Sunday, July 29, 2007

It's Really Not About Sex

http://episcopalmajority.blogspot.com/2007/07/not-about-sex.html

[The Episcopal Majority] 29 July 2007--Just recently, the Anglican Communion website published a rather lengthy essay, "What is Anglicanism?," by the Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi, Archbishop of Uganda. [The complete text is now only available at First Things.] The essay is mainly a history lesson, in which the archbishop recounts the arrival of Anglican Christianity in his country, and the very real sacrifices made by many of those missionaries and by the newly Anglicanized Ugandans . (Indeed, the martyrs of Uganda are remembered in our calendar.)

In sharing some details of the founding of the Anglican Church of Uganda and its subsequent growth, the archbishop also weaves in another story, about what he understands to be the centrality of Scripture in the life of the church. Near the end of his essay, the archbishop makes what appears to be his central point....

While I would agree that the Bible cannot replace Jesus, we as followers of Jesus must be mindful of how Jesus himself saw the Holy Scriptures - as the Word of God written, as divinely inspired and authoritative. This is what sets Archbishop Orombi's approach to the Bible apart from that of liberal North Atlantic Anglicans: he sees the Holy Scriptures as Jesus saw them. Liberal North Atlantic Anglicans, however, see the Scriptures as being purely human writings, bereft of a divine Author. Therefore, they believe that they can pick and choose from the Scriptures as they please and ignore what they do not like.

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