Carey Addresses 'Christianity In The Crucible' in Texas Lectures
Episcopal News Service. May 25, 2000 [2000-109]
(ENS) In a series of lectures in mid-May in Wichita Falls, Texas, honoring a prominent American Methodist family, Archbishop of Canterbury George L. Carey explored the theme, "Christianity in the Crucible."
After expressing a personal tribute to the Methodist Church as a sister church "in the glorious business of proclaiming and living the Christian faith," Carey announced in his first Perkins lecture that he would draw on the great themes of faith -- Christ, Scripture, Gospel and Church, placing them in the context of Paul's letter to the Ephesians and the 21st century "which is our fleeting home."
"The apostolic writers felt no embarrassment, no shame and no regret in presenting Christ as the 'hinge of history' and as one who makes all thing new," Carey said. "Paul states that Jesus is the source of our entire existence as Christians," that "we have been chosen to be his children."
He added, "The Christian faith is not an arid, erudite religion locked away in studies for the benefit of scholars who like that sort of thing -- but a practical faith known in the act of living and believing. To read Ephesians is like listening to someone's experience of God. It is the intimate language of the heart."
Other faiths also recognize the uniqueness of Jesus, Carey said. In his conversations with other religious leaders he is convinced that "it is possible to be a whole-hearted Christian and still be able to understand, accept and work with persons of other faith traditions," and that it is important to witness but also to listen to the stories of other believers.
In a lecture on The Scriptures in a Transient Age, Carey contrasted the approach of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who insists that Scripture is "inerrant" and "absolutely infallibe," and Bishop John Spong, who says that the Bible must be understood and interpreted in the light of our knowledge and suppositions.
"For Falwell, the Bible hedges us in on every side. It is God's total truth about everything. It must measure everything we believe and everything we do," Carey observed. "We cannot escape it and thus we must embrace it totally."
And for Spong "the Bible is merely history," and "modern Christians cannot look to it as a source or guide to contemporary truth and behavior."
Carey said that he had problems with both approaches. "Each in his own way sounds like a fundamentalist -- reducing complexities to satisfactory simplicities," with one arguing that the Bible is "nothing but the pure voice of God," and the other that the Bible "is nothing but the by-gone voice of the church." It is necessary, therefore, to look for a middle way, not abandoning Scriptures to "the dogmatic voices of either the fundamentalist literalist or the fundamentalist radical."
Since the Bible is at the same time a simple collection of stories which speak "directly to the human heart, it is also a complex and deep book over which generations of scholars have pored with delight." The Anglican tradition, he pointed out, "has always given way to the authority of Scripture in the light of reason. This way of doing theology means hard work, constant prayer, and dialogue with those who disagree with us on the basis of respect and toleration."
"Although there will always be some for whom the church has been a hateful symbol of repression or class or establishment or rigid morality, there also will be many more for whom it has been the channel of blessing, grace and God's love," Carey said in his final lecture.
Drawing on his extensive travels, Carey said that the church "has blessed our world with humanitarian aid, with educational opportunities, with medical science, and has introduced human rights and equality to untold millions of people." Of course, there is much that is wrong with the church, he added, "because it consists of fallible people like you and me who daily need God's love."
One of the aims of the church, according to Carey, is "to be prophetic churches which are unashamed of our Christian witness." And we should build a church "where the work of God is joyful and where each person has a contribution to make."
"In spite of the great challenges facing churches today," Carey concluded, "we have much to encourage us. We are not in business to please ourselves, and we belong to a fellowship whose success is already guaranteed by God. We shall never go out of business -- neither will there be any end of the pleasure of serving our Lord and Christ."
Carey received an honorary doctorate from the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University
According to participants, Carey told a gathering of clergy in the Diocese of Fort Worth that allowing individual dioceses to set their own policy on the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians and the blessing of same-sex relationships could threaten the unity of the church.
"The moment you have a diocese that goes it alone, you break with catholicity and fundamental belief," Carey is quoted as saying by the Rev. Scott Albergate, communications officer of the diocese. "One creates schism."
Carey said an approach such as the one recommended by the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to resolve the issues at the diocesan level, could "endanger the Anglican Communion." He pointed to the communique issued by the primates of the Anglican Communion at the end of their Portugal meeting as a "real warning" against such an approach. And he said that such tendencies are signs that the culture is driving the church. "We must as Christians stand against this," he said.
In a press conference after the lecture series, Carey answered a question about the prospects of the church changing its stance on homosexuality. "I'm a traditionalist," he responded. "If we are to make changes, then we must be convinced that there are good theological reasons for doing so."