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As I also remember, and his Lordship's call for allowing Sharia a few months ago. He might head the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, but his leadership is seeing them fragment, and not doing much good for the Christians still in the CoE or Anglican Communion.

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Originally Posted by Deacon Borislav
Originally Posted by StuartK
Your characterization of his position on the Nativity of Christ is, at its very best, a gross distortion and caricature.


I think not.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1573213/Archbishop-says-nativity-a-legend.html

"The Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday that the Christmas story of the Three Wise Men was nothing but a 'legend'.

Dr Rowan Williams has claimed there was little evidence that the Magi even existed and there was certainly nothing to prove there were three of them or that they were kings.

He said the only reference to the wise men from the East was in Matthew's gospel and the details were very vague.

Dr Williams said: "Matthew's gospel says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire, that's all we're really told. It works quite well as legend."

The Archbishop went on to dispel other details of the Christmas story, adding that there were probably no asses or oxen in the stable.

He argued that Christmas cards which showed the Virgin Mary cradling the baby Jesus, flanked by shepherds and wise men, were misleading. As for the scenes that depicted snow falling in Bethlehem, the Archbishop said the chance of this was "very unlikely".

I suggest you do your research before accusing anyone of a "gross distortion".

Oh and as of "gross distortion" of British law... I seem to recall the good archbishop welcoming Sharia law in England...

Well, I hate to disappoint His Eminence, however, my husband just got back from a pilgrimage to Mt. Athos and guess what one of the sacred things he got to venerate was?!?--the actual holy gifts given to the baby Jesus by the wise men: gold, myrrh and frankincense...kept in Jerusalem until they were told by the Panaghia to someone to be taken to Mt. Athos many centuries later....

As for snow being present on that night, he is probably correct, but not necessarily. My mom was on pilgrimage in Jerusalem (six miles from Bethlehem) ten years ago in January and they had a rare snow storm.

How does he know that there were no asses (donkeys) or oxen in the 'stable' - (he is actually wrong; because they actually stayed in a cave, as depicted in Byzantine iconography). Donkeys are quite prevalent in those parts of the world.



Alice

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I have learned that it is best not to rely on reporters to get any particular technical issue right, including any pertaining to religion. The article was in fact a gross oversimplification of what Dr. Williams said. But oversimplifications allow for sensationalistic headlines, and those are what sells papers. Newspapers want to sell papers, not tell the truth. Always keep that in mind.

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Stuart, His Lordship explicitly stated that he felt Muslims in the UK should be permitted to use sharia courts in lieu of civil ones. Saw it in a single unedited clip.

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Yes, but what has that to do with his views on the Nativity Story? On the other hand, it just confirms my belief that academics, on the whole, make lousy pastors. Too airy-fairy, head-in-the-clouds to understand the difference between theory and reality.

By the way, in New York, Orthodox Jews have their own tribunals to adjudicate community disputes involving property, contracts, and even divorce. The caveat is both parties have to consent to use the tribunals, and the rulings of the tribunals cannot contradict or supersede state and Federal law. There is no possibility of something like a woman being stoned for adultery, or a person being killed for apostasy, which is not only likely, but inevitable under Sharia. Dr. Williams really needs to stick to his knitting, which is theology.

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How does he know that there were no asses (donkeys) or oxen in the 'stable' - (he is actually wrong; because they actually stayed in a cave, as depicted in Byzantine iconography). Donkeys are quite prevalent in those parts of the world.

Just to be clear, the Gospel does not use a word that means either cave or stable, but rather a more generic dwelling. In all likelihood, Joseph and Mary were put up in a private home, possibly belonging to someone in Joseph's very extended family. In first century Judea, the first floor of a house was often turned over to the livestock, while the family dwelt on the second floor (and may have spent a lot of time on the roof during the warmer seasons). With Bethlehem filled to the brim, the livestock would have been turned out, and the first floor turned over to guests--a very low rent B&B.

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Originally Posted by StuartK
Yes, but what has that to do with his views on the Nativity Story?
That he's got some dangerous views of the world, views based in liberal secular humanism, rather than Christianity.

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You mean he's a clueless academic drone who should never have been put into a position of pastoral responsibility. I think I said that at the beginning. That doesn't mean he's not a brilliant scholar and a powerful theologian, whether you accept all of his theories or not.

In the same vein, I think Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, is perhaps the most important theologian examining the history of the early Church. His work is absolutely astounding and soundly orthodox (small o, though in many ways he anticipates the positions of Big-O Orthodoxy), but when it comes to his pronouncements on current affairs and his view of the modern world, he's a perambulating disaster. So I will continue to read his books on the life of Christ, on the origins of the Church, and on the theology of St. Paul, and just ignore the blather he spouts on economics, international relations and inter-religious relations. He's another example of a brilliant scholar who was perfectly good as a canon theologian but who was promoted past his competency when made bishop (Hmm. Why do they call that the "Peter Principle"?).

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Yes he is brilliant, and he is very philosophical. I think that such philosophical analyses, however, confuses people about the/their Christian faith rather than enhances it.

I have heard from friends in England that the Resurrection is denied in some Anglican circles as yet another myth.

It seems that every single aspect of faith and every age old tradition is being dissected and branded a 'myth', so why don't they just dissolve the church completely then and be done with it?!? Why can't they leave well enough alone? smirk


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Wright for one has been in the forefront of defending the historical reality of the Resurrection from academic challenges by the likes of the Marcus Borg and the Jesus Seminar, and he does so in a way that is both subtle and convincing.

I have no problem with the concept of myth, properly understood. Tolkien is alleged to have converted C.S. Lewis comparing Christianity to the pagan myths that Lewis so admired. Christianity, Tolkien explained, "is a myth that happens to be true".

If we understand that a myth is a story that embodies and reveals a profound truth, then yes, Christianity is a myth. But, insofar as the events in the myth actually occurred, it is a myth that happens to be true.

We run into difficulties because too many people understand the word myth to mean a legend or a fairy tale, something profoundly un-true, but that is a misreading. Moreover, even the pagan myths and legends have a foundation of truth. The ancients believed the stories of the Trojan War were quite literally "history". More enlightened scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries rejected them as mere legend--myths in the popular sense of the word. But then Heinrich Schliemann began digging in the mound of Hissarlik in Turkey, and lo! there was Troy. Subsequent excavation there, in Greece and of the Hittite centers of Asia Minor have shown just how much of Homer is based on solid fact.

Similarly, biblical archaeology continually reveals just how authentic the accounts of the Old and New Testament are--which is not to say that every last jot and tittle has to be read in a severely literalist way. But it does demonstrate, to my satisfaction, anyway, that Christians have nothing to fear either from history or archaeology, both of which are valuable handmaidens of theology. Ours is a faith based on truth: "If Christ is not risen from the dead, then you are still in your sins", and so it is in our interest to seek to discover and understand the truth that is integral to our "myth".

On the other hand, it is precisely those who do not believe who reject the historical evidence and insist on reading Scripture in the most simplistic, literalistic manner, a mirror image of the very type of fundamentalism they despise.

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Stuart:

a caveat on biblical archaeology... biblical literalists.

THe problem is when people can not accept that Genesis 1-4 are mythic, and large parts of Genesis are legendary in nature. (EG: The Great Flood might not have been the whole world, just what is now the black sea.) Or that Myth and Legend need not be literal truth to teach Truth.

The biblical literalist expects that, since we found Moses mentioned in the tomb complex of Ramses, we should also find the universe to be 6000 years old, and that the whole world was submerged for 40 days 5500 years ago, and somewhere there is a walled off garden that you'll be killed if you enter the gate.

I've met more biblical literalists amongst fundamentalist christianity than I care to think about. I've also met them amongst moderate muslims. And the groups that are staunchest about biblical literalism also indoctrinate their children from an early age to both reject science and to literally believe every word of the bible as literal truth.

(Try teaching about the dinosaurs or evolution with a mixture of Jehovah's Witness, hardline Baptists, and muslims as students... that accounted for 1/3 of the class... I pointed out "You are not required to believe a word of it. You are required by state law to know the material, and be able to answer questions on the material.")

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Biblical literalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, a product of a reaction among many 19th century American Protestants to the logical positivism that had taken hold in academic circles and was infiltrating the mainline denominations.

But it is quite remarkable that as early as the third century, Christian exegetes such as Origen already recognized that many parts of the Bible could not be read in a strictly literal manner, that the Bible was frequently dominated by metaphors or rhetorical language that demanded a more imaginative interpretation. To the extent that scientific knowledge was limited then as compared to now means that some things we think are ridiculous taken on their face were accepted then--such as the age of the earth. But others were not; the ancients knew the earth was a sphere, and that the stars and planets were celestial objects many miles distant. Being immersed in the epic tradition of Homer, they understood how to read the epic stories of Genesis and Exodus, as well as the stories of the Kings and Chronicles. Being heirs to the genre of Jewish apocalyptic literature, they understood Revelations as an extended allegory, not a cook book for determining the end times.

But their key insight was that Scripture could only be read properly within the context of the Church, and the Church alone could provide the keys to determining which passages were literal, which were metaphorical, which were prophetic, which were historical, and which were allegorical.

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Originally Posted by StuartK
Biblical literalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, a product of a reaction among many 19th century American Protestants to the logical positivism that had taken hold in academic circles and was infiltrating the mainline denominations.

But it is quite remarkable that as early as the third century, Christian exegetes such as Origen already recognized that many parts of the Bible could not be read in a strictly literal manner, that the Bible was frequently dominated by metaphors or rhetorical language that demanded a more imaginative interpretation. To the extent that scientific knowledge was limited then as compared to now means that some things we think are ridiculous taken on their face were accepted then--such as the age of the earth. But others were not; the ancients knew the earth was a sphere, and that the stars and planets were celestial objects many miles distant. Being immersed in the epic tradition of Homer, they understood how to read the epic stories of Genesis and Exodus, as well as the stories of the Kings and Chronicles. Being heirs to the genre of Jewish apocalyptic literature, they understood Revelations as an extended allegory, not a cook book for determining the end times.

But their key insight was that Scripture could only be read properly within the context of the Church, and the Church alone could provide the keys to determining which passages were literal, which were metaphorical, which were prophetic, which were historical, and which were allegorical.

I hate "me too" posts, but again, well said, Stuart.

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Amen Alice Amen!
Stephanos I
I attended the Protestant Thanksgiving Servic this evening which a friend had said was going to be Ecumenical.
I should have not even bothered, it did one thing though confirmed my deciscion years ago to leave the Protestant assembly.

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