Why Study the Past?

"More tea Archbishop?" (in best Dick Emery voice). I love this photo! It was taken when Archbishop Rowan visited our local church and community project last November. I've been reading his book "Why Study the Past?" and it's a gem. A few things have put me in mind of the recent debate on Christian piracy/orthodox heresy. Here are some quotes that seem pertinent:

"To be clear about the Church's boundaries can become an obsessive concern with knowing exactly who is outside, who can be trusted to reflect orthodoxy as I have learned it. But definition matters, ultimately, so that resistance is possible to the idolatrous claims of total power that may be made from time to time in the world. Definition matters so that the Christian is free to say with conviction that the truth of the world and of humanity is not at the disposal of this or that system of political management.

To worship in words shared with non-Christians is to suggest that worship is an activity WE are somehow in charge of; it happens when and how we decide.... I think that, ultimately, the separation of two elements here, an inner relatedness to Christ and an outer flexibility about words and forms, takes away something vital from the idea that God calls into being a tangible human community, whose common language is the carrier of its common relatedness to Christ's invitation. Move away from this, and the visible reality of the Church becomes something almost optional, in a way that makes more abstract the interdependence of believers on one another - their interdependence precisely as visible, material, historical and language-using subjects."

Comments

[RAewynne Whiteley]

Is it possible to get a high res copy of this photo - we'd love to be able to print it out large to hang in our little kids' sunday School room.
RAewynne

[Graham]

Those quotes bought me up short...'guilty m'lud!'... I will look out that book..

..only one point from the quotes...I've heard the same arguments from vociferous holders of tradition to justify using stuff that connects only with a small group.

I guess Rowan+ is more nuanced: as I say, it is something I could do with reading...