I see it has a note on the RCL at the end. I look forward now to those English parishes which has people at GAFCON starting to use a common lectionary - indeed in many cases returning to reading scripture in more than one small bit in their services!

The Anglican Catechism in Outline has been highlighted again on the Global South Anglican site, 13 July 2008. The report is here.

It is the Final Report of Global South Anglican Theological Formation and Education Task Force and a fine resource for the Lambeth Conference. It was presented to the Global South Primates Steering Committee on the Feast of Barnabas the Apostle, 11 June 2008.

Pluralist

You ask ‘what criteria’?

My answer: God in Christ. It is the same God who has objectively spoken and acted in history as the Bible records it who speaks and acts, rebukes, chastens, saves and forgives in my soul. The same wrath, objective and subjective. The same love objective and subjective. The same gentle whisper which caused Elijah to cover his face and go out to speak with God. The word and the Spirit go together. In joint operation they graciously bestow experiential & vital fellowship with God in Christ: the God who is there: in a living relationship with all those who repent and believe the gospel.

Phil Almond

Anglicanism has a variety of statements about what it is about - it does not mean they are all enforced or to the same extent. Indeed, neglect and challenge from Anglo-Catholicism led to the Thirty-nine articles being reduced in status. The perceived need for a Covenant is yet to be fully tested as practical; to have something like this that is more detailed and then attempt to enforce it rather pushes Anglicanism beyond its limits.

Pluralist. I'm am sorry if my comments offend. I was not intending to make a personal comment. Rather I was saying that the study of the church from the point of view of sociology or anthropology or faith by psychology or evolutionary biology explain why decisions were made but do not determine their validity.

The question of how much liberals and evangelicals agree is an interesting one. some time age John Stott wrote a book with David Edwards called Essentials. David Edwards argued that the liberal position affirmed the faith of the church and that the evangelicals had added their disjunctives to this. On the other had their are leading theologians such as John Hick, Don Cupitt and Rudolph Bultmann who seem to challenging more than they affirm.

The need for the Anglican Covenant  is the need for a more comprehensive ecclesiology than "one holy, catholic and apostolic" . The position of the creed is already stated in the Lambeth quadrilateral and will not be changed.

David

It's not just a leap of faith, it's a leap of interpretation and dogma. It takes only a little biblical criticism to see how relative many of these statements are, and no one is required to take them up as a personal credo.

You don't take hold of Buddhist, Hindu or Islamic sources and treat those straight off the page do you? What criteria are you using, other than jumping into that one book? The Bible is history-like, but is not history, and it is biography-like (Jesus) but it is not biography. It is a faith document. My view is that the Bible conveys, in part and parts, traditions that lead to Christianity. It neither closes off, nor does it stand as a complete whole.

As it happens I have just written about creeds and credos, from a variety of perspectives:

http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/02/creeds-and-credos.html

Birinus

Although we use words like ‘conservative’, ‘liberal’, ‘anglo-catholic’, ‘evangelical’ for convenience I am never happy to do so because these are labels on the tin and I am much more concerned with the detailed stuff inside the tin. As I keep suggesting, what we need is a very earnest rigorous web debate about that detailed stuff with everyone taking part, including leading scholars, pastors and theologians. It would then become more clear where we all stand and what we all believe and do not believe, and consequently more clear to what extent we can or cannot present a united witness. At this point I only want to make an observation on your

‘the conservative position depends essentially on making an absolute leap of faith, i.e. is inherently circular and self-validating;’

I can only speak for myself and say: I have become convinced that the God of the Bible and the Jesus Christ of the Bible are. And like everyone else, I suspect, by nature I would wish they were not. By nature, like everyone else, I would wish that either there was no god at all or that he was a very different god to the God of the Bible. That he was not the great and terrible God, the great and dreadful God that the Bible gives us. That he did not view sin so seriously that it deserves eternal punishment. That he has not used language like ‘Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink of it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them’. That he has not chosen from all eternity to save only some and leave the rest, possibly including those dear to me, in their sins to face his judgment and punishment. I only believe in this God and this Jesus Christ because I can do no other; it is not a leap of faith, but a conviction impressed on me from outside. A conviction that convinces me that he is also the God of all grace and of all comfort; the God whose love is so great that he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for sinners; the God who took man’s nature in the womb of the blessed virgin, died on the cross for our sins and was raised again for our justification; the God who breathes life into our dead souls.

Phil Almond

"Your analysis from the outside" addressed to me by David H.

Sorry to offend you, but I am very active on the inside - from thinking, worshipping, discussing,  attendance, involvement - a liberal position is on the inside, thank you. The argument I present is one concerning insiders and can only come from someone who is involved.

It is just a given situation that the progress of theology and its diversity means there are different attitudes to the creeds. As you, David H, seem to have a "Conservative" approach to what people say, especially Rowan Williams, I refer you to his statement that a covenant is needed and the creeds are insufficient because of the cultural and theological reasons:

But it seems, with the widening gaps about culture and theological understanding, we need something a bit more intentional than that, a bit more expressive of responsibility to and for one another. So that’s why I don’t think a credal focus alone will do it.

liturgy must be grounded in truth if it is to be more than wishful thingking. Indeed it could be a form of brainwashing if we do not continue to actively discuss it. The value of liturgy is that it holds up a model of spirituality which we may not have attained and in memorable and well chosen words brings these thuths home to us. The Anglican services at least remind us of of position as forgiven sinners and make us pray regulary for those in authority, aspects which nonconformists sometimes lack. The services show us an appropriate way to approach God which can not be learned by reason alone.

The liturgies embody a theology and litalurgical reform embodies prior theological and mood changes. I put the creeds in a different catagory as they were a virtualy univeraly accepted statement of where the chuch stood for at least 1000 years. This is the faith of the church. The church welcomes those who doubt or disbelive but such attitudes are not appropriate for clergy and especiallt bishops. decide which side you are batting for.

David

David

To some extent all liturgical uses are conserving, because they inherit and repeat. The religious truth in them is subtle, but they are not about history, nor science, nor alternatives. My best explanations for how religious traditions work are those which come from Marcel Mauss and similar, that is a social anthropology of binding rituals, the passing of tokens (the eucharist being a form of gift that becomes exchange and binds). I've written on this a few times (my website - Learning-Religion) and lately used the social anthropological approach to consider resurrection, as in a church discussion.