here<\/a>. Richard Harries, the former Bishop of Oxford is your classical Anglican liberal. The Church of England, he argues, is the best since it is the \u2018part of the Catholic Church\u2019 that is open to the future. He goes on to reference Cardinal Newman\u2019s famous Development of Doctrine, stealing Newman\u2019s idea and twisting it beyond recognition.<\/p>\nBe warned, you are likely to come away from the video and the accompanying article spitting with frustration and rage. \u201cHow,\u201d you will ask, \u201ccan anyone who is obviously so learned and intelligent make so many glaring errors, speak so many half truths and miss the target so completely.\u201d Welcome to liberal Anglicanism\u2013a kind of half way house for the seriously deluded.<\/p>\n
He says the Church of England is \u2018open to the future\u2019. What he really means is that the Church of England always conforms to the spirit of the age. Is it possible that this former senior bishop of the Church of England is so ignorant of his own church\u2019s history? In the reign of Henry VIII the spirit of the age was one of the nation state and the pre eminence of the monarch. Anglicanism sucked it up, yea was founded by it. In the eighteenth century the spirit of the age was freemasonry and Deism. Anglicanism sucked it up. In the nineteenth century the spirit of the age was triumphalistic colonialism. Anglicanism sucked it up. Now the spirit of the age is feminism, homosexualism and ethical utilitarianism. Anglican sucks it up. The Church of England is \u2018open to the future\u2019? Of course it is. Whatever the future brings Anglicanism will adapt itself happily. Timeless truth? Fugdeddaboudit.<\/p>\n
The former bish reveals all when he says that truth is revealed not just through the \u2018cold and distant church\u2019 but through the society that we live in and the church needs to listen to society and learn from society which way to go. That sums up the Anglican liberal position. Lick the index finger. Stick arm upward. Feel coolness on one side of finger. That\u2019s the way the wind is blowing. Cut your sails accordingly.<\/p>\n
Continually irritating is the Bishop\u2019s little line, \u2018The Church of England is that part of the Catholic Church that is open to the future.\u201d The Church of England \u2018open to the future\u2019? Is it possible that this little Englander cannot see that not only his church, but his whole culture is poised to go down the plug hole of history? Future? There is not future for his like. Can he really, really be ignorant of the fact that the future of his own Anglican Church is in Africa and Asia where his own fellow Anglicans reject most of his liberal agenda totally? Can he possibly be ignorant of the fact that the future of global Christianity is not only Africa, but Catholic? Globally speaking (and for that matter in the UK too) the one church that is young and vibrant and growing (along with the pentecostals) is the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
He says in passing the Church of England is \u2018part of the Catholic Church.\u2019 Note the underlying assumption that liberal Anglicans like Harries never even question, the old \u2018branch theory\u2019 that the Church of England is not a minor nationalistic Erastian sect, but \u2018part of the Catholic Church on an equal with the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church.\u2019 This is simple self delusion and intentional misinterpretation of history and contemporary facts.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, this smug line\u2026 \u2018I am an Anglican Catholic you know\u2019 used to be used only by Catholic minded Anglicans. Now it is used by the liberal Anglicans and liberal Protestants of every stripe and the Evangelicals too. It is meaningless. If the former Bishop of Oxford is a \u2018Catholic\u2019 in the broadest sense, then so is anyone who is baptized. Once at Mass a dear Presbyterian lady who is married to a Catholic came out of church and squeezed my hand and said with a sweet smile, \u201cI\u2019m a Presbyterian Catholic you know.\u201d The former Bishop of Oxford with his smug assumptions is as facile and sentimental as that old lady, only she doesn\u2019t know any better. He should.<\/p>\n
Finally, the Bishop should not get away with sheltering in the shade of Cardinal Newman. How dare he claim the great Cardinal as one of his own when Newman\u2019s whole life was an exquisite repudiation of the sort of nauseating liberalism that Harries and his ilk stand for. Development of Doctrine indeed! The liberal Anglicans have been hi-jacking this concept of Newman\u2019s ever since they first started arguing for women\u2019s ordination and now they use it to excuse everything. Harries is supposed to be some sort of theologian. Has he actually ever read Newman\u2019s essay on the Development of Doctrine or is he content to claim the title as some sort of game show catch phrase to justify his heresy?<\/p>\n
Anyone who has read Newman\u2019s essay must instantly howl with outrage at the idea that his idea would be used to justify women\u2019s ordination, same sex marriage, artificial contraception and in vitro fertilization. Harries and his ilk who pretend Newman is one of them (when in fact Newman\u2019s life is a rejection of the whole Anglican Oxford establishment facade) should go back and do their homework and read just how Newman set out the criteria for proper and authentic development. None of their innovations would even come close to the criteria Newman sets up.<\/p>\n
Here endeth the rant.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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