Martin Luther was anti-Semitic and Paul was misogynistic. Both were severe character flaws that have made the world a worse place. But this was not the entirety of their contribution to humanity. They were flawed people, but their good contributions should not be disregarded because of their failings. If that is the standard, then we cannot learn from both our mistakes and our successes. People need to do both.
The evil men do lives after them
The good is oft interred with their bones.
raises hand
I was at her sermon, in person, when she spoke the OP quote. My thought was “Oh, those poor desert fathers, the ones who left civilization to live alone with God… now they’re heretics!”
Cite? 
Being a Christian means both having a personal relationship with God/Christ and being a member of the “body of Christ” (i.e. the church, the fellowship of believers, the community of all who follow Jesus). Some Christian traditions emphasize the former (e.g. the evangelicals), others the latter (e.g. the Roman Catholics).
So, were you there for the whole conference? Care to share?
I was hoping you were still around!
I’m more amused by the fact that the angry response has all the fire the Anglicans often lack. I’d have to agree with C. S. Lewis on that. The very fact that this thread came up is basically the issue.
The problem is that England (and to varying degrees most western nations) really lack any kind of faith or beliefe. I’m not even talking about belief in God: too many people seem to wallow in their own filth as a sort of profession. They accomplish nothing, instead steadily withdrawing inside themselves (in what can only be described as a new form of Hell on Earth, however pleasurable). See Oscar Van den Boogaard’s comment about enjoying freedom - but not defending it.
This kind of malaise appears everywhere, and as far as I am concerned, the mess in the Episcopal church is one symptom. It retreats into a pablumic “community” where it can decay quietly, hiding behind insipid intellectual fashions (and intellectual fads are always the most insipid). The obsession, primarily of the modern urban left, for community, is the same nod vice grants to virtue in the form of hypocrisy. Sneering at honor, courage, and community, they now chant paeons to it and become High Priests (or in this case, preistesses)of its religion But they still don’t actually have it.
Maybe there is a difference between a “camp meeting” and a community of the faithful, but I doubt if anyone but Bishop S. could describe it.
ISTM that Bishop Schori is saying that not only is altar-calling not all of Christianity, it isn’t part of orthodox Christianity at all.
I thought the Anglicans had rejected the notion that “outside the Church there is no salvation”, but apparently not.
Regards,
Shodan
Interestingly, camp-meetings & altar calls all strike me as methods of some Anglican named… John Wesley.
Was George Whitefield an Anglican also?
I’ve been in the Evangelical circles for almost 40 years, watched tons of TV Evangelists, heard lots of Evangelical pastors & teachers & never once heard that a person can get saved & develop spiritually without church fellowship & doing good to others. I’ve heard many messages decrying the idea that one can be a Lone Ranger Christian who doesn’t need the church & to be reaching out to others.