In this Issue:

Who will bear my light to them? Whom shall I send?

Archbishop Tutu and Bishop Sauls call Berea graduates to action

From the Bishop

News and ideas form across the diocese

People, Parishes and Passions across the Diocese

Part of the Heart of our Mission

Faith Matters: St. George's Day

Love First, Knowledge Second: Baccalaureate Address to Berea College Class of 2005

Commentaries

Reflection: As others see us

X-ercizing: What causes revelry?

Editoral: The 'use and abuse of the Bible'

Who's in charge here? One bishop's perspective

Diocesan Calendar

Past Issues

Editorial: The 'use and abuse of the Bible'

Dear friends,

I attended Seminary from 1975-1980. At Seminary at Salisbury and Wells Theological School in England, in our study of the Bible we were required to read a book by Dennis Nineham, called The Use and Abuse of the Bible. It was a theological study of the bible in an age of rapid cultural change (the book was written in 1976).

The title has always intrigued me because it seems that whenever a cause is to be forwarded, a position to be taken, an argument to be won, or something to be proved we fall back on the use and abuse of the Bible.

More recently in our Church History we are finding more and more the claims to “Anglicanism” and the call to honor, or fall back on, claim, and even uphold Anglicanism. The latest term is Orthodox Anglicanism — a claim that is made by those who believe that others are unorthodox in their Anglicanism.

Anglicanism has its roots in the Rule of Benedict who in the 6th century went to Rome and was appalled at what he saw both in Rome and in the church.

He withdrew into the mountains and gradually others began to join him.
Around 530 he moved to Monte Cassino and in 540 he wrote his Rule. One of the Rules of Benedict is that there was always a guest room at the monastery. No matter who came to your door it was Christ that you were welcoming. Whether they be Jew or Muslim, male or female, brown or pink, it is Christ.

Orthodox Anglicanism has always had room at its house for all kinds of communities of faith who have their roots in the Church of England. At the table in that house Anglicanism has welcomed some who practiced polygamy, some who allow divorced people to remarry, some who ordain women, some who disagree with other communities’ practices. Yet under this wonderful umbrella of Anglicanism we have shared the richness of communion with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are making Christ known in their various communities.

Just lately, though, there are those who wish to confine that openness to what they believe to be the “ultimate” truth. Many churches within the Anglican Communion have moved away from strict Biblical teaching, especially on remarriage and the ordination of women.

Many churches have allowed openly gay people to be ordained to the priesthood. When I was at seminary in England in 1977 one of our professors openly lived with a doctor, and even one of my fellow students had housing provided by the seminary for him and his partner. Gene Robinson is not the first gay bishop and my hunch is that he is not the first ordained person in the United States that has lived with his partner. Gene Robinson, though, is the first person that the Episcopal Church has had with the courage to be honest about acknowledging a person that is living in an open relationship with his partner. The Episcopal Church has been the first to be truthful about what is happening, I guess, in many parts of the Anglican Communion, yet it is all in a veil of secrecy and deliberate ignorance and a hypocrisy that keeps truth hidden.

The Anglican Communion has always, for me, been a very loosely knit organization of churches who wish to live together in communion. Of people who are willing to recognize that what happens in one part of the communion may not be the same in another part of the communion, yet our common heritage in the Church of England unites us in the mission to make disciples of all nations.
We cannot use the term Orthodox Anglican and then be exclusive as to who is in or who is out. It is a use and an abuse of the term. We cannot claim to have biblical orthodoxy, yet make exceptions for the parts of the Bible that we say do not apply to us. It is a use and abuse of the Bible.
On July 11 we will celebrate the feast of Benedict of Nursia. May his Rule be lived out by all who share an Anglican Heritage.

With all my love and prayers your friend,

Fr. Alan Sutherland, St. John’s, Versailles

Advocate Online Staff

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