With two posts below in view, what is the greatest question Lambeth 2020 could address?
No. It is not whether Obama ordered a wiretap on Trump. It is not even whether Trump is like the Worst Ever Thing To Happen To The Western World.
It concerns God's Will In The Long Run
In the long run, however we interpret the long narrative arcing through Scripture, from Eden to Paradise, earth then heaven or heaven on earth (lookin' at you Tom Wright), this is God's will:
that God is in communion with God's people and that people is a single body of humanity.
There are no separate areas in heaven for Catholics and Protestants, for men and women, for the former masters and the former slaves. One people. One. That's the meaning of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5), ut unim sint (John 17), the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12), the communistic vision of the early church (Acts 2, 4) and the glorious vision of many tribes and languages gathered as one humanity in God's presence (Revelation 7).
Whether we focus on the prayer at the heart of the Lord's Prayer, Your Kingdom Come (OK, especially for some readers and for the CofE, Thy Kingdom Come) or on the kernel of the theology of Ephesians ("a plan ... to unite all things in [Christ]") there is one will of God in the long run: one communion, one people, one God.
That's why Trump is so dangerous: he is a divider not a uniter. That's why we are right to be wary of Putin: nationalism has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. That's why ISIS is simply evil: it maims and kills "the other."
So the greatest question Lambeth 2020 as our Anglican Vatican 2 for the 21st century could ask is this:
How can the Anglican Communion bear witness to the will of God for all humanity?
There are many supplementary questions but this overarching question is vital. The church does not exist for itself but for God and for God's will. And God's will is greater than the church, it is a will for all humanity. Our task in bearing witness to this will includes calling people to God, calling people to repent of all sin (for that distorts and disrupts God's plan), calling people to forgive and to be forgiven
2 comments:
"That's why Trump is so dangerous: he is a divider not a uniter."
Donald Trump is no more divisive than Hillary Clinton would have been - her supporters have the bull horns and play the tunes you want to dance to
They also have behaved very badly in the face of defeat
"That's why we are right to be wary of Putin: nationalism has nothing to do with the kingdom of God."
Why? Vladimir Putin is doing what he was elected to do, that is putting the interests of the people who elected him ahead of the the interests of Wall Street and London Bankers unlike American and British politicians
Fret not you are not going to see Russian Tanks parading down Lambton Key in your lifetime nor that of your Great Grand Children.
Though you might see WW3 as the forces of Darkness who rule this wicked world create a casus belli to launch an attack on Russia, the way the Teutonic Knights, the Poles, the Swedes, The Austrians, the French under Napoleon and the Germans under Hitler have all done in the past
"How can the Anglican Communion bear witness to the will of God for all humanity?"
By working with your Christian Brethren to preach the Gospel
I reckon you're right, Peter. Your theory here is called 'Unity in Diversity'. God made us all different (no clones - not even 'identical twins') - so that, maybe, we would look for a mutual sense of belonging: "that they all may be one, Father, as you and I are one, you in me and I in you!"
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