Sunday, July 5, 2009

Niche church or catholic church

Philip Turner writing at The Anglican Communion Institute takes on the might of The Episcopal Church (TEC), relentlessly arguing that an exclusive concern for inclusiveness excludes those who do not subscribe to the particular agenda and rationale of the inclusives. In the course of his argument he makes this point (italics mine):

"Exclusion of meaningful opposition in respect to the matters now before The Episcopal Church in the end will produce a niche church rather than a catholic church. Progressive claims to inclusivity are in fact false. The logic of their position drives relentlessly toward an increasingly constricted identity. The question progressive Episcopalians must answer is why members of the Episcopal Church that do not share their views ought to think otherwise. To put the issue more directly, progressive Episcopalians need to show the membership of their church and the rest of the Anglican Communion why their position does not end in an exclusive form of church life rather than a diverse one."

This is a reminder for hermeneuticists of the Anglican churches that if hermeneutics does not lead to one absolute, unifying truth, that could be a good thing. Difference in hermeneutical conclusions can contribute to the catholicity of the church. Closedness to more than one conclusion could lead to a nice church (i.e. we like it) which is a niche church (i.e. a few of us like it, but many pass it by).

No comments:

Post a Comment