{"id":20014,"date":"2013-08-03T10:30:06","date_gmt":"2013-08-03T14:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=20014"},"modified":"2013-08-03T10:37:49","modified_gmt":"2013-08-03T14:37:49","slug":"the-strange-anglican-parish-of-gosford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/the-strange-anglican-parish-of-gosford\/","title":{"rendered":"The strange Anglican Parish of Gosford"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rod Bower, the rector of the Australian parish<\/a> has erected this interesting sign outside the church:<\/p>\n

\"Gosford\"<\/p>\n

The sign is in much the same spirit as the Richard Dawkins’ bus advertisement:<\/p>\n

\"images\"<\/p>\n

As of this writing, the Anglican Parish of Gosford does still believe in God, though – sort of; perhaps I should have said “god”.<\/p>\n

In its belief statement, the church doesn\u2019t quote the historic creeds because, I suspect, the historic creeds make definitive statements on things like Jesus\u2019 divinity, his bodily resurrection, the virgin birth and so on. They are not inclusive in that those who don\u2019t subscribe to what they say can\u2019t call themselves Christian. That is the point of the creeds:\u00a0 they nail down the beliefs that are necessary to Christianity.<\/p>\n

The Anglican Parish of Gosford prefers a more mushy<\/a> approach, asserting the existence<\/em> of a god of two persons – Jesus isn’t\u00a0included<\/em>:<\/p>\n

We believe in God, a divine presence, gentle and loving, the ground of our\u00a0being.<\/p>\n

We believe in Jesus, who demonstrated to us the love of God, and who urged his followers to express that love in their daily lives.<\/p>\n

We believe in the Holy Spirit, as God\u2019s continuing presence in our world, surrounding us in compassionate love.<\/p>\n

We believe in the church where people gather to learn about and praise God, to share our concern for one another, and to bring justice and healing to all of God\u2019s Creation. Amen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even though the parish is reluctant to include Jesus in the godhead, his purpose – perhaps to compensate – was one of radical inclusion<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019s central message is about radical inclusion, thus we welcome anyone to participate in our fellowship without judgment or forcing them to conform to our \u201clikeness\u201d or affirm our creeds in order to be accepted. We invite and offer all a place at the table \u2013 no<\/b> exceptions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jesus didn\u2019t die for our sins<\/a>, so we are all still in them; never mind, get over it. Love, god:<\/p>\n

Jesus came to show us the \u201cKingdom\u201d not to die for our sins!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rod Bower, the rector of the Australian parish has erected this interesting sign outside the church: The sign is in much the same spirit as the Richard Dawkins’ bus advertisement: As of this writing, the Anglican Parish of Gosford does … 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":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[1671],"class_list":["post-20014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barmy-anglicans","tag-anglican-parish-of-gosford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20014","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=20014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}