Any thoughts about the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle? My wife and daughter woke me up early to watch it. I quite enjoyed it. Bp. Curry is always a great preacher and this was no exception. https://youtu.be/N42MQJX4KoY
I didn't watch it but I read this: https://www.christianpost.com/news/...-meghan-markle-royal-wedding-coverage-224173/
As Anglican's we get a few special opportunities to share something of the message of the Gospel with a wider audience. The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was such an opportunity, possibly reach 1.9 billion people globally live. Having the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church preach was a great statement about the cross cultural and global nature of Anglicanism. I believe Bishop Michael did a great job, solid message, on song, and hopefully touched people in the wings to think more deeply about love and the nature of God. I personally loved the use of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, though I think he lost a few people there as I think that needs a longer discourse to explore the subject properly. He did however leave us all very clearly with the feeling that the Anglican Church has something to say about God, not simply the conservative party at prayer.
I was up early and watched the full coverage. I was amazed at Archbishop Curry's preaching - I'm not used to it, I was surprised, and I'd only ever seen such preaching on tele. However I found a video of the sermon superimposed with a recording of "Oh, Happy Day," and I nearly soiled myself laughing.
All in all, I enjoyed the wedding. I did have a couple of reservations however regarding Bishop Curry's address. He used the word "love" much too often, my feelings being that when a word is used that often in an address it loses some of its impact. My second concern was what I thought was his implication that if we all loved more we could change the world and make a paradise on earth. Perhaps I misunderstood him. The scriptures make it very clear that this fallen world is never going to be a perfect place, and we, as Christians, are sojourners here. Can we make our world a better place? Certainly. But we can't solve all its problems, and many teachers today at least seem to imply that we can.
I think it would be fair to say that Bishop Curry's didactic style is a little different to the average Anglican?! Maybe that is part of why it had an impact. He was indeed very much onsong with his oft repeated message 'if it is not about love then it is not about God'. In a sense part of that made it a little less 'Church of England' and a little more globally Anglican. Whilst I think it is clear that this world is not perfect, and not likely to become so, however we as Christians are called to be striving to make this world a better place, to have a mind for the poor, and to speak for those who have no voice. We are here, not simply so we can leave, we are here to make a difference. I think that the message of the Gospel is that we do not do this alone, and indeed we cannot do this alone, we need each other, and far more importantly we need God in our lives. I think that is very much the mind of Martin Luther King in Strength to Love. I am not sure how many of you have seen Curry on Jesus Movement, I found something I was not expecting. It can be found here. For those who are worried it is just under 4 minutes. https://www.episcopalchurch.org/presiding-bishop-michael-curry I will admit that I did reflect on some my dear Father used to say of preacher's, often 'do you know he drove that sermon right past a logical conclusion!' It is my hope and prayer that Harry and Meghan will make a difference.
I agree with what you said, Philip, but I stand by the point I made. I went to the link you provided and this is the first thing I noticed: "Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.” ― Michael Curry, Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus That isn't going to happen. We will not, even with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, change the world into God's dream. Not according to the scriptures or the Church Fathers. We do what we can, but the world will not be redeemed prior to the final judgement.
And I just knew that paragraph was going to come back at me. I also think we should give thanks that the sermon is worth as much conversation as the dress, as very often it isn't.
Perhaps it's because I grew up and live in the South, or because I was exposed to several different churches growing up (On Sundays my mother took me to Methodist and Episcopal churches. On Wednesday nights my grandmother took me to the Baptist church. When I visited my Aunt, we went to her Pentacostal Church, and so on), but I thought Bp. Curry's sermon, albeit timely and well done, was pretty typical fare even within the TEC. Am I wrong?
I think you are reading into Curry's and MLK's statements ideas that are not there. Nowhere did either say that brotherly love alone would make the world perfect and that Christ or His return were unnecessary to reach the fulfillment of God's plan. Curry, quoting Dr. King, said love would make this old world into a new world. I believe that and I think that belief in the transformative power of divine love in the world is a pretty common sentiment among all Christians. After all, Christians are commissioned by Christ to preach the good news of the redemptive and transformative power of Christ's love to all nations. I've never met a faithful, fruit-bearing Christian who hadn't had at some point in their lives an encounter with God's love that transformed them and in turn transormed the lives of those they touched thereafter. God's kingdom through his Church is advancing in this world with every soul that finds and is found by Christ. We are not called solely to wait for our tarrying Lord, we are called to use our talents until He returns. We are called to be light, to be salt, to be yeast, to be good samaritans rescuing and caring for this broken world. We are to be about our Father's business. I take those charges seriously. Had Christians taken the nihilistic view that this old earth was hopelessly lost and beyond any betterment, there would not have been an abolitionist movement, or a civil rights movement, or a Great Awakening, or even a Reformation. The goodness of the world we enjoy today exists on the dividends of the faithful witness of christians in the past who saw wrong in the world and, with God's help, sought to fix it and refused to wait for the hereafter when they could be emissaries of God's love in the here and now. Love changes things, ask any homeless person who was given food and shelter, any prisoner who was visited, any sick person who received care, any widow and orphan who's been provided for, and they'll agree. As Scott's hymn puts it, "the world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will." And if we all did our duty to love others as Christ loved us, then the power and effect of that love would transform this world completely into the bright and shining city that Our Lord told us about. God grant us the grace to do just that. To be about our Father's work, to transform this old world into a new one through Christ's redeeming love. Amen!
I didn't mean to get into a debate over bishop Curry and his address, and I hope my comments have not offended anyone. I stumbled acrosss this article this morning and it pretty well covers the concerns that I have with his grace: https://ashenden.org/2018/05/20/the...-welby-curry-and-the-integrity-of-the-gospel/
I too saw Bishop Ashenden's commentary on Curry, and the media fawning over his performance at the pulpit, and the link Peterprint is worth reading
The article I linked to mentioned that he is in favor of same-sex marriage. I know God can communicate the gospel through flawed people, but is it true?
TEC has made the decision to bless same-sex unions. Bp. Curry is the Presiding Bishop of TEC so I assume he agrees with that stance. From an interview a couple of years ago, I believe he considered it a matter of civil rights. I have never agreed with that stance and pray for a course reversal on this matter. How and ever, as a friend on the Forums used to say, as the increasingly lone Episcopalian on this site, I feel you guys are being terribly unfair to Bp Curry and are engaging in the clearest example argumentum ad hominem I've ever seen. You are displacing the issues you have with the messenger onto the message. Here is his Sermon: There's no talk of same sex marriage...no talk of the progressive agenda...just a simple sermon on the power of love, the source of which is God and the greatest demonstration of which is in Christ. Christ's love has transformed and redeemed the world and it will continue to do so until The Lord returns to bring everything under his loving rule. I think it was, all in all, a very good sermon for a wedding setting, most especially because it was a memorable one. But even more so because it has gotten people all over the world curious. Curious about what kind of religion inspires this kind of sermon. Curious about the kind of love he talked about. Curious about the Savior he speaks of. I think this is a moment and a sermon to be celebrated by all Christians concerned for the souls who do not yet know our Lord and Savior and I hope you'll join me in praying that the Holy Spirit will do in their hearts what he has done in ours and that this sermon will bear much fruit. Bp. Curry is flawed. I don't need Rev. Ashendon to tell me that. But I've got news for you. We are ALL flawed. We are sick with sin and blind to truth and without God's constant care we would all be hopelessly lost. But there is truth in Curry's message. God's truth. If God could use the mouth of an ass, or worse yet, my mouth to speak His truth, then I see no reason to think His truth should be any less celebrated when it comes from the mouth of the Presiding Bishop. I fear that in your zeal to purge Anglicanism of all heterodoxy, you may be pulling up the wheat with the tares. Our Lord said don't do that. Let's instead find common ground where we can. That's what love is all about: "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails."
I have a high regard for Bishop Gavin Ashenden, however on his blog there have been since the wedding two significant commentary pieces, both fairly negative and critical both of ArchBishop Justin Welby and of Bishop Michael Curry. As the Missionary Bishop to Europe not in communion with either of the other Bishop's I understand the temptation to be critical and I am sorry that Bishop Gavin has given in to it. We of course must recognise where he is coming from, and allow the possibility that he has another agenda on this occasion. The is a point where preaching needs to have a relevance to it's circumstance, and a full blown sermon of the death and resurrection and the atonement one for us in Christ would, in my view, been out of place at the wedding. Bishop Michael's sermon was apposite, relevant, Jesus focussed and biblically based. To me, perhaps the great challenge for us all (including the nearly 2 billion people who heard it) in the sermon was: we must discover love - the redemptive power of love.