“Episcopal bishops remain capable of providing food for thought concerning what goes on in modern religion. As did Katharine Jefferts Schori, when the church elevated her last week to the dignity of presiding bishop. ... So she wants to make the world over? Now’s her chance, there being only one problem: the more Christianity resembles the United Nations the less nearly it resembles the spiritual realm it exists to depict and lead us toward.”
The conservatives are coming down hard on Ms Schori for wanting "to make poverty history, to fund AIDS work in Africa, and the distribution of anti-malarial mosquito nets, and primary schools where all children are welcomed." To conservatives, this is not the church's work. To conservatives, the role of the church is to "reproach well-healed sinners". I suppose Ms Schori will be doing some of that, too, but why do conservatives think that obsession with sin has to crowd out a little attention to good works? It could be Reformation thinking at work here, that eternal life depends on faith alone, but the Church lost a great deal when it threw out James' teaching that "Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." It sounds like Ms Schori gets it. Mr Murchison does not. I think Jesus is in Ms Schori's pew.
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