tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1767283245489379316.post6462249646171562413..comments2023-10-20T10:28:51.764-05:00Comments on Have Stole, Will Travel: Sermon - 23 May 2010WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1767283245489379316.post-18463037017826064742010-05-25T10:12:32.340-05:002010-05-25T10:12:32.340-05:00Yes, it is not easy. Having spent the early part o...Yes, it is not easy. Having spent the early part of my Christian life as a fundamentalist, I know from experience that it is far more comfortable. All of the answers are right there in the Book. It works very well so long as one does not examine the Book very closely.<br /><br />But when one is more open to a looser interpretation of Scripture (and for that matter the Apostolic Tradition in a form that is not quite so tidy as the R.C. Magisterium would have it to be), there is great danger that both Scripture and Tradition can become what we want them to be, a "ratification of our own prejudices and preferences," as you say. One can find much of this in the contemporary Episcopal Church.<br /><br />Example: This morning's second lesson at Matins (Tuesday of Proper 3) artfully dodges I Tim. 2:9-15. Contemporary mainstream Protestantism is very uncomfortable with this bit and either ignores it (as does the Lectionary) or writes it off as St. Paul in one of his misogynistic rants, or dismisses the entire Epistle as being by someone other than St. Paul, and thus (implicitly) not "really" canonical. None of these responses is satisfactory. <br /><br />But reading it as the inspired Word of God, as I do, has its problems too. Very tentatively, I would say that this is an example of an area where the Holy Ghost has indeed led us into a truth that remained hidden to the generation of the Apostles. Nonetheless, it remains part of the Story, one part of the "authoritative witness to the original Apostolic tradition." We must remain open to the possibility that this passage "may stand in judgment on the Church," and that we might be wrong even about something that has become as fully accepted -- and, I think, rightly so -- as the ordination of women, right up to the election of a female presiding bishop.<br /><br />It would be much more comfortable were it as clear-cut as the conservative evangelicals would have it. Or the liberals, who ignore such passages with a clear conscience.Castanea_dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13041129689248653381noreply@blogger.com