Pope says Prods "not true churches"

[johnfás]

Is the church of Ireland not part of the anglican communion?

Time to explain Anglicanism - oh God .

Yes COI is part of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion though is a worldwide, diverse and somewhat loosely bound group of independent Anglican Churches. That is, there is no pope like figure, the Archbishop of Canterbury is merely a titular head - Chairman rather than Chief.

Possibly as a result of this there are quite widespread disagreements between various you might call them "groupings" within the Anglican Church. These are generally split into say Anglo-Catholic, Low Church and Evangelical, but they run much deeper.

So basically you get tensions, both at a national level and more specifically at an international level. The Church of Ireland, although having internal squabblings is quite a cohesive unit. Anglicanism worldwide isn't.

Some people (older than me) might remember that Anglicanism worldwide nearly split over the issue of female ordination in the early 1990s. This has not gone away, in the Diocese of Sydney for example women can still not be ordained to full ministry (though they may serve as curates under a parish minister).

At this specific moment the catalyst towards schism is homosexuality. That is all it is though, a catalyst - there are certain elements within anglicanism globally that want to see a split - I would argue for their own means because they want the communion centered less on Canterbury.

Thus you have Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Nigeria providing the fire for major reform/schism and Peter Jenkins of Sydney providing the cash. The communion might end up splitting but it probably won't have a huge affect in Ireland.

[Odyessus]

[quote=johnfás]

Indeed the Aussies aren't confused and they know what they want. There's also lots of money behind them and they're sending missionaries to the Church of Ireland - poor you :P.

Missionaries to their co-religionists?

Yup. There's a peculiar streak which runs through certain Protestants who see their fellow Protestants as not Protestant enough :P .

Groups within the Church of Ireland who would be of this view would include:

http://www.reform-ireland.org/
http://www.efic.org.uk/[/quote:3qw9x1fi]



"Yup. There's a peculiar streak which runs through certain Protestants who see their fellow Protestants as not Protestant enough"




Perhaps their fellow protestants think they protest too much?

[johnfás]

Perhaps their fellow protestants think they protest too much?

Or that they're too fundamentalist, zealous etc. The term Protestant is a misleading one in many ways as it encompasses such a wide variety of different denominations which don't necessarily hold huge amounts in common beyond the fact they're Christian but not Roman Catholic.

[Odyessus]

Just a little joke.

[Leftfemme22]

Just a little joke.

A good one too

[St Disibod]

Time to explain Anglicanism - oh God .

Ahem. Commandment number 3 johnfás.

As to the the topic of the original post on this thread, it really is nothing knew. What I like about Benedict XVI is that he fleshes out his claims- though he tends to word them in a manner which gives fuel for the media to burn- "objectively disordered" for homosexuals and of course that snipet from his Regensburg Adddress (see here for full text): "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman." Whether this is just poor media handling or whether he actually relishes controversy I don't know. But that same Regensburg Address dealt with the whole Protestant issue quite extensively.

I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance.

[...]

This inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history - it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.

The thesis that the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith has been countered by the call for a dehellenization of Christianity - a call which has more and more dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age. Viewed more closely, three stages can be observed in the programme of dehellenization: although interconnected, they are clearly distinct from one another in their motivations and objectives.

Dehellenization first emerges in connection with the postulates of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Looking at the tradition of scholastic theology, the Reformers thought they were confronted with a faith system totally conditioned by philosophy, that is to say an articulation of the faith based on an alien system of thought. As a result, faith no longer appeared as a living historical Word but as one element of an overarching philosophical system. The principle of sola scriptura, on the other hand, sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word. Metaphysics appeared as a premise derived from another source, from which faith had to be liberated in order to become once more fully itself. When Kant stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this programme forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.

Now if you followed all that, he effectively charges Protestants with carving essential components of the Christian religion off in some sort of misguided minimalism (i.e. the relentless focus on scripture and the belief in its supremacy over classical thought and church tradition). I think that is a fairly heavy charge, but it's certainly a thought-provoking one (though I do subscribe quite a bit to the 'Oxford' wing of Anglicanism- I did attend UCD after all!).

As to the tangent of internal Protestant (esp. Anglican) division that has been raised, well, Protestants have always been the quintessential splitters. The 2008 Lambeth Conference is set to discuss hermeneutics (i.e. to what degree should Biblical instruction be followed). Hopefully most of the division will be soothed there, and if we have to sift through the net and cast out the 'bad' fish, so be it. Though what johnfás highlights about the politics involved is very likely a real issue. If players as influential as those named actually favour schism over resolution, even on their terms, well then Lambeth will achieve very little. And by the by, I would classify Anglicanism as a confederation- the regional bodies delegate power to the central body rather than the other way round, each regional body electing a synod (effectively a parliament) to make whatever laws are needed in addition to the basic texts. These basic texts are scripture; and to a lesser degree, the Book of Common Prayer, which is treated with immense respect throughout the global Anglican Communion- a bit like Yanks think their Constitution and its 'Founding Fathers' were semi-divine in their judgement.

And then the tangent of the tangent: the Church of Ireland. I have noticed a very worrying trend of what I would consider fundamentalist Protestants coming from abroad, or returning from training abroad. They of course prefer the term 'evangelical'. But eitherway one person heading up quite a significant project recently attended my Parish and decreed that Ireland had the lowest proportion of Christians in the English-speaking world (no prizes for guessing who he was excluding) and that we should pray that 'hardened loyalties' won't prevent people joining this project. I don't think even the Pope has tried to charge Protestants with not being Christians. Every congregation has its extremists, and there do appear to be a growing number of them with support and finance coming from abroad in the Church of Ireland today. But I think I need to learn a bit more about it.

[Nixey68]

It's hardly helpful, but is there any religion that DOESN'T think it is THE one? Imagine if a prelate like the Pope said that the Roman Catholic church was just all right, but there were other better faiths and ways into the Kingdom of Heaven.

[johnfás]

It's hardly helpful, but is there any religion that DOESN'T think it is THE one? Imagine if a prelate like the Pope said that the Roman Catholic church was just all right, but there were other better faiths and ways into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Correct, obviously every religion/denomination would feel that it might have more of a premium on "truth". However, I think what the poster was trying to demonstrate (apart from merely whipping up hysteria of course) was that the Roman Catholic Church does not recognise the Protestant Churches. In general the main Protestant Churches, by that I mean Anglican, Prebyterian, Methodist and to a lesser extent Baptist (who are an incredibly fractured group) would recognise the Catholic Church as a Christian Church.

As I said at the beginning though, its almost irrelevant at a local level, there just appears a desire to maintain this position at a hierarchical level. My church has excellent relations with the local Catholic Church.

[Nixey68]

Yes, I realise that, it isn't a lot different to the more funadamentalist 'saved' Protestants who don't think Roman Catholics can be proper Christians (though they often don't think non-'saved' Protestants are or can be either).

As Dave Allen said ....

[corkman2007]

So what indeed! Who cares what one set of believers in a bunch of fictional characters think about other sets of believers in fictional characters?

That would be a sensible position for a non-believer to take.

However, there seems to be a lot of non-believers out there who would have this attitude to other religions, but who profess themselves outraged by the Pope's announcements. Why?

God only knows!