Jul 11
Episcopal Bishop calls individual salvation ‘heresy,’ ‘idolatry’
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori says it’s “heresy” to believe that an individual can be saved through a sinner’s prayer of repentance.
In her opening address to the church’s General Conference in California, Jefferts Schori called that “the great Western heresy: that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”
The presiding bishop said that view is “caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus
According to Schori, it is heresy to believe that an individual’s prayer can achieve a saving relationship with God. “That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy.”
Bishops want marriage rituals for homosexuals
Meanwhile, six Episcopal bishops are pushing for greater recognition of same-sex marriages at a national gathering of church officials in California. Bishop Thomas Ely of Vermont says he and other bishops from states recognizing same-sex marriage will offer a resolution urging the church to adapt marriage rituals to include homosexual couples.
Ely says the resolution will be introduced at the church’s General Convention, which started Wednesday in Anaheim. The convention is held every three years.
- From Prophecy News Watch
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July 12th, 2009 at 9:51 am
The Very Rev. Dr.Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in The United States.
Made a statement regarding personal salvation. At last she is right on and will speak up.
She is a great leader and a marvelous theologian.
She has turned out to be a better leader than we ever dared hope for.
August 28th, 2009 at 12:45 am
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori called that “the great Western heresy: that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.” … “that view is “caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus”
In so much as this portion of her speech the bishop would be true and correct, however an individual does come participate in their salvation in a manner similar to that of the theif on the cross, for it is with our heart (and mind) that we believe and with our mouth that we make confession of our faith. For faith without works is dead (James 4 [show/hide]James 4
). Therefore it is not the recitation of a ‘formula’ that brings someone to salvation, but faith in Christ Jesus alone. However, that faith will find its outlet in those good works that God has prepared in advance for us to do.
Warning Against Worldliness
[4:1]What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? [2]You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. [3]You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. [4]You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. [5]Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? [6]But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." [7]Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. [8]Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. [9]Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. [10]Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
[11]Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. [12]There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
Boasting About Tomorrow
[13]Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"-- [14]yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. [15]Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." [16]As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. [17]So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (ESV)
Without seeing and considering carefully the rest of the bishop’s words I would hestitate to identify her as either great or marvelous as a leader or theologian.