Christianity Politics USA

The Kitchen Table 33 – Civic Religion.

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417 Comments on The Kitchen Table 33 – Civic Religion.

On this weeks Kitchen Table Steve and I discuss my earlier article on Civic Religion 

The Kitchen Table 32 – Judgement Day

This is the song I mentioned….

417 comments

  2. A review of a book written by the Brisbane Anglicans. I will quote one paragraph:

    “I think it important to comment on the type of Anglicanism and the type of Christianity that the authors are projecting. I get the impression (and its only an impression) that while some of the authors enjoy wrestling with Scripture as a religious problem, and though they appreciate something of the Bible’s antiquity and aesthetics, they do not actually like Scripture as an authoritative text, and as such they would like to be free from Christian Scripture and the insipid dogmas that it generated. Liberation from such textual tyranny would enable the authors to forge a post-Christian and post-Theistic faith. A faith gladly pruned of its malodrous catholic and orthodox roots and finally free to forge new ways of expressing religious consciousness in a postmodern age. After reading the book I am left wondering (and I’m not wondering far from their intellectual line) that some of the authors would much prefer that congregations publicly read Germaine Greer than Genesis, Noam Chomsky than Chronicles, Oprah than Obadiah, Marx than Mark, or the Gospel of Philip rather than Philippians. These other texts would seem to be far more conducive to the ideologies that the authors want to cultivate and the Bible in fact seems to be inhibiting progress towards a shift in values towards this direction. In deconstructing the authors’ intellectual plane as it appears to me (though appearances can be deceiving) a few of the authors look to be strangely reminiscent of the arch-liberal Bp John Colenso and like him are really closet unitarians who only remain part of the established church because they want to be players in the big game. At the end of the day, the authors seems to believe that the only reason for keeping Scripture in the Church is because heavily vetted fragments of the Scriptures can provide a religious grammar to anchor projects relating to eco-care and neo-marxism in something vaguely transcendent. Much like the United Church of Canada, the authors look as if they are plotting a course towards a transcendent atheism which knows neither revelation nor redemption; a faith beyond canon and creed; a community embarrassed about its religious heritage and now wants make good by plotting a way that it can make minimal usage of its scriptural paraphernalia while retaining a philanthropic role for itself in society…”

    patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2013/05/book-review-anglican-bibliology-for-a-progressive-audience/

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  3. Well, speaking of Quadrant, this reader comment attached to their latest article is worth considering here:

    ‘georgepshaw

    Pessimism is justified. No more so that in the Diocese of Brisbane which has been the engine room for the re-sexualisation of Christianity in Australia’s Anglicanism. At some point in his 21 year Brisbane episcopate the recently retired Archbishop espoused what he has since called ‘Comprehensive Anglicanism’. Only months before his surprise and inexplicable resignation he declared that Comprehensive Anglicanism’, despite its setback at General Synod 2022, would triumph. He implied he would be there in the leadership team. He had also established by his own actions that ‘Comprehensive Anglicanism’ would go far beyond the goal of same sex marriage. It would open the priesthood to the transgendered community. And acting the role of an anarchist Reformer confirmed in office two transgendered priests without precedent in Anglican Australia or any authority from General Synod to do so. Moreover, there was scarcely a whimper from within the Dioceses which over a 21 year period he had remade in his image. At this very moment an Election Committee dominated by his appointees is seeking a replacement. The reform engine in Brisbane Diocese deserves the closest scrutiny as the retiring Archbishop has put in place a massive propaganda programme for a successor to implement.’

    https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/01/how-will-the-anglican-story-end/

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  6. Anglican Church Southern Queensland is choosing to support “The Voice”:

    “Editor’s note 15/03/2023: The ACSQ supports the Anglican Board of Mission’s 2017 call for “a Constitutionally Entrenched First Nations Voice”. The ACSQ also supports the Anglican Church of Australia’s Joint Affirmation of Faith and Justice with First Nations Peoples (carried by affirmation at General Synod, Oct 2007), and seeks practical ways to do so, including our association with Reconciliation Australia and the prescribed process of Reconciliation Action Plans.”

    Also, APCVA’s Deb Bird has been retweeting Steve Chalke (and Sandi Toksvig!) in recent days:

    https://twitter.com/revdebbird/with_replies

    Abso9lutely no comment from any APCVA supporters that I can find about AUKUS though. As someone said above, they have never tweeted about the Ukraine War either. I guess AUKUS comes from the “correct” side of politics for them. They are more fixated on identity politics and wokeness anyway since their last few posts are about the Voice and the Mardi Gras:

    https://www.facebook.com/AProgressiveChristianVoiceAustralia?hc_ref=ARTXjJJujpVg14cVFD9–wupyMdgIJa16yN04-NIvd5HhAexvuoRXDfz02qrxaLrpLY&fref=nf&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARBBG5P4nDFkxl5lYjxqpmBf94XpaOZJLJCKHXKh9ExBTal5twBkJ2uWaQFW1vSdaBAwXYHsunMIEse2A5abHiex0pproWPOjluRJb1YNHXKioWNn2rEOY_MmRIeqEqMy_c2Qn_Smpw-G2kakJWyy_QlFvNiCoOQ3QUIMWLmlj8cyz3Z4-d11WPTQIAwjpmzDnh69Q7kf3WJDoIp7O4JkrqzDEs-SE5hGI2TqM4tzioN3ZbWNw52BvS6lh1fh8Dw0haN9vDGOhmG69RGNC97gA87JRPiOAm9xGwdtd6vW-UqIeRJgNuMcPRS2xyFoyzr4uahbaJXMaCt8GneG8XCaxmneb-dGT8CtzlhvsaLfQ9zB1T-b4Qa7YM-ap_KFbFCgMwTzLU

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  7. Jeremy Greaves officially confirmed as the new Archbishop of Brisbane.

    I’m sure he will do a wonderful job as Aspinall’s puppet and if his old friend and mentor, John Shelby Spong, was still alive, he’d be very pleased. 🙁

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  9. There’s a silver lining to this terrible news. Parishioners can’t deny they’re part of an unorthodox church now if they choose to stay in the Anglican Church Southern Queensland diocese.

    Jeremy Greaves’ stances on the Apostles’ Creed and gay marriage are well known and on the pubkuc record as was his friendship with Spong and admiration for Borg.

    People who’ve had their heads in the sand or choosed to turn a blind eye to the likes of Aspinall, Catt & co have to admit their church has been unorthodox and unbiblical for 2 generations of leaders now and thisto say nothing of all that happens at the parish level with all of the unorthodox pastors the diocese has been deliberately producing.

    People need to vote with their feet. Stay and endorse the new belief system or leave and go to Southern Cross diocese or another denomination altogether if you believe in the Bible and Christ’s resurrection. If anyone in Brisbane now says they are Anglican when asked what church they belong to, people already assume they are very liberal in their Christianity and probably not an orthodox believer at all and this appointment will just confirm that in their minds.

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  10. I’ve just been on the phone to a friend and we were talking about Jeremy Greaves’ appointment. It was just like how some of you have said that there are many rural parishes like Kilcoy where the people are politically very conservative but theologically super liberal.

    This friend of mine is deeply involved in the LNP and attends branch meetings but she couldn’t be happier about Jeremy Greaves’ appointment as Archbishop of Brisbane and yes she is fully aware of what he stands for, including ssm and the rejection of the Apostles Creed. 😲😥

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  11. First controversy already.

    “The award-winning principal of a prestigious Brisbane school has been sensationally ousted amid allegations of a “toxic clash” with the powerful Anglican Church, including over payment of compensation to historic victims of child sexual abuse.

    Paul Browning, headmaster of St Paul’s School in Bald Hills, will finish up on Friday after a “spectacular implosion” of his relationship with Anglican Bishop Jeremy Greaves and the Anglican Schools Commission (ASC), of which he is chair.

    Deputy Premier and former student Steven Miles on Thursday weighed in on the furore surrounding the dismissal of St Paul’s School principal Paul Browning – saying he felt “confusion and disappointment”.

    The school council – which had unanimously endorsed Dr Browning’s contract renewal for another five years from 2024 – has also been dramatically sacked by the Church.

    Insiders told The Courier-Mail that Dr Browning’s commitment to refunding the tuition fees of former students sexually abused at St Paul’s during the 1980s and 1990s – long before his 2008 appointment – was a trigger for the hostilities.”

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  12. Regarding your LNP friend it shows that people care about how things are said and do not pay attention to what they say. Silver tongues and all that. No wonder antichrists can – and will – find it easy to deceive even faithful, practising Christians.

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  13. Found a new essay by a leftist online (your site won’t let me link to it but here’s the key part:
    ‘Progressive Christianity looks paradoxical only right now, because progressives are secular and conservatives are religious. After the progressive movement will re-invent Christianity (if we will succeed in doing it), we will retroactively look back on this and reinterpret the entire past as leading up to that moment. This is my dialectical Hegelian-Marxian analysis… The big Other, the absolute, which we named God up to our times, dies twice. This shall be done not only at an individual level, but also at a collective level… In other words, Christian Socialism will also be Christian Atheist Socialism. The only way to kill the far-right is to follow their religion to the letter up until its death, until its spirit (“object petit a”, for Lacan) is set free. This is a pragmatic utopianism, a return from Marx and back to Hegel, a moderately temperate radicalism. Christianity and Atheism are irreconcilable only in this present moment in history. Christian Atheism is a paradox only because we live in the current historical conditions we live in. That’s why Christian Atheism is the progressive/revolutionary position here, not in spite of but precisely because it’s a paradox (a paradox right now). The paradox must be gradually accelerated.’

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  14. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was the Brisbane Anglicans’ end game all along, given what we know of the beliefs and politics of people like Peter Catt.

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  15. I haven’t seen this mentioned here but Peter Catt said he was agnostic about euthanasia when Palaszczuk passed those laws. Also claimed he would consider ending his own life through it in some circumstances. Dangerous talk that could encourage others to terminate their lives from a guy who also claimed he was prepared to chain himself to logging equipment (he didn’t) , actively supports peace groups (he doesn’t) and would allow refugees to have right of sanctuart in his cathedral (he didn’t).
    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/anglican-church-elder-agnostic-on-voluntary-dying-law/news-story/a243fecd9d1056597c360e4828584395?amp&nk=837089758d580bc425957e3ff11c95c5-1706007110
    https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/have-some-courage-newman-tells-lnp-to-take-a-stand-on-euthanasia-20210421-p57l8a.html

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  16. I was curious why so many of you were mentioning a small country Anglican church like St Mary’s Kilcoy. I just looked at the Kilcoy Wikipedia page. Yikes.
    “St Mary’s Anglican Church is at 67 William Street.[48] It is notable for its liberalism and gay-friendly Anglo-Catholic churchmanship. It maintains a close relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.[49] The parish’s last two priests have been females and one trainee minister has been gay. Under one of these priests, the church has adopted Progressive Christianity and Jesuit spirituality.”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kilcoy,_Queensland&oldid=1204392992

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  21. The Brisbane Progressive Christianity crowd now deny you have to be born again because “you were born just fine the first time” and “you are fundamentally good” in their latest post.
    https://m.facebook.com/pcnqld
    Progressive Christianity is showing itself to be fundamentally anti-Christ now in that its teachings are diametrically opposite those of Jesus of Nazareth.

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  22. The Brisbane Anglican clergy feel like they can do whatever they want . They’ve rejected the Bible so there is no yardstick to hold them accountable to. They constantly shift the goalposts to excuse themselves of their misconduct.

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