Justin Welby slams ‘false distinction’ between saving souls and doing politics – Christian Today

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The Archbishop of Canterbury offered a defiant justification of last week's controversial bishops' pastoral letter 'Who is my neighbour?' at a conference in Coventry today.

Mark Woods. Christian Today. 24 February 2015

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7 thoughts on “Justin Welby slams ‘false distinction’ between saving souls and doing politics – Christian Today”

  1. The messages that actually make religious and moral ideas plausible to ordinary people ‘outside’ may not include the reasoning that relative ‘insiders’ hold dear. The classic article linked below is about perception of abortion in the US, but illustrates why public figures such as archbishops necessarily defend church positions in ways unfamiliar or inadequate to their most ardent members.

    http://www.firstthings.com/article/1998/04/004-abortion-a-failure-to-communicate

    • Dave,
      Here is a first effort in 201 words:

      God, the creator of everything, is both terrible and wonderful. He is terrible in his holiness, justice and righteousness. Because he is like that we are all faced with his holy wrath and just condemnation because we are all sinners. He is wonderful in his grace, love, mercy and compassion. Because he is like that he has been born as a man in the Person of his only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross bearing the punishment for sin and to rise again from the dead so that all who submit to Jesus in repentance, faith, love, obedience and fear will be forgiven and brought into a new and living relationship with God through Jesus Christ. He warns, invites, exhorts and commands all to come to Christ. To all who do he promises the gift of the Holy Spirit who makes God and Jesus Christ real to us and changes us so that we become more and more like Jesus Christ until, before or after we die, Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead and those who have believed in him are resurrected to eternal life with glorified bodies to serve and enjoy God forever.

      Phil Almond

    • I like all three, but prefer the Apostles’ Creed to Phil’s Confession, and Phil’s Confession to Rowan’s Article. The Creed is more balanced– less patricentric, fuller pneumatology. The Article explains God’s motivation as love, although today’s love language for God is easily misunderstood. (Personally, I follow Luther and St Maximus in emphasizing God’s unceasing creativity as the impetus behind his love, since that creativity is both power and love.) The Confession is unbalanced and motivationally unclear, but it still has 299 words to go. As it is tonight, I find the Confession’s attention to the soul’s penitence and transfiguration refreshing.

    • Archbishop Welby is right to say “It is impossible to love Jesus Christ and not to care about the welfare of people in every respect” because of the “commands Jesus gives us: that we are to love God, our neighbour, each other, our enemies.”
      But he goes astray when he says “Proclaiming the good news of Jesus and transforming society were “indistinguishable”: They are literally the two sides of the same coin. You do one, you do the other.”
      Proclaiming the good news of Jesus should be the absolute top priority. Most people in the West would agree that poverty, malnutrition, disability, homelessness and other needs are harrowing and heart-breaking needs. Most people in the West are unaware of a terrible need they all have, regardless of their wealth, intelligence or health, which is infinitely more important than all other needs, the need to be delivered from the holy wrath and just condemnation of God because of their sins.
      In his farewell address to the Ephesian elders Paul was able to say, “Therefore I declare unto you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.”
      Sadly, I surmise (I cannot prove it and would be happy to be proved wrong), the majority of ordained Anglicans, despite the reference to the 39 Articles in the Declaration of Assent, do not believe that everyone has this terrible need, and so the note of warning, so evident throughout the Bible, including the terrifying statements from our Lord’s own lips, is, I suspect, in general largely absent, with some exceptions of course, from the preaching and teaching of the Church of England at all levels. A responsibility lies on all who do believe this terrible fact, both lay and ordained, to sound that note of warning in whatever way we can, alongside the wonderful news that God and Christ in their mercy, love, grace and compassion warn and command and invite and exhort all to flee from that wrath to come by submitting to Jesus Christ in repentance, faith, love, obedience and fear, lest on the Day of Judgment God requires at our hand the blood of those who were not even warned. A particular responsibility surely lies on those, such as Bishops and Archbishops who do believe these doctrines and whose speeches and writings find their way into the public media. It would be good to read a headline in the Times ‘Archbishop preaches about the wrath of God’.
      On the official Church of England website, http://www.churchofengland.org/our-faith/being-a-christian.aspx there is a statement by Baron Williams of Oystermouth which has a completely inadequate Christology, no note of warning, no mention of sin or repentance and a travesty of the New Testament doctrine of atonement. Surely something should be done about this.

      Phil Almond

      • “On the official Church of England website, there is a statement… Surely something should be done about this.”

        Please do not hack the CoE website.

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