She caricatured it all right since she neglected the part of Romans 10:9 which talks about belief that God raised Jesus from the dead. I could say “Lord, Lord” about Jesus till the cows come home, but that doesn’t make me a Christian unless I believe it and act on it. If that was what she was trying to say she said it in a very offensive manner.

I agree that salvation involves more than the individual salvation (Jesus’ Lorship extends to all creation) but yes, individual salvation is hugely important and Paul’s Christology affirms this again and again.

Well actually, Chris, The ocean closest to Anaheim and the PB is the Pacific Ocean. ;^)

I am, of course, speaking metaphorically, FS.

Well it might be a good title for a movie-”Titantic tanking of TEC-Pacific style” or “Katie does Titanic-Pacific Style”.
Actually, the latter was crude; I apologize. I just find her words and actions so objectionable.

2 Timothy 4:3-4

Matthew 7:21-23

I think there’s a typo in the transcript.
It should read: “that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”

This should be a TV show:
Bishops behaving badly. Tune in to see what crazy antics our heroes, or antiheroes, well antichrists really, do each week. YOU won’t believe the INSANITY when you find THEY don’t believe ANYTHING!

The heresy here is the idea that “salvation” is exclusively the fruit of corporate good works. This is worse than Pelagianism, which at least called each individual to strive for godliness to earn his eternal reward. Schori’s idea here is more or less “no salvation outside the MDGs.” Pay your money, and you’re in! Martin Luther, where are you?

Kind of like the way they view the Second Amendment: There is no individual salvation. Salvation is only conferred on states - I mean the church - as a collective. Don’t bother me with what it actually says, don’t mention how every intelligent person construed it for hundreds of years, this is what I want it to say.

It’s all political, Mr. Johnson.

Katherine: Any moment now TEC will start selling indulgences.

muerknz: TEC sees no need to sell indulgences as Al Gore already has them available under the name “carbon credits.”

Peter C. - good catch on the carbon credits = indulgences. Not to be off-topic, but here’s the text for an evangelistic broadside I wrote last fall using the carbon footprint thingy as a starting point for evangelism. Maybe someone enterprising who can doodle can print these up and hand them out at GenCon this week??? (I can only describe the pictures in my head; I can’t draw worth beans.)

Doug

===

Title: “Worried about how to reduce your Footprint?”

Cover Image: A puzzled person (seen from behind) deciding between a Hummer, a Prius, and a bicycle.

Body text: By now you’ve heard about how you need to reduce your “carbon footprint” to save the planet.

· You need to drive less… (picture of someone walking with sandals carrying two bags and a baby on their back; picture of someone tandem cycling with two or three kids pedaling behind)

· …chill less… (picture of someone sweating and fanning themselves)

· …heat less… (picture of someone bundled in a sweater with icicles hanging randomly)

· …and it’s STILL not enough. (Picture of bicycles and sandals coming out of a factory that’s belching smoke).

Maybe you support a cap-and-trade system (picture of two people exchanging “icky carbon” for “clean bill of health”).

Better yet, maybe you support planting LOTS of trees (picture of people planting trees at the edge of an immense forest) because that will totally remove the carbon from the air.

If you work hard enough you can reduce your carbon footprint. Unfortunately, you’ll STILL have a footprint problem – the “sin footprint” (picture of person standing on one foot looking at the bottom of the other foot).

· You’re part of the problem- “ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – Rom 3:23

· You can’t reduce it on your own – “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” – Romans 7:21 (picture of someone picking up trash followed by his shadow littering)

Fortunately, God has provided a cap-and-trade system for this problem:

“Blessed are they
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.” – Psalm 32:1/Romans 4:7

(picture of someone handing Jesus a tattered paper labeled “sin” and receiving one labeled “forgiven”. Make it look similar to the previous picture exchanging “carbon” for “clean bill of health”).

Also, God’s system destroys sin using ONE special tree: (picture of a cross seen from behind with a multitude of people facing the cross and the reader – similar to the one of a tree being planted with a forest behind it)

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” – 1 Peter 2:24

All you have to do is “… humbly accept this word planted in you, which can save you.” – James 1:21b

muerknz, indulgences are exactly what I had in mind. Personal sins don’t matter so long as the collective does the right thing — as defined by the modernist will of the collective. Carbon credits are an excellent analogy, Peter C. As soon at the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from punishment springs.

And where did Schori get the idea that only Western Christians believe in individual salvation? Our Orthodox friends probably have something to say about that.

Katherine; As an Orthodox Christian, I must confess that we, too, have long been led astray by the heresy of individual salvation. But it is the fault of those who wrote Holy Scripture. They always have Christ and others saying, “you,” and “each” and such singular words, and David in the Psalms is aways portrayed as saying “I” and “me,” and stuff like “The Lord is “my” Shepherd, “I” shall not want…” Thank goodness that now in these “later times,” God has sent forth the Presiding Bishopess to save us from our errors! Silly me. I was taught that the fruit of salvation is belonging to the Mystical Body of Christ, but that becoming part of the Body was an individual act of accepting Christ. Why, I even thought that the Death on the Cross saved me from my sins. And I have always had a fear about “standing before the dread judgment seat of Christ…” alone, as it says in the Divine Liturgy. Now I know that that old gang of mine shall be with me! Kinda takes the edge off. Actually, I find it hard to comment on the sayings of this fool as I have no idea what she is talking about. The only philosophy I know of where belonging to the collective is a means of salvation is Communism. I guess, then, that I have been an “enemy of the people” all these years. What rubbish this woman puts out. Whatever it is, it is not Orthodox Christianity.

Don Janousek, you had me VERY worried at first, but I’m learning to keep reading in order to detect sarcasm!

I can give KJS a benefit of a doubt thinking she was trying to say that the Resurrection is the ultimate part of the story:

“But Calvary was a waypoint in the larger arc of God’s dream – it’s on the way to Jerusalem, it is not in Jerusalem.”

However, her use of “killing” instead of “dying” is jarring–Jesus was a whole and perfect sacrifice, not a murder victim.

I also twitch at the choice of the word “dream.” It’s too mankind-centered; dreams precede plans which precede action. A god who has to dream first isn’t much of a god. Genesis doesn’t say, “God dreamed”; God just gets on with it.

Bishop Kate fails to distinguish between a personal relationship with God and a private one. Indeed, the former is imperative; the latter impossible.

No surprise, someone else put it together better than Herself. Someone who’s a (ahem) a trained theologian…

http://www.zenit.org/article-26401?l=english

We might sum up the Pope’s thinking on the economy this way: Each of us must answer Christ’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” If we, with Peter, answer “The Messiah,” then that should direct the axis of our life. Our most important reality must be the truth of our relationships. In this way, we can understand how the law and prophets could be summed up in Christ’s two commandments: That we love God totally, and love our neighbors as ourselves. Thus we are able to speak of “caritas in veritate.”

Once we accept Christ and these two commandments, we can no longer ask Cain’s question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Instead, we must realize that our exercise of freedom cannot take the form of simply amassing the most wealth that we can. Rather, all that we do in freedom must reflect that reality and all our actions must take into account the effects of those actions on others. We need look no further than the first two words of the “Our Father,” which Pope Benedict XVI quotes at the end of this document to see the common human family to which we belong.

Ah! Catholicism… the both/and religion!

I just happened to realize that I was wrong in saying only Communism believes in salvation through the collective. I completely forgot about the Borg. Must be quite a mess out there at this GenCon with all those tubes, cables and wires about. And don’t forget - resistance is futile. KJS - “The Presiding Borg.” Has a nice futuristic ring to it, doncha think?

I now look forward to the next KJS-Vatican phone conversation! Maybe with the Congregation of the Evangelization of Peoples (née Propaganda Fide).

“It’s all political, Mr. Johnson”

JM nailed it in the first 3 words…..

KJS has been assimilated by the Borg.

Just noticed Don Janousek beat me to it.

Clarity, sweet clarity.

Firstly, the Presiding Bishop of TEC should be very wary of using the word “heresy” in any context whatsoever.

Secondly, I think she was actually having a go at the Baptists and the “altar call” - the notion of “Ask Jesus into your heart, say the Sinner’s Prayer, and that’s it! Eternal salvation, eternal security!”

But the Evangelicals are looking at this notion and saying “No, there’s more to the Christian life than that.” There’s some interesting discussion going on on various flavours of Reformed/Baptist/Evangelical blogs about this very thing, Katherine.

Now, certainly we are all part of the Body - no part can say to another “I don’t need you.” And certainly salvation is not a matter of “Me and my Bible all on our own” or “I’m saved, you’re on your own, mate.” And if she means that American Christianity has seemed to be heading down the path of what is epitomised in the worship described as the “Jesus is my boyfriend” type of church music, then she has a point.

However, the trouble is that nobody really trusts that she is speaking of spiritual matters, but trying to say that everyone in TEC has to remain in TEC and can’t leave TEC and is bound to TEC forever and always and that the one true path is that of TEC and Accept No Substitutes. This possibly maybe has something to do with all the lawsuits, but who can tell?

WHATEVER the ocean, I just hope the sharks are hungry.

And I’m speaking metaphorically.

Sharks = Satan.

Fuinseoig, I agree with you and others that the Church is not optional. The altar call and “me and my Bible all on our own” are not sufficient for living the Christian life other than real deathbed conversions. But this isn’t really the battle ECUSA has been fighting. With what’s happened over the last few years, who could think the major choice is between liberal liturgical and Bible Baptist? In the context of the Anglican wars, her statement is far more likely to be straight heresy.

Chris,

That isn’t cold sea water I feel sloshing around my feet. The liquid in question is warm. Exactly 98.6.

In defense of the altar call, my Christian life didn’t begin until I virtually answered an altar call at a Billy Graham crusade I was watching on television one night(I later got a chance to actually walk the aisle when Dr. Graham came to town a few years later). As I’ve mentioned probably way too many times before, the reason for that was that the corporate Christian entity in which I had spent my entire life taught me nothing at all about Jesus.

“Altar calls” have many names and many circumstances. I guess there are as many different ways to come to this place as there are people who come to it. But come to it we must and when all is said and done, we all come by ourselves.

According to Mrs. Schori’s own words, Jesus was wrong to expect the disciples to recite “a specific verbal formula about” Him(”Who do you SAY that I am?) and Peter was wrong to utter “a specific verbal formula about” Christ in response(”Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”).

The use of the term killing is very telling to me. It shows me that KJS calls the whole atonement for our sins by death on the Cross in question. As I believe it is a common argument of those against atonement theology that Christ did not willingly die but was killed for political reasons.

Chris, I’m not against altar calls of any description. But I think the suggestion that what Schori is speaking against here is an individual evangelical experience is not what she’s saying. She’s saying that there is no salvation for individuals no matter whether they answer a Billy Graham altar call or come to faith in the course of living in the community of the church. Whether we are evangelical or catholic in our leanings, this contradicts all of the centuries of Christian teaching.

Very well stated, FW Ken-that JKS fails to distinquish between a personal relationship with God which is imperative and a private one which is impossible.

I am somewhat chagrined at people who tell me that they don’t need religion to be in touch with God-by that they mean organized religion. I felt that way before I became a pastor. People feel, I suppose, they can meditate on God while in their shower or at the beach, etc. Of course, private devotional time is vital in nurturing the spiritual life, but it should never obviate the need for regular corporate worshsip. Jesus himself took time to commune with his Father, but he also had a community. If people don’t have some sort of community they worship and pray with they are missing a big part of Christianity. That’s why in part Jesus gathered disciples-he didn’t mean his community to be a one man/one woman endeavor. I often find when people who tell me that organized religion is not necessary, they cannot name any spiritual disciplines that they engage in. They certainly aren’t reading the Bible or praying regularly They just think nice thoughts about God. This is not true of all, but of many. Of course, I understand people being disenchanted with organized religion which is made up of faulty individuals, and if I were a member of TEC I would be very disenchanted with it and probably wouldn’t feel like going to services either.

I have been told that Paganism is the fastest growing type of faith in America. I think it’s actually some type of Gnosticism. People do their own thing-adding a pinch of this and a pinch of that. “Phil” has a nice comment about individualistic faith on the SFIF site in the thread about KJS’s opening address to GC.

Grace and peace to you in the Lord Jesus Christ

Absolutely, Katherine. I think that’s precisely what the Presiding Bishop is driving at.

What KJS appears to be saying, IMHO, is that one cannot have a personal relationship with Christ because there is no such thing as personal salvation. Which, of course, goes directly contrary to 2,000 years of Christian teaching. Also, Christian teaching has always been that Christ came into the world to GIVE his life “as a ransom for many,” and KJS’s description of the Crucifixion as a “killing” also negates this teaching. But, God is napping under the Yum-Yum tree dreaming about the world the collectivists are going to create for him, so what the hey?

Just a timely reminder why all your jack belongs to TEC. Cause without her supreme benevolence in allowing you to approach the Great and Powerful you would be toast. Today the silver tommorow your souls if you don’t realize your puny whinings are without merit unless the TEC so grants it.

I don’t understand the “dreaming” bit. Is she trying to channel Martin Luther King? King, however, said he had a dream-not that God has a dream. I am not thinking of any pertinent Bible passages that mention God’s dream. God’s plan-yes, not God’s dream. This seeme to be one of her favorite phrases since I’ve seen it used in other messages or sermons.

The phrase for Jesus’ crucifixion being a killing rings oddly with me too. Of course he was killed, but Jesus also said that he gave his life-nobody took it from him.

And an another note, I get the sense that the PB wouldn’t be a big fan of a literal resurrection either, but rather it was a spiritual experince of his presence that compelled the disciples to wrk towards a perfect social order.

You make a good point, Chris, that her God can’t seem to do much of anything without our help. Some people (and she may be one of them) are in actuality funtional atheists while claiming Christianity. They talk about God but for them it’s really ideas about God and positive thinking and social action that do the trick. God is just an impotent figurehead-a God in name only.

Don’t forget, where there is no need for individual salvation, there is no need to individual repentance.

I think this is the biggest driving force in her statement. Groups can certainly sin, a lynch mob comes to mind. But if the need to repent is limited to the group, then no-one need to feel the weight of his/her own sin. They can blame it on others, particularly their forebears. They can wallow about in a sort of semi-personal shame while at the same time hanging on to a very personal pride in their own personal rectitude. They can apologize for the actions of people they are so much better than.

Best of all, they can do their penance by going to committee meetings and joining task forces, and mostly by telling other people what to do and how to think.

I once asked our (Catholic) parish deacon a question that really needs to be asked of KJS. I doubt she would have any more of an answer than he did.

“Have you never wept for your sins?”

Danby: Good point on collective repentance for collective sins. It is in line with the liberal idea of group rights and group entitlements. It also leads to fraudulent “guilt” for sins one has not commmitted and fraudulent “repentance” for such “sins,” which makes folks feel all gooey-spiritual and righteous, e.g. TEO, whose members I assume have never owned slaves, “apologized” to African-Americans for slavery, who (those now alive) have never been slaves. But, awwwwww! Such “repentance!” “My fault, my fault, my most grevious fault!” And all wipe their eyes and feel oh, so good inside.

personal relationship = heresy?

anyone tell Billy Graham?

What fascinating “heresies” you can come up with when you ditch revelation.

And all this “dreaming god” stuff is making me think TEc has added Morpheus to the pantheon of Priapus, Moloch, and Mammon (h/t to Zach Frey for that formulation).

“How will we insist that this Domestic and
Foreign Missionary Society remember that God’s mission is our reason for
existence, and THAT HAS MOST TO DO WITH LOVING OUR NEIGHBORS.” (caps mine.)

What ever happened to the first commandment? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. Matthew 22:37,38 BCP p. 319

“…insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus.”

Oh yes, horrid, nasty, little things, those creeds.

Well, the gloves have come off, haven’t they?

And BTW, I hate you, Don Janousek, for scooping everyone else with that Borg comment (by “everyone else” I mean me.)

This will be my last response to you, TUAD. I will no longer read your posts either. IMO, you are a baiting troll and the person that powers this site knows that. :^) You are also redundant, although perhaps a kind parent, friend and spouse, and I pray Jesus the Lord will give you just what you need.

Yes, I expect KJS did have a calling. So? I am not debating women’s ordination although I know you’d love to. :^) There are also men ordained who are not conservative Christians. In addition, from what I can gather KJS never served as a Senior Pastor of a church. I have several times and I think have been ordained for longer than she has. So in those respects alone were I an Episcopal priest I would possibly be more qualified to be Bishop that she is. :^) I have no desire to be an Episcopal Bishop or any other Bishop. I would also think it would be clear from my posts here that there are major areas of disagreement I have with KJS, and that I am much more traditional in my faith than she is.

Grace and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Attention All Posters: When I compared KJS and her minions to the Borg, I was using information I obtained as a result of a Vulcan mind-meld with The Little Myrmidon. Just so you all know. (Love me again now, TLM?)

FenelonSpoke: “Yes, I expect KJS did have a calling. So?”

The “so” is remarkably simply. In previous discussions you have inevitably referenced your “calling” as being the reason why you’re a pastorette. Which is understandable because Scripture and Church history don’t support ordaining women to the pastorate and they don’t support or confirm a woman hearing or feeling a “call” to the pastorate.

Yet you always defend your being a pastorette as having heard a “call”. A “call” which can’t be validated with Scripture or Church history. So PBess KJS, who’s been under a lot of criticism on this thread, can give the exact same defense as you do. And so can +VGR too.

Subjectively hearing an unvalidated “call” has caused great damage to the Church.

“In addition, from what I can gather KJS never served as a Senior Pastor of a church. I have several times and I think have been ordained for longer than she has.”

I feel sorry for the flocks. They were guided by someone who just felt a “calling” and thought that was sufficient.

FYI, go to this MCJ thread and read my rebuttal to your criticisms of Bishop Wantland.

One big, big, big, problem with accepting as valid, the notion of collective guilt, is that it is also the moral justification for blood feuds.

muerknz sez:
Katherine: Any moment now TEC will start selling indulgences.

They already do, muerknz; it is called the Baptismal Covenant. And as long as you are a dues-paying member, you are covered for life!

This is so incredibly sad, but oh so predictable. A personal relationship to Jesus Christ can be a frightening proposition. Christ the Lord did everything for us. Might He require us to do something in return ? Might we be required to take some sort of religion seriously ? How can we be good High Church Unitarians if we are required to make choices ? How can we be Deistic Elitists if this inconvenient Jesus the Christ died and rose for us,
not as an ambiguous rainbow arc of declining apostasy, but, our very unambigous Lord and Savior ?
What person who calls himself or herself a Christian can hear this .. and yet abide in the midst of this unambigous denial of the basic tenets of the Faith ?

FenelonSpoke: “I don’t understand the “dreaming” bit.”

That’s easy, it’s a reference to the location of the convention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wI6uAOHzvo&feature=related

“In his home at Rlyeh, dead Crhulhu lies dreaming….”

That is what she reminds me of with this God is dreaming crappola!

Allen, are you just now noticing that +Kate has been taking on the “Innsmouth look” for some time now? Why do you think she was previously an oceanographer?

As far as I’m concerned, her speech was pure Ubuntu.

Peter C. - lol, I just read that story a few weeks ago. Any moment now she’ll be slipping into the sea.

Doug Stein-thanks for the great analogy about cap and trade. Surely, Jesus is our only hope. It was no get
out of jail card free. It cost. Sorry to see your church turn into such a circus. Let us all pray for one another. Its fun to be cynical. But,oh God, help us all.
Easy to write in cyber space, hard to live in the world.
Didn’t God say- the world will make you suffer, but be
brave, I have overcome the world? We only overcome in
Him. From someone who has failed and sinned more times
than I want to remember, keep the faith, think on those things that are honorable, don’t believe the world which tells you to be self confident. I read once that faith is not confidence, but obedience. God help us,without Him we cannot love him, we can not even rebel against him. Surely, without self choice there is no hell. And to “be yourself” is to be in hell. Once again, thank you for that great reminder.
It did my heart some good.