high hopes, as it had been so widely praised, but the further I read into it, the more irritating I found it. Took me a bit of thinking to realise why: it all seemed to be me-me-me; almost a disillusionment with God because he had not managed to be precisely the God that the author would have liked him to be. Rather sad really.
[ 27. May 2016, 20:59: Message edited by: Albertus ]
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA
Which isn't in the creeds and wasn't formulated before Calvin.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA
Which isn't in the creeds and wasn't formulated before Calvin.
It was formulated before Calvin, sorry. I have posted earlier Christian statements of it here.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
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Bibaculus
Shipmate
# 18528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I shall do my best, albeit from my particular experience. It is very difficult because it's a part of my experience that went very deep, and is hard to bring to consciousness.
On the one hand, the sacraments, particularly the eucharist, is/are obviously symbolic. We are on the table, we are broken open and offered to feed each other, and we are in turn sustained in this mutual self-offering by the indwelling reality of God's self-giving love. Christ in us goes through those same processes each time the eucharist is celebrated. I don't think I would have been as alive to that process of universal, ineluctable metaphor without Cupitt's input.
On the other hand, I wouldn't have been open to its rooted reality in my being without the catholic side. The catholic side also left me absolutely persistently rooted in the connection to God, to the divine as a living reality and not purely as a metaphor.
Of course, as with anyone, it also matters when it was, and therefore where Cupitt was at the time. It was in the early 1990s, before he stopped celebrating the eucharist, and during a final flowering of something like orthodox faith. He was writing the Last Philosophy at the time.
Thank you for that. It's a take on the Eucharist that so different from the way I'd normally describe it that it's both challenging and helpful.
Would I be correct in interpreting this something on the lines that at the time Don Cupitt still felt and expressed this as reaching for a mystery, something greater, even though he was unsure whether the religious language fitted what he wasn't sure he could see through a glass darkly, whether there was something beyond or the glass was just dark?
The sacraments were symbolic of that. So a more catholic way of celebrating them enabled them still to symbolise an open question. A simpler, more conventionally CofE way of celebrating, would have imposed a much starker choice as to whether they re-presented what they are more generally understood to represent, or whether they no longer represented anything at all.
So in your case, this metaphor, as you describe it, has over time grown into ontological reality, but in his case, sadly, the reality has come to be that for him, there is nothing more.
Or am I completely off beam?
May I pick up on the tangent?
In the 80s I knew an Anglican Priest who called himself a 'Feuerbachian Christian'. He had a non-supernatural idea of God, but maintained an Anglo-Catholic praxis. His views seemed to be that ritual was useful, I suppose because it conveyed useful myths (myths are not untruths, of course), even if the myths had no objective reality.
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A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
...and, the uncharitable might suspect, this enabled him to claim his stipend and in due course pension, which were not only helpful but had a very definitely objective reality.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA
Which isn't in the creeds and wasn't formulated before Calvin.
It was formulated before Calvin, sorry. I have posted earlier Christian statements of it here.
Jengie
I'm sure you would know more of it than I. My point was that PSA is not universal Christian doctrine by any means.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I think PSA is a Dead Horse tangent on this thread. Rather than pick on controversial doctrines (PSA, transubstantiation, Biblical inerrancy) let's just stick to the creeds as the benchmark of orthodoxy - in particular the Incarnation and Trinity.
And the Atonement, in so far as the forgiveness of sins is an item in the creeds, without any theory as to how it works.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
PSA to me means prostate specific antigen I assume it has another meaning also ?
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
PSA to me means prostate specific antigen I assume it has another meaning also ?
Penal substitutionary atonement.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
There are certainly people like Cupitt who have given up God, but many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA but continue, in Robin Myers' words, to 'follow Jesus rather than worshiping Christ', in a non-dogmatic environment, and where each can relate to the God of their understanding..
I’m sure there are lovely people like that, but I’m worried that there is a presumption that “following Jesus” is different from (and superior to) accepting the doctrines of Christian experience. The Jesus of the synoptic gospels is just as much a theological presentation of the nature of God revealed by Jesus as Jesus in John’s gospel and Paul’s letters.
If you are “following Jesus” presumably you “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” which is a bit tricky without dogma.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
PSA to me means prostate specific antigen I assume it has another meaning also ?
Penal substitutionary atonement.
They sound to this non-medic as if they could be the same thing.
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
There are certainly people like Cupitt who have given up God, but many others who have thrown out doctrines like PSA but continue, in Robin Myers' words, to 'follow Jesus rather than worshiping Christ', in a non-dogmatic environment, and where each can relate to the God of their understanding..
I’m sure there are lovely people like that, but I’m worried that there is a presumption that “following Jesus” is different from (and superior to) accepting the doctrines of Christian experience. The Jesus of the synoptic gospels is just as much a theological presentation of the nature of God revealed by Jesus as Jesus in John’s gospel and Paul’s letters.
If you are “following Jesus” presumably you “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” which is a bit tricky without dogma.
Can you lot get your story straight? If I talk about doubts about the doctrines, I'm told that in Biblical language "believe" isn't about assent to propositions, but is about trust in a person, and now you're telling me that trust in the person of Christ isn't much good and I have to assent to the propositions.
Look, just make your bloody minds up and come back to me when you've got a consistent story.
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
My take on that is that 'following' Jesus is not only what it's about. Being a Christian is about belonging to a community, which theological thinkers have identified with Christ's Body. If we follow Jesus we will be led to identify with his community, his Church, his Body. You can do that without explicitly understanding the Creeds or any worked-out doctrines. But it's more than just being a Jesus-admirer or a member of his fan club.
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I agree with Angloid.
I never said Christianity was trust in a person, but if it is it is trust in God as revealed in Jesus.
And this contrast between following Jesus and worshiping Christ is odd.
Following Jesus as told in the gospels involves serving God, praying and accepting God's acceptance of us.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Can you lot get your story straight? If I talk about doubts about the doctrines, I'm told that in Biblical language "believe" isn't about assent to propositions, but is about trust in a person, and now you're telling me that trust in the person of Christ isn't much good and I have to assent to the propositions.
Look, just make your bloody minds up and come back to me when you've got a consistent story.
For once, I don't think that's a fair accusation. Who is 'you lot' here? It may be a fair comment to say that some people on these boards are saying one thing and some another, but who said all shipmates were unanimous about everything? They aren't about anything else. It's an unreasonable expectation to expect them to be on this.
It's only a fair accusation if you can point to an individual shipmate and say he or she is inconsistent, and 'inconsistent' is not even the same thing as 'nuanced'.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
So who's Christianity is the real one? The ones who say it's about following a person, or the ones who say it's about assenting to particular propositions? Try explaining it as if to someone who doesn't really get nuance, because lots of people don't, and I also thought it was for everyone.
I just feel like someone's got me at whichever way I turn.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Is this any help?
1. Assume the real quest is to find out who God is rather than what other people say about him.
2. Start with Col 1:15, "He (i.e. Jesus) is the image of the invisible God ...".
3. Read the gospels and get an impression of who you are meeting there, what he is like etc.
4. Ignore for this purpose any faffle about textuality, Q etc etc etc. For this purpose, that's a distraction (yes, I can hear the squeals of the clever, but don't listen to them).
5. Only after that, read Acts, the epistles etc to find out how the first generation or so interpreted everything.
6. Belong to a community of others on the journey, whether the RCC, the CofE, a Fresh Expression etc.
7. Despite that reach and live from your own faith. Don't worry too much if it seems everyone says something different. They're not usually as different as they sound, but it isn't them we're called to put our trust in anyway. Use what helps and ignore what hinders.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I haven’t knowingly had any first hand experience of Sea of Faithers. However yonks ago I did a course on Modern Theology with a nice feminist Quaker and we spent a week or two studying Cupitt.
What I remember vividly was his assertion, as I remember it, “Modern man (sic) demands autonomy”.
At the time I thought that whatever they demand, what men and women really want is to be loved and wanted.
The penny has just dropped that this was the era of Thatcherism and it fits in very neatly. Individual autonomy is the main criterion for action. The slogan of “choice” is a fig leaf for dismantling equably available social provision.
I demand my autonomy to buy my council flat and stuff those in housing need for whom the pool of social housing is irreversibly diminished.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
... What I remember vividly was his assertion, as I remember it, “Modern man (sic) demands autonomy”. ...
Isn't that also what Milton's Satan demanded?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
That's often the problem with liberal theologians (not all of them by any means). They might explain away traditional doctrine to almost nothing, but often cling to extremely conservative political views (and sometimes liturgical ones too). That's why I wish there was some alternative label for those of us who are often described as 'liberal catholic'.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Not sure if this is the right place for this, but Bishop John Shelby Spong will be at Carrs Lane Church in Birmingham in late October, and at Maidenhead Methodist Church the following day. Some Shippies might be interested in attending these events, and a bit of feedback afterwards would be good.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
If he is attending, doing the preaching, or leading a service, I'd enjoy reading a mystery worship report. Hint hint. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Not sure if this is the right place for this, but Bishop John Shelby Spong will be at Carrs Lane Church in Birmingham in late October, and at Maidenhead Methodist Church the following day. Some Shippies might be interested in attending these events, and a bit of feedback afterwards would be good.
There seems to be an extra "http" in your link. Perhaps a kindly host might fix it.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
It seems the bishop is going to be giving lectures to promote his new book rather than leading worship as such.
Yes, the above link is causing me problems. If that's also true for you, you can just go to the Progressive Christianity Network and click on 'Events'. The bishop's appearances are given on page 2. You'll see that there's a new venue on his itinerary now - St Mattias' Church in Malvern.
[ 19. July 2016, 00:43: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
It seems the bishop is going to be giving lectures to promote his new book rather than leading worship as such.
Really? I am surprised!
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Well, I heard him speak some years ago in Colchester. To be fair, it was a book-promoting tour, but I felt that he was very good at promulgating himself and his ideas, while resistant to meaningful questions and debate. He also began by posing questions which he said he would answer, but didn't.
You will realise that I didn't warm to the man.
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
If you want a very good analysis of why the Church has declined then Sea of Faith provides it.
I am not so sure of Cupitt's remedy. But if you get the wrong diagnosis the chances of finding a cure are few
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
AFAIUI, the Sea of Faith's general position is that most of Christendom takes the Bible too literally. But whether that's really the Church's basic problem is debatable.
If they're correct, though, the only remedy is to create post-literal churches. But I really don't think this would satisfy most people who want religion, nor enthuse people who (think they) don't.
Maybe there should be more post-literal options for those who want them, but IMO there should also be more diverse evangelical forms of being church.
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
My problem with any non-literal view of the Bible is that there is therefore no foundation to the faith you profess - however much or little you have in said 'faith'.
The vicar to whom I referred in my post above was first 'outed' when he was interviewed about the resurrection on the television by Joan Bakewell. She asked him if he believed in the bodily resurrection and the empty tomb and he said no. That's OK I guess because it's a typical liberal interpretation.
But then she asked if Jesus had been crucified; to which he replied with words to the effect of, 'Yes I think so.'(!)
And to the further question about where Jesus' body went, he replied, in a common grave with the other criminals or probably eaten by dogs!!
Now, I have a massive problem with that because he's not denying the doctrine and content of the resurrection, he's also denying the value of the incarnation because what does eaten by dogs say about God becoming man?
Now as to the non-literal issue, Christianity is not a philosophy, not a set of ideals or ideas; it's not a way of life or a community identity: it's very much founded on the incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth. It's not merely if Christ is not raised we are most to be pitied, but also, if God was not incarnate we are still in our trespasses and sins. There simply can be no Christian faith without a literal, actual, historical, living/breathing/walking/talking man who was himself also truly and properly God.
You just can't do it - if you can, why not just stay Jewish?
I mentioned above in my former post that I believe the people of whom I spoke were deceitful.
I don't mean that as a judgment upon their character but upon their words and actions.
It was Easter Sunday when we heard the man's opinion that he didn't believe in the resurrection and was unsure about the historicity of the crucifixion. Those statements set the cat amongst the media and ecclesiastical pigeons and there were letters to the local rag every single week for months - maybe even 2 years. Another local vicar tried to take the heretic priest to an an ecclesiastical court for heresy but the liberal Bishop would have none of it. Anyway, the deceit was revealed when I was asked to debate this gentleman on a local radio station the following Christmas.
I swatted up on the resurrection and also on the virgin birth which he was also going to give an opinion on. It was during this radio interview that I was completely stunned and lost for words when he finally revealed, after all these months of controversy, that he didn't actually believe in God either.
No objective being, no God with personality and existence, anyway. For him, as a member of the Sea of Faith, God was merely the highest expression of the human spirit. In other words, 'God' is the best I can be, the best other people can be.
God in man's image I suppose.
That was his deceit - that he had let people believe all along that he, as a Christian, was simply expressing a belief within the orthodox Christian faith that he couldn't accept a literal bodily resurrection.
Had he said on that Easter Sunday that his belief was that there was no actual God apart from his own spiritual aspiration, then I don't believe he would have been given the platform to speak from subsequently within Churches Together. He kept it quiet - and that, I believe, was deception.
I don't mind that there is a liberal interpretation of some of Christ's words and actions, but to deny the incarnation, to deny any literal foundation to the Christian faith is actually to render it a non-Christian philosophy.
In fact, to deny that Jesus came in the flesh is in the spirit of the antichrist.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
It seems as if the Sea of Faithers just have the other side of the coin to fundamentalists: they think of language as only literal. Thomas Aquinas certainly didn’t.
Makes me think of a congregation singing “The Lord’s my shepherd” or reciting Psalm 23, and Don Cuppitt comes in and tells them that they can’t sing that as God isn’t a bloke with a crook looking after sheep.
Or that because there wasn’t historically a man who went down to Jericho and fell among thieves, that means we don’t have to love even strangers as our neighbours.
I never thought I’d have every sympathy with Mudfrog.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
My experience tallies with Mudfrog's. I would add that - in the local group I knew - there was no recognition (and no desire to recognise) that Evangelicals could be anything other than narrow-minded over-literalistic Fundamentalists. There was also a great fondness for now-discredited (pr at least obsolete) 80-year old "modernist" theology with no realisation that things had moved on in Christian thought.
In other words they were often attacking straw men and tilting at windmills.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
venbede: quote:
Makes me think of a congregation singing “The Lord’s my shepherd” or reciting Psalm 23, and Don Cuppitt comes in and tells them that they can’t sing that as God isn’t a bloke with a crook looking after sheep.
That or that modern urban/suburban people can't relate to first century agricultural metaphors. I guess we don't know what a sheep is (reading about them doesn't count) or can't understand what it's like caring for a dependent creature (caring for pets doesn't count).
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
In the local [Sea of Faith] group I knew - there was no recognition (and no desire to recognise) that Evangelicals could be anything other than narrow-minded over-literalistic Fundamentalists. There was also a great fondness for now-discredited (pr at least obsolete) 80-year old "modernist" theology with no realisation that things had moved on in Christian thought.
What kind of dialogue had you been expecting anyway? I can't imagine there'd be much theological unity there. Maybe joining forces to raise funds for charity might have been preferable to discussions between people who simply couldn't agree.
The Progessive Christianity Network makes reference to a discussion around the CofE's heritage as a broad church, and there's a suggestion that the way to deal with this in the coming decades s for the CofE to move towards a franchise model. This would mean re-envisioning the CofE as more of a cultural and administrative network than a theological one. The congregations could then develop their own distinctive theological, pastoral and worshipping identities (with advice and assistance). This might be a meaningful way forward.
The Baptists are already closer to a kind of franchise approach, but ISTM that they have less to gain from allowing a complete theological liberty to their congregations. The CofE benefits from its core historical brand rather than its theology, but the same doesn't appear to be true for the Baptists.
As for the British Methodists, I can't see them giving up the circuit system for love nor money, but stranger things have happened.
[ 20. July 2016, 16:27: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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Mudfrog
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The Progessive Christianity Network makes reference to a discussion around the CofE's heritage as a broad church, and there's a suggestion that the way to deal with this in the coming decades s for the CofE to move towards a franchise model. This would mean re-envisioning the CofE as more of a cultural and administrative network than a theological one.
So the church would cease t be a church - a people of God, a holy nation, a royal priesthood - and would become a local municipal community centre.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Baptist Trainfan
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The Baptists are already closer to a kind of franchise approach, but ISTM that they have less to gain from allowing a complete theological liberty to their congregations. The CofE benefits from its core historical brand rather than its theology, but the same doesn't appear to be true for the Baptists.
Hmmm ... two comments.
One is to remember that the individual churches predate the denomination and are, by their very nature, independent and congregational. So it's not a matter of the denomination "franchising" congregations of different kinds, but of congregations deciding whether they wish to join the wider fellowship. This latter is already happening with many new and "ethnic" churches in the large conurbations. (Of course, many older churches that might wish to dissociate them from the denomination could face difficulties disentangling themselves from Trust commitments - but that's a legal, rather than a theological, point).
Second, the Baptist Union cannot "control" theology in any meaningful way. Indeed, it has been heavily criticised in some quarters recently for appealing to churches to follow a party line with respect to same-sex marriage. But one has to remember that it has no detailed Statement of Faith, only a very short "Declaration of Principle" which includes the significant line "each Church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to
interpret and administer His laws". In practice, most churches are fairly conservative - but they don't have to be and some are not.
[ 20. July 2016, 17:19: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
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Enoch
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
... The Progessive Christianity Network makes reference to a discussion around the CofE's heritage as a broad church, and there's a suggestion that the way to deal with this in the coming decades s for the CofE to move towards a franchise model. This would mean re-envisioning the CofE as more of a cultural and administrative network than a theological one. The congregations could then develop their own distinctive theological, pastoral and worshipping identities (with advice and assistance). This might be a meaningful way forward.
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Hardly "an exhilarating weekend"; more a really depressing report. The only cheering thing in the report is the information that there were only 30 people there.
"My own challenge has been to begin a theological underpinning for the above".
Not surprised. There's no sense whatsoever that the church is the Body of Christ, the assembly of the faithful, marching through time, something against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Garasu
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Posted
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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And to the further question about where Jesus' body went, he replied, in a common grave with the other criminals or probably eaten by dogs!!
Now, I have a massive problem with that because he's not denying the doctrine and content of the resurrection, he's also denying the value of the incarnation because what does eaten by dogs say about God becoming man?
While I'm broadly with Mudfrog for much of their post, this bit confuses me. Why would being eaten by dogs devalue the incarnation?
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
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Mudfrog
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And to the further question about where Jesus' body went, he replied, in a common grave with the other criminals or probably eaten by dogs!!
Now, I have a massive problem with that because he's not denying the doctrine and content of the resurrection, he's also denying the value of the incarnation because what does eaten by dogs say about God becoming man?
While I'm broadly with Mudfrog for much of their post, this bit confuses me. Why would being eaten by dogs devalue the incarnation?
Basically the dignity and honour afforded to the dead. Note the difference between the eaten by dogs scenario and the beauty of the care given to the dead Christ by his mourners.
The incarnation, the resurrection and the ascension all honour the human flesh of Jesus as well as his divine identity. The concept of humanity being lifted into the Godhead at the ascension is very important it seems to me. He affirms our physical humanity.
For God to allow the body of Jesus to be lost in the jaws of a pack of dogs removes that affirmation of dignity.
[ 20. July 2016, 18:08: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Honest Ron Bacardi
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Posted
quote:
The Progessive Christianity Network makes reference to a discussion around the CofE's heritage as a broad church, and there's a suggestion that the way to deal with this in the coming decades s for the CofE to move towards a franchise model. This would mean re-envisioning the CofE as more of a cultural and administrative network than a theological one. The congregations could then develop their own distinctive theological, pastoral and worshipping identities (with advice and assistance). This might be a meaningful way forward.
Linda Woodhead has been punting this idea for years. All I would add is that to be meaningful, surely it has to be meaningful to a majority of people outside the PCN?
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Garasu
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Posted
@Mudfrog
But God's already abandoned him to (shameful) crucifixion... surely being 'despised and rejected' is a critical part of what's going on?
Isn't there some heresy that says 'of course Jesus didn't really suffer because that's beneath the dignity o's the Son of God'?
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
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Albertus
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Posted
The vicar to whom Mudfrog referred upthread may not havee believed in God, but I'm sure he believed in the Church. After all, that's what paid his stipend. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Mudfrog
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
@Mudfrog
But God's already abandoned him to (shameful) crucifixion... surely being 'despised and rejected' is a critical part of what's going on?
Isn't there some heresy that says 'of course Jesus didn't really suffer because that's beneath the dignity o's the Son of God'?
My argument makes the exact opposite point to that. The Bible says that God did not abandon his body to decay.
And the heresy to which you refer says that his body did suffer but the divine aspect of his being didn't. Or that he only 'seemed' to suffer; that's what docetism means.
So we say that he really suffered BUT that after his suffering his whole body soul and spirit was raised - that is the affirmation of humanity within the resurrection and ascension.
Being eaten by dogs doesn't fit with that.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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SvitlanaV2
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
So the church would cease t be a church - a people of God, a holy nation, a royal priesthood - and would become a local municipal community centre.
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
The only cheering thing in the report is the information that there were only 30 people there.
"My own challenge has been to begin a theological underpinning for the above".
Not surprised. There's no sense whatsoever that the church is the Body of Christ, the assembly of the faithful, marching through time, something against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.
The issue here is, what criteria does a church have to fulfil in order to prevail against 'the gates of hell', to be a 'people of God' or a 'royal priesthood'?
In the CofE it doesn't seem to be about shared theological beliefs, or of course, a shared understanding of how to engage in worship. Theology is something that CofE people openly disagree about. Their liturgies and creeds serve a range of purposes, but not necessarily one of uniting a people to a common religious vision. That being the case, should the CofE's leadership insist that they do, or should?
Compulsion from on high risks hindering local flexibility and effectiveness in any denomination. Yes, I know that nothing is cast in stone, that these things overlap, and that churches change constituency, but after congregational consultation some CofE clergy, for example, might have an effective ministry to gay people if they could perform SSMs. Evangelical clergy might achieve more if they were always free to work with evangelical congregations rather than upsetting traditions in MOTR churches. And Sea of Faith, post-theistic clergy might be more authentic people if they didn't have to keep their beliefs out of the pulpit and away from their congregations.
I suppose the truth is that much goes unspoken in church circles, Traditions are often beyond scrutiny, and to admit publicly that the doctrines and rules regarding worship are, say, advisory rather than binding might cause embarrassment. But that does seem to be close to the reality, and there might be something to be gained in recognising this more thoroughly on a practical, organisational level.
There must be plenty of CofE theologians who could give the franchise idea some serious thought. I assume that the broad church model as currently understood is supported by careful theological arguments.
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