What would be said about prayers prayed in a place set apart to belong to the Lord but addressed to a different deity? Would Charles be asking Jesus to bless those religions, their competing claims to be God, and their different holy books rather than the Scripture which He says is all about Him? Why would he do this?
The answer, of course, is to make people feel included -- inclusivity is one of the cardinal virtues of modern life, after all. So to mention Allah or Buddha or Bhagavati or even, for the Atheists, None, will assuage the consciences of those who feel they might be left out of a prayer to Jesus. In other words, it is okay to offer up Jesus on the altar of expediency in order to make others feel better about believing in the wrong God. After all, Jesus is accustomed to being sacrificed for many so why not offer Him up for the sake of diversity and good will? On the other hand, how shallow are these people whose bruised egos are nursed by prayers and mentions that mean nothing but a polite nod to diversity.
The scandal of particularity is worse than just about any other sin. So even if Jesus is exclusive for the sake of including all (every sinner marked for death since the Fall in Eden), it is still too exclusive for Charles and for most Christians. In the Christian truth, God's peculiar way of saving the masses is an offense only to those who insist that they either need no redemption or are comfortable enough in their own truth (including sin and death). Strange, when you think about it. Abraham was sent into a foreign nation to be told he would become the father of many nations. It is fulfilled only in small part by the miracle son God gave Him and is, instead, come to perfect consummation in the son of Abraham who dies on behalf of all the nations and not just the chosen.
Charles does what Charles wants and he seems to be happy to dismantle the foundations of all that came before him as he ascends the throne (not quite his but only his for a time). When Christ becomes a way instead of the way, there is nothing left of Christianity at all. Jesus Himself insists no one comes to the Father except through Him. We are severely tempted in our time to do exactly what Charles is doing -- to make Jesus stand merely as one of many instead of the exclusive One. Whether we stand on a dais at an ecumenical gathering in which other gods and other names will receive prayers or we sit upon the Edward's chair, to make Christ one of many is to strip Him of every title He was incarnate, lived in righteousness, died in obedience, and rose in triumph to earn. As we heard weeks ago in Holy Week, Jesus says He was born for this -- to be the King of All and not one of many pretenders to the throne. Charles seems intent upon presiding over the last nail pounded into the coffin of what was the Church of England but we ought to make sure we do not follow his arrogant denial of all that is the Christian faith.
2 comments:
Charles is interested in the "Traditionalists." They like to think of themselves as affirming the esoteric unity of the "great religions"; the idea is that, for most people, adherence to one of those religions is the way those people will be grounded in the truth, but that a few can perceive that real oneness of revelation. Traditionalism appeals to some conservatively minded people and to some intellectuals (of course those two categories may overlap). The late John Tavener, a composer, was an adherent of Traditionalism who became famous with explicitly Orthodox works, some of which are rather entrancing, such as The Protecting Veil, Ikon of Light, Thunder Entered Her (with a text from St. Ephrem of Syria, commemorated today), etc. However, eventually Tavener went whole hog with Traditionalism and was mixing texts from various religions. Big names within Traditionalism are Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, Martin Lings, Ananda Coomaraswamy, &c. Mark Sedgwick has an interesting book, Against the Modern Age, about the Traditionalists (and has a blog about them). But despite the Trads' appeal to primordial revelation, their pedigree goes back more to the early modern era with the Neoplatonists such as Ficino. And when I think of some the rituals that Schuon developed, I'm reminded even of so bogus a modern invention as Wicca.
Dale Nelson
Charles is irrelevant to Anglicanism today. The recent GAFCON meeting held in Africa essentially declared the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to be irrelevant, and implicit in that is the monarchy. Worldwide Anglicanism has gone far beyond dependence on the CoE and the monarchy. The CoE will go its own way, wandering off into heterodoxy, but Anglicanism outside the UK will continue to flourish with the truth of Christ.
Fr. D+
Continuing Anglican Priest
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