I see that, in an Australian publication, the Rector of St Ebbe's here in Oxford and a number of other Evangelicals have endorsed Dean Jensen's comments. It has been claimed that one of them is the successor of the Rector of All Souls, but I'm not inward enough to these things to know: does anyone here know? -- With warm but non-evangelical greetings

It is exactly that kind of institutional resistance to change that Canon Adams was quite properly expressing anxiety about. And I suppose why we have been encouraged to keep the issues raised by Windsor and Rochester reports absolutely separate. But in all sorts of ways they aren't separate at all.

Tony Phelan

There are of course many gay Christians who hear the same thing -- I do not need you to be myself -- from evangelical voices! No point in denying that...

Tony

I must have not noticed this post before, but from my (no doubt appallingly liberal) point of view, it is surprising and a relief to see Hans Kng recommended here!

pax et bonum

Tony Phelan

There seems to be a view among inclusive Anglicans that Ruth Gledhill's gloss on the ACC motion is an exaggeration: can one of you sane conservatives explain whether (a) the earlier motion was anything between 'toned down' and 'emasculated', (b) the 30-28 vote with abstentions does suggest that there is not quite a world Anglican opposition to ECUSA & Canada, (c) the North American chuches will in fact be withdrawing from exactly the bodies they had already agreed to withdraw from, or (d) this 'expulsion' is so violent that inclusive Christians like me should start to look beyond the CoE for a home? -- Or at any rate will need to after 2008? Fulcrum seems to be a bit on the quiet side...

in via: Tony Phelan

Dear Fulcrum folk

it would be good to have a view from the evangelical centre on Archbishop Akinola's recent comments, on Canon Sugden's suggestion on Radio 4 about a week or 10 days ago that gay people in relationships shuld be excluded from baptism and communion, and on the AEA's views. Things seem to be running away in an alarming way.

in via: Tony

Karen, Jody, John R

This is just a brief post to say how encouraging I've found a lot of the material on your thread. I began as an evangelical and have moved on, and I've made no secret of the fact that I find quite a lot of the material that is promoted even here on the Fulcrum site about gay Christians, and even (most recently) about approaches to the Bible (Two Voices) repugnant or silly. But I find your thoughts about the journey really helpful. I doubt too whether toting a Greek and/or Hebrew lexikon and a concordance will quite do the trick -- and there is still a kind of expectation that lay folk will accept the word of their betters. (Bishop Rom Wright's last little book on the Bible, _The Authority of God_, ends by adding a last rule for interpretation which is that we have to go by the views of accredited church leaders; i.e. presumably Bishop Tom Wright!) Well, the academics disagree with each other, but there is no reason why we shouldn't read material that is not on the approved reading lists of the evangelical seminaries, is there? We can judge for ourselves. Last year, in my little parish chuch in Oxford, a group of us struggled through Walter Brggemann's _Introduction to the Old Testament_; it was hard going, but with the help of some professionals (clergy ranged between Sea of Faith and Anglo-catholic orthodoxy!) and the prefaces to the Jerusalem Bible, we got a terrific amount out of discovering what scholarship has known for years about the construction of the OT and the ways in which it can really shine out through the revelation of Christ in our readings. We don't need the experts to make a start, but we do need to be given the challenges that good scholarly and theological work that *doesn't* conform to the views of accredited evangelical leadership. There is nothing to be afraid of!

For what it's worth, I'd say that it's when evangelicals -- open or otherwise -- behave as if they believed the bible is God (which is what you seem to be saying, Karen, when you write 'God is the Word whether made flesh or made into the bible'), they are simply heretical. That has never been Christian teaching! And for that matter it is just not true that the bible is dead to non-believers, let alone to non-evangelicals! In the end you seem to be the one making the bible into an idol. It's *because* the bible is ink and paper -- and vellum and parchment and what not, it's because it has a material and human history, gathering from the time we call the exile with some much earlier material right through to the apocalyptic needs of the christian communities reflected in the last of its documents, that it matters so much to hear the Spirit making and re-making the way God is known among his very variable people(s). But in the end, in these last days, he is revealed to us in his Son. And in the work of the Spirit in the Church. Ah well, enough said!

Tony

John R, first: do I take it that you think it is orthodox to say that the Bible is God? No regrets there, but I think the posthaste joke  is excellent; and Karen: I guess I haven't met people like the ones you describe -- but the bible is ink and paper and tradition and interpretation -- a thoroughly historical object. But not one that should be treated with disrespect either. We make our lives of signs and symbols, and Christ himself comes to us in an outward sign! Not that I wouldn't put a Bible down on the floor... I found a paragraph in Thomas Merton yesterday, ending: 'The religious answer is not religious if it is not fully real. Evasion is the answer of superstition.' (No Man Is An Island)

Sorry if my long sentence last time was too long to make sense.

Tony