Rowan Williams and sundry lesser clerics have decided that Ash Wednesday is really all about condemning consumerism and fossil fuels. Let’s hope the ashes they use are not the product of a carbon spewing conflagration.
From here:
Rt Hon Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury; Rt Rev Richard Chartres, Bishop of London; Most Rev Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales; Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh and leaders of the Methodist, Baptist and URC churches are among those signing Operation Noah’s Ash Wednesday Declaration.
[….]
“Traditionally, Christians commit themselves to repentance and renewed faith in Jesus Christ on Ash Wednesday,” said David Atkinson, Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Southwark. “We must live out that faith in relation to our damaging consumer economy, over-dependence on fossil fuels and the devastation we, as a species, are inflicting on God’s world. We believe that responsible care for God’s creation is foundational to the Gospel and central to the Church’s mission.”
From the Diocese of Southwark, of course.
Caring for God’s creation is important, of course, but they appear to have made an idol of it. Lord have Mercy.
What a contrast to Archbishop Eliud Wabukala’s (Kenya) Lenten letter which calls us to repent, not of our sins against the environment, but of our rebellion against God. His letter deals with the “false gospel” of agendas like the Millennium Development Goals.
It is posted here: http://www.americananglican.org/a-pastoral-letter-in-lent-season-201.