Not that there are any, but you never know: Welby’s irritating elevation of reconciliation to the status of demigod could end up driving the most mild-mannered curate to the brink of frenzied barbarism.
From here:
The Archbishop of Canterbury said all religions and their leaders must own up to extremist activities within their faith and examine which of their traditional teachings enable extremists to commit evil.
Rev. Justin Welby, the figurehead of the worldwide Anglican Church, told interfaith leaders in Sri Lanka that accepting responsibility is key rather than disavowing an evildoer as not a good enough follower of a religion.
Welby arrived in Sri Lanka on Thursday and first visited St. Sebastian’s Church near the town of Negombo and paid homage to those killed in the Easter suicide bomb attacks blamed on Muslim extremists.
Later Thursday, he met with Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim leaders.
Discussion among faiths has become more difficult in the last 30 or 40 years and in every faith, including in Christianity, extremist attitudes have grown, he told the religious leaders.
“And it is the duty of every religious tradition, for its leaders to resist extremism and to teach peaceful dialogue. So the first challenge to all of us is take responsibility,” he said.
“If a Christian does something evil, it is not for me to say ‘well they are not a real Christian’; I have to ask myself ‘what is within my faith tradition, our historic teaching that makes it easy for them to do that?’”
If I didn’t know better, I would blame Welby’s last sentence on jet lag, but I do know better.
Mr. Welby says, “So the first challenge to all of us is take responsibility.” Ironically, Mr. Welby’s next comment seems to remove all moral responsibility from evildoers. He says it’s not that the person is not a real Christian, it’s the fault of something or someone else. And yet:
I don’t see the writers of Scripture primarily trying to blame the “system” for the moral failures of individuals. And, as the above quotes show, Scripture repeatedly warns of false believers and deceivers. Mr. Welby’s comments are off on a non-Scriptural tangent.
As I have stated on previous comments there is no way that the ABC will take a firm stand for the gospel as his appointment is conditional on the approval of the civil government. As a result he is quick to worship the god of political expediency.