Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #612301 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 152 pages

Synopsis
Fear or Freedom? Why a Warring Church must Change The ugly public rows over sexuality, authority and the interpretation of the Bible in the Anglican Communion leave many people not caught up in internecine church conflict baffled and frustrated. . What has this bitterness got to do with the Gospel and Jesus' message of radical emancipation? . Why is there so much fuss over a denomination that often appears a colonial hangover? . What about the far more pressing issues of war, peace, development, environment, science and spirituality? . How does such infighting impact the credibility of the Christian message in the twenty-first century? With a short preface from Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Fear or Freedom? takes a constructively critical look at the significance of 'Anglican wars' in the run up to (and well beyond) the much publicised 2008 Lambeth Conference, signalling some important fault lines in post-Christendom life and faith. Drawing on material from the religion and society think-tank Ekklesia, the book asks why many historic churches are in a mess and how they can change. Its message is positive.The churches can - and must - abandon their obsession with top-down control, and rediscover the Gospel as a subversive source of hope in society at large.

Contributors: Simon Barrow and Jonathan Bartley (Co-directors of Ekklesia), Glynn Cardy (St Matthew's-in-the-City, Auckland, New Zealand), Deirdre Good (Professor of New Testament, The General Theological Seminary, New York), Savitri Hensman (Equalities adviser and writer, UK and Sri Lanka), Tim Nafziger (Christian Peacemaker Teams, USA), Chris Rowland (Dean Ireland Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture, University of Oxford) and David Wood (Parish priest and university chaplain, Western Australia).

Customer Reviews

A plea for tolerance
Published just before last year's Lambeth Conference, when it was all about to kick off over the issue of homosexuality in the Anglican church worldwide, this is multi author book is a plea for understanding and tolerance. It is to address that and the wider fissures forming, not just within Anglicanism, but within Christianity globally between "biblical literalism" and "Progressive Theology" that this book is primarily addressed, not just on the issues surrounding human sexuality.

And it is for the most part a series of papers that are a genuine heart cry for tolerance and understanding. It does fall in to the trap of demonising what it sees as Biblical Literalists, and it does get a bit woolly round the edges theologically (if the aim is to win over those of a more literalistic tendency, it fails by barely using the Bible to back up arguments - and not at all in some chapters).

It is also a mixture of commissioned and reproduced papers from other journals and books, so it does not entirely hold together - always a problem with multi-author books.

For one, I would have liked more Biblical critiques on the issues dividing the church, and a bit less humanist intellectualism, but that may say more about where I am coming from than anything else.

It adds little new to the debate, but it is worth reading if you feel uncomfortable with the hard lines being taken (on both sides) of current church disputes. But don't expect to come away with any radical new insights.