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Does Jefferts have something the rest of us don't?
Christian Life in the American Church
by C. J. Conner
2/10/2007
Mrs Schori claims that our task is to become divine.
Some say she has set women back years, even as she has ascended to the highest position in protestant Christendom. Katherine Jefferts-Schori has achieved equality with men in the halls of church polity. She has opened the door for all women to wear those silly looking mitres, and to look as ridiculous as the men while doing it. I'm sure the women whose shoulders she stands on- the women who led the suffrage movement- would roll over in their graves if they knew that they also won Jefferts-Schori's right to be a fashion train wreck. Now she seems to have ascended to yet another honored post- this time as goddess.
She's only the presiding bishop of the Episcopalian Church you say? Au Contraire my friend. She is divine. She said so herself. In her February 5th, 2007 interview with USA today, she says, "God became human in order that we may become divine. That is our task." A pretty tall order? You bet, but our Episcopalian goddess has that special divine spark.
Gnosticism at it's most decadent and presumptuous height, for Jefferts-Schori to teach that our task is to become divine is an embarassment to any preacher of the gospel. Where is the Christian Gospel in the call to become divine? Wasn't this the call of Satan to Adam and Eve in the Garden... "eat of this fruit, and you too will be divine- that is your task?"
And that mitre - jeez. It must be the formal helmet of the lavendar brigade, complete with the figure of a moon- the pagan symbol of feminine fertility- and swaths of purple interwoven with strands of gold- Royalty Indeed! Jefferts-Schori is an embarassment to every woman who has struggled for the freedom to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. To her, Jesus is not the only way, but we too have the burden of divinity. The poor Churches in the ECUSA who are running wildly and madly away from her can't take their property with them, she says. "The Church's laws are broad but they are there, and beyond these lines you cannot go. Crossing boundaries has consequences." Well, for all but Victor Gene Robinson, and others like him who are practicing homosexual bishops.
She maintains that the decline in the ECUSA is not any different than the losses in other mainline denominations, but since 1960 the Episcopal church has lost around a third of it's membership. Out of the 2.2 million left, only about half are active and contributing members. This is a devastatingly greater loss in membership than any other mainline denomination. This is the picture of a church in the violent and tumultuous throes of death. Would you like to chance a reason why?
I would imagine the whole, "our task is to become divine" works just about as well for us today as it did for Adam and Eve. We need a savior. We need Jesus Christ. Jefferts-Schori, though, has got it all under control herself. She can save herself, she can save the church, she can show you how you too can do the same. But still Jesus says, "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. (Mark 8:35)
Meanwhile, the moon, or the sun, or whatever it is that sits on the bottom of her lavendar mitre seems to be setting, not rising. She's got it all confused- light for darkness, evil for good, righteousness for unrighteousness, and God for the goddess- Jefferts-Schori.
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