For Glenn
I should hope we don't celebrate 4/7 (and get that the right way round!) .
We did have something to celebrate last month if you remember and you got
two days off. Just think how much better life would be if some rebels had
not got the upper hand. You could have a member of the royal family as
governor of each state!
Last 3rd July I went to an Independence Day rodeo at Spearfish SD that was
an education for me - and the Wheaton students! On a geological field trip
to Mt Rushmore I found another face - to the left of George Washington.
For Bob
I cannot think of any examples in prot theology where the incarnation is
not necissitated by sin. One could argue (entirely me here ) that had there
been no sin then incarnation of the word would be spuerfluous as God was in
total harmony and relationship with his Creation.
As a good non-liberal and non-catholic Anglican I feel a weakness of much
anglican incarnational theology is that it plays downs and weakens much
understanding of redemption atonement and thus of sin. This is based on a
wide familiarity of Anglican theology over the last 200 years so it is not
the knee-jerk reaction of a semi-fundamentalist Anglican.
This is a result of moving the centre of gravity of faith from atonement to
incarnation. As it has worked out in some anglican theology we have ended up
with a vacuous theology with nno redemption whatsoever and comes out clearly
in ultra-liberal anglican theology. It is seen clearly in many recent
communion services in the Church of England and in the recent Common worship
rites (2000) several prayers of consecration play down the atonemnt to a
great extent - and I will not use them.
I am afraid I find Zach Hayes summary of the Scotian view so speculative and
airy-fairy that it does nothing for me at all. It is a bit like trying to
specualte life based on silicon.
As I am totally non-speculative in my theology I cant see much point in
considering what might have been the case if things were different, so I
consider incarnation without sin as pointless as discussing whether God
created in an instant (he could have done) or over a few billion years.
A logical extension of an extreme incarnation is in my view the theology of
Matthew Fox.
Michael
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