Thursday, August 6, 2009

Two thoughtful articles on church politics and Anglican social teaching

Two priests raise good questions about the questions that do and don't consume Anglicanism:

1) Tim Chesterton wonders why homosexuality, and not other global issues, becomes "the line in the sand." h/t Creedal Christian

"I have a nasty suspicion about the reasons why the Communion is not going to take a stand on these two issues of war and usury. I suspect that the reason has a lot to do with the fact that taking this stand would have an enormous cost for huge numbers of us."

2) Gary L'Hommedieu explores "Justice as Ritualized Crisis."

"The power of the liberation ritual in a surplus economy is linked entirely to a cultivated emotion of moral outrage, which is the signature of the modern Left in an era when no one (not even the Left) takes Marx seriously. Ideology today is all attitude--an alchemy of badgering and name-calling."

Reading both of these well reasoned pieces, which agree in some places and diverge in others, has me once again wondering about the viability of Anglicanism. Is this branch of Christianity simply a cultural chaplaincy with no coherent Christian message? Is it all style and no substance? As one of my lay leaders asked from the pulpit last Sunday,

"What is sin? For an Episcopalian? – bad taste? Bringing a jello salad to a potluck? Eating dinner with the salad fork? Preferring Rite I/Rite II?"

That might wind up being an epitaph for Anglicanism rather than a lighthearted sermon starter.

2 comments:

Undergroundpewster said...

The left has but one sin left to trumpet, and that is man's inhumanity to man. Unfortunately, in that rather Earth-centric secular argument, God is all too often left out of the discussion.

Right?

TLF+ said...

Pewster, right. And with God excluded, so much of "peace and justice" devolves into symbolic acts to degrade those perceived as "oppressors" - in other words, putting make-up on a pig called "revenge."