{"id":13538,"date":"2011-07-09T10:12:11","date_gmt":"2011-07-09T14:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=13538"},"modified":"2011-07-09T10:12:11","modified_gmt":"2011-07-09T14:12:11","slug":"rowan-williams-thinks-western-anglicans-are-self-indulgent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/rowan-williams-thinks-western-anglicans-are-self-indulgent\/","title":{"rendered":"Rowan Williams thinks Western Anglicans are self-indulgent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/home-news\/archbishop-attacks-selfindulgence-2309762.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Archbishop of Canterbury has attacked &#8220;self indulgence&#8221; within the Church of England as he spoke of how his visit to the eastern Congo left him &#8220;wanting to be a Christian&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Rowan Williams said hearing about the &#8220;transforming&#8221; work of the Anglican Church in the central African country had helped put into perspective &#8220;fashionable sneers&#8221; faced by the Church of England in this country.<\/p>\n<p>He added that the dedication of Anglican workers in the eastern Congo has put into a &#8220;harsh light&#8221; the &#8220;self indulgence of so much of our church life&#8221; which gives people the excuse not to take God seriously.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Williams said church members had risked their lives to rescue young men and women trapped in militias in the forests of eastern Congo.<\/p>\n<p>The experience had highlighted how the church &#8220;mattered so intensely&#8221;, he said, and how if it wasn&#8217;t for the Church no-one would have cared for these young people.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It left me wanting to be a Christian,&#8221; he said, adding jokingly: &#8220;Never too late.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It left me thinking that there is nothing on earth so transforming as a Church in love,&#8221; he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He\u2019s quite right, of course, although I suspect that it was Christ rather than the institution of the church that <em>mattered so intensely.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Considering this, one might expect Rowan Williams to welcome with open arms the Anglican Mission in England, an outreach from Kenya, a country whose Anglicans also take Christ seriously.<\/p>\n<p>But, placing himself squarely in the camp of those who self-indulgently care more for the institution to which they belong than the salvation of men\u2019s souls, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archbishopofcanterbury.org\/articles.php\/2117\/a-statement-from-lambeth-palace\">he didn\u2019t<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From here: The Archbishop of Canterbury has attacked &#8220;self indulgence&#8221; within the Church of England as he spoke of how his visit to the eastern Congo left him &#8220;wanting to be a Christian&#8221;. Dr Rowan Williams said hearing about the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/rowan-williams-thinks-western-anglicans-are-self-indulgent\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[277],"tags":[373,2241],"class_list":["post-13538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rowan-williams","tag-amie","tag-rowan-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13538","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=13538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}