{"id":10132,"date":"2010-10-09T23:37:19","date_gmt":"2010-10-10T03:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=10132"},"modified":"2010-10-09T23:37:19","modified_gmt":"2010-10-10T03:37:19","slug":"the-diocese-of-new-westminster-has-a-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/the-diocese-of-new-westminster-has-a-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"The Diocese of New Westminster has a blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

In one of its first posts<\/a> it asks \u201cWhat is \u2018Big Tent\u2019 Christianity and Why Should it Matter to Us?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

The answer seems to be a place where everyone gets along no matter what their theological differences; even, I suspect, their different religions:<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it. The very term \u201cChristian\u201d has been \u201cso torn apart in the battle-to-the-death between liberals and conservatives that there\u2019s no longer any point in using it at all,\u201d says Clayton. Indeed, I\u2019d add that there\u2019s really no place for words like \u201cliberal\u201d and \u201cconservative\u201d in the exercise of effective Christian witness to a fragmented world. We can\u2019t rehabilitate the word \u2018Christian\u2019 until we jettison our baggage of institutional dualistic thinking. Adopting these kinds of oppositional stances which stifle dialogue and over-simplify deep human concerns is not only absurd, but essentially unchristian. The inability to live with one another in a \u2018big tent\u2019 in spite of our theological and cultural differences is antithetical to the very Gospel we espouse and hobbles the work of the Holy Spirit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bishop Michael Ingham would be very comfortable banishing the term “Christian”, since he isn’t one: if the diocese didn\u2019t <\/em>allow for members to adhere to non-Christian theology, its own bishop wouldn\u2019t find room in the \u201cbig tent\u201d. Not a moment too soon, some of you are probably thinking, but a bit of an embarrassment, nevertheless.<\/p>\n

The article goes on to reveal the recipe for revitalising the diocese:<\/p>\n

\u201cit\u2019s high time for a more prophetic, more counter-cultural Christian faith\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The only problem is, in a typically grotesque piece of double speak, \u201cmore counter-cultural\u201d <\/em>translates to \u201cmore cultural capitulation\u201d:<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

[a faith] that is welcoming, inclusive, and validates all the gifts that the diversity of human individuals can bring to what are ideally messy, chaotic Christian communities: communities that spill out of themselves to engage our society and culture as followers of Jesus who push the envelope \u2013 or as Tim Keel puts it in his book Intuitive Leadership<\/em> \u2013 \u2018embrace a paradigm of narrative, metaphor and chaos\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have no idea what that piece of clich\u00e9 riddled nonsense means, but I can guarantee it does not contain an iota of anything that is counter-cultural.<\/p>\n

The diocese is about to invade the neighbourhood in its zeal to appear counter cultural, though:<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be hearing more about it.\u00a0 Our own diocese recently hosted an enthusiastic gathering of parishes where all of us were inspired by the stories about the birthing and nurturing of\u00a0 \u2018neighbourhood\u2019 initiatives. The day culminated in some goal setting and proposed action planning that have potential to transform parish life as we, as followers of Jesus,\u00a0 focus on finding new ways to connect to those around us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Having worked in large companies for the last 40 odd years, I have learned that as soon as institutional fixtures\u00a0 get to the stage of saying things like \u201cbirthing and nurturing,\u201d \u201cgoal setting\u201d, \u201caction planning\u201d, \u201cpotential to transform\u201d<\/em> and \u201cfocus on finding new ways to connect\u201d<\/em>, they have reached a state of mental torpor from which there is no return; nothing will get done and the perpetrators of such desperate banalities will quite soon be gurgling incoherently as they submerge in their own threadbare meanderings. A typical corporate executive whose incompetence has been thus exposed is forced to look elsewhere for employment; preferably employment whose prerequisite is not clear thinking – some end up as Anglican bishops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one of its first posts it asks \u201cWhat is \u2018Big Tent\u2019 Christianity and Why Should it Matter to Us?\u201d The answer seems to be a place where everyone gets along no matter what their theological differences; even, I suspect, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[519,2110],"class_list":["post-10132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diocese-of-new-westminster","tag-blogs","tag-diocese-of-new-westminster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}