Straddling the Divide

Discussion in 'Anglican and Christian News' started by Celtic1, Jun 26, 2013.

  1. Celtic1

    Celtic1 Well-Known Member

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  2. Ogygopsis

    Ogygopsis Active Member

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    The UK situation appears rather different in that the Church is part of the government somehow. I don't quite get the full relationship. Here, churches are completely voluntary and have no official status of any kind, except that their clergy can be granted licence to perform marriages and can choose who they marry.

    Although new to the forum, I'm puzzled by the idea of just posting links to a website, without discussion. Of course, the discussion of same sex marriages and related issues are an unresolvable debate.
     
  3. Onlooker

    Onlooker Active Member

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    Well, the UK situation is certainly different. I don't think we would normally describe the CofE as being "part of the government" but it's not an inaccurate description. Mind, we are not a theocracy, and there isn't a Minister of Religion as there is in some countries with a national church, with the clergy paid out of the public purse.
    The CofE is the national, established church in England (though not in the rest of the UK). Many changes the General Synod might want to make require approval by the UK Parliament. Meanwhile (quid pro quo) a couple of dozen senior bishops (the Lords Spiritual), together with their much more numerous secular colleagues (the Lords Temporal) make up the upper house of Parliament.
    Because it is the national church, it belongs to all the English. This can lead to some odd situations (I am entitled to be married by the church even though I am no Christian, for instance – or at least I would be if I weren't married already) but it seems to be welcomed by people of other denominations and even other faiths because it raises and represents faith at the national level and maintains faith in the national debate.
    The Queen is both Head of State and Supreme Governor of the church, indeed these are hardly separate roles, but rather facets of the same kingship. This leads to some interesting outcomes. Constitutionally, the Queen is bound to act according to the recommendations of her prime minister. You will remember from Trollope that one of the results of this was that bishops and deans were appointed by the prime minister of the day (by recommendation to the Sovereign) like other state appointments or exercises of patronage. Nowadays bishops are still nominated by the Queen for election on the recommendation of the prime minister, but the prime minister recommends whomever the church's commission suggests: thus does the unwritten constitution evolve in curious ways.
    Some find it odd that the Queen as a secular person should have a place in the government of the church, but she and the church do not regard her role as merely secular. She is queen by common law and act of parliament (particularly the Act of Settlement), true, but she received the crown from the Church in a Communion service, a service during which she was anointed by Archbishop Fisher – just as Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king.
     
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  4. Ogygopsis

    Ogygopsis Active Member

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    Helpful. Thanks. It is also true that England has a very long tradition and history. Where I am, the oldest building was constructed in the 1890s for instance, with the first settlement from Europeans at about the same time, and really big influx of people in the 1920s, just before the Depression. The mythology or truth is somewhere between: they were poor younger children of the poor and middle class of Europe, lured by lies about a nice climate and truth about free land. Very much negative about authority and concerned about equality in rather radical ways.
     
  5. Onlooker

    Onlooker Active Member

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    Although there were presumably people there before the Europeans? People with a very long tradition and history? Ah well. Anyway, there are advantages in not swimming around in tradition. Fare you well in life.
     
  6. Ogygopsis

    Ogygopsis Active Member

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    Dene, Cree, and some other peoples. Cree are the largest group of indigenous people in Canada. Métis people are another group that developed out of Cree (mostly), French and Scottish who were part of the fir trade. By the time Alberta and Saskatchewan were created in 1905, the Métis had been around for some 350 years.

    As Dene and Cree, they've been here since the last ice age ended. The Cree did very well when they got horses somewhere before 1600, and conquered lots of other peoples. The native peoples took to Christianity but with some cultural differences. Some of us think it was racist for the churches not create parallel communions, like Ukrainian Catholic. The native peoples had the wrong skin colour and didn't have written language. The Anglican Church of Canada has moved toward the recognition of unique cultural heritage by the appointment of an Indigenous Bishop. One of the most influential things, in my opinion, is the way decisions are made. Consensus must be reached. No imposition of an authority's will. It does make some meetings longer, but the tradition also has a lot of shame and a tradition of considering the collective before self. Grandmothers are rather persuasive in that regard. There is far more to say, but this is a start.
     
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  7. Onlooker

    Onlooker Active Member

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    Yes, I can understand how different social structures can be influential (although my experience is that grandmothers can be persuasive everywhere!). Most of us in the British Isles, too, have been here since the ice age, as it were, according to the geneticists, but of course we encountered the Christian Church 1800 years ago or so (Celtic1 will perhaps say nearer 2000) and whatever we believed before has mostly been lost. I know next to nothing about the indigenous peoples of North America, but I would think their first encounters with the Church are recent enough perhaps for their ancient cultures still to be to some extent alive. And not just in social structures, perhaps? No doubt they had their own mythological understanding: does that, for the Cree say, influence in any way their approach to the Christian stories (I don't mean contaminate their Christianity, of course, but perhaps affect the manner in which they construct their understanding)?
     
  8. Ogygopsis

    Ogygopsis Active Member

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    That is a very good question. I had a discussion just this morning with a woman who is going to her home Reserve for a Pow-wow with her children next weekend. Her questions are about the synthesis of 2 traditions within native culture with her Roman Catholicism. What works, it seems is to recall that Jesus dealt kindly with all whether Samaritan, temple staff, Jew, Roman etc. -- Know where you stand, and keep firm, judging not. I've had this discussion with her many times and it is reinforcing to us both to clarify the boundaries.

    The common elements from her culture, which always seem odd to me with the parallels, is that they have a creator of all things, people who try to adhere to what they discern the creator advises, and some reference to a dying spirit person who comes back to life. They also spend a lot of time considering the wisdom of elders. It's not a synthesis, but a resonating.

    In practice, what we see is extensive focus in worship on singing, and an affinity for the specific communion part of the liturgy. They are more context to leave theological controversies out,and expect that people will become changed through liturgical participation. There's another discussion of sweat lodges that seems to also reflect that changed-via-participation. I'm not an expert on this, but it is what I've noted.
     
  9. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Was this when he flipped upside down the tables at the Temple, and called those wherein to be whoremongers and money-changers?

    Or was it when he called the Pharisees vermin and the spawn of the Devil?

    Was it when the Apostles said that those who did not follow Jesus were damned?

    What Jesus, Apostles, and Christianity are you talking about Ogygopsis?
     
  10. Ogygopsis

    Ogygopsis Active Member

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    Are you trolling Stalwart? or going after me where you can because I didn't buy the intolerance in the TEC disco thread? Do I hear a gong somewhere?
     
  11. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    What makes you think he's trolling? I can't see where he's said anything out of the way.
     
  12. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    I'm just disagreeing with how you portray Christianity, which is not about Tolerance but about the Love of God for those, and only those, among the world who follow Him.
     
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  13. Ogygopsis

    Ogygopsis Active Member

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    So if we already know that you disagree, why not address the topical substance of my comment? and not just your idea that Christ is intolerant. Which is well understood by now, even in my brief sojourn on these forums.

    Would tell this woman to not go to the pow-wow and offend the community in which she was raised and her relatives? How would you advise "straddling the divide"? This conversation has not approached two-spirited people yet. Would you have this women insult the community if an elder was two-spirited? Maybe put out the fire and throw the food from the feast around?
     
  14. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    Or why not ignore you completely since you require people to discuss issues on your own terms when your not even the OP
     
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  15. Onlooker

    Onlooker Active Member

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    Obviously I am not going to dispute with you on such a matter, Stalwart, this is a genuine question: Is it the orthodox Christian belief that God only loves those who follow Him? That He doesn't love the rest of us sinners? I have heard it said that the reason I am bound for hell is that I have rejected God's love, but not that His love is therefore withdrawn (although I could see the logic in that).
     
  16. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    "Many are called but few are chosen." Or if you wish,

    "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." (Ephesians 5:25-7)

    God loves loves everyone hypothetically, but those who accept him effectually. "If one loves God, one is known by him" (1 Corinthians 8:3).


    I thought the topic of this thread was contained in Celtic1's post :think:and had nothing to do with pow-wows. To answer your point, I don't know what you mean by a two-spirited person, but there's nothing wrong about going to a pow-wow and witnessing in a patient and loving manner to the truth of God in a group of unbelievers.
     
  17. Onlooker

    Onlooker Active Member

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    Thanks for this. I'm not sure I'm quite following you, but I understand you to say that the Orthodox Christian belief is that God loves me, but only hypothetically. Well, I'll have to live with that, I suppose. That those who accept him receive salvation I have always understood to be the assertion. Thank you.
     
  18. BrethrenBoy

    BrethrenBoy Member

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    Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat! Can you explain your view a bit more? Are you saying that God only really loves Christians? If so, I strongly disagree with you. God loves everyone, and desires that all would be saved. Jesus died for everyone's sins upon the cross; however, as humans, we have been given free will to accept or reject the sacrifice Christ made for us, but this does not mean God stops loving those who do so.
     
  19. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Sorry I don't really have a lot of time to debate this at this time, but in traditional Christianity God saves whom he loves, and loves whom he saves. The two categories are really one. Christ's death does not apply to those who reject him or don't believe in His existence or His sacrifice. The sense in which his universal love applies is that every man in the world can qualify for salvation. IF they love God, he acknowledges them. If they are in the Church, they are saved. Outside of the Church there is no salvation. These are standard Christian beliefs.
     
  20. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    I don't think I was very precise in the above. We need to remember that God knows who will be his before the foundations of the world were laid. So as we in the present moment decide whether we will be for him or against him, just so he has already set his heart on those who will be his.

    God has offered his love to all men and has offered us the route to glory, via Himself, and so those who take his offer and become part of the Body of Christ, are His.