Reformed Living

In downtown Hartford, CT is a most beautiful, worshipful House of God.  It is the Cathedral of the Diocese of Connecticut and was consecrated as such in 1829.  The Bishop at the time was Rev Thomas Brownell who would go on to become the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.  Very instructive and inspiring is a sermon the Bishop preached to all the clergy of his Diocese in 1821 (quoted below).  It is valuable in its own right and I recommend it, especially to Priests of our day.  It also illuminates very clearly how different TEC  and its Faith now is from the Church of Bp and PBp Brownell and the Faith once proclaimed in this Cathedral.

Dr Brownell (who founded Trinity College in Hartford) began and ended his speech to the Clergy present, saying,

keep constantly in view the great object and end of your ministry--to persuade sinful men to embrace the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, and to build up his Church in the most holy faith.

He also insisted,

You are preachers of the Gospel. It should be your principal object then, to lay before your people its distinctive principles. These are briefly, the natural depravity of man, the atonement of the Saviour, the renovation of the heart by the graces of the Holy Spirit, and the necessity of a living faith, a sincere repentance, and a willing obedience to the divine commands. And in inculcating these doctrines, you will do well to follow the simplicity of the Gospel;

These doctrines;--the natural depravity of man, and the way of salvation by the atonement of the Redeemer, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, constitute the foundation of the Christian system. To preach them as they are contained in the Scriptures, and set forth by the Church, must be the leading object of your ministry.

http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/tcbrownell/charge1821.html

Like many others, I was greatly disturbed by the remarks made last week by the Presiding Bishop Katharine Schori of the Episcopal Church at the General Convention, including  repudiation of what she called, "the great Western heresy: that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.'  She continued, "That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention. Ubuntu. That word doesn't have any 'I' in it."

Many outraged evangelicals were quick to denounce the PB and her remarks.  But  I think there is more involved here than meets the eye.  She continued, "That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention. Ubuntu. That word doesn't have any 'I' in it."   Her critics (and supporters) need to take "Ubuntu" seriously.  "Ubuntu" is the key to what she said and to much else happening in many churches today, including Evangelical ones and it is the "true" Heresy".