22AR27-31

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AR 27:31 - Does America need "a new kind of atheism?"

In this issue:

ATHEISM - get ready for a "communitarian" version

HOMOSEXUALITY - Anglican conflict nearing an impasse?

Apologia Report 27:31 (1,584)
August 31, 2022

Please note: Our office will be closed for the next two weeks as a hubby attends to some more difficult-than-expected do's and a book gets a review re-do too. Look for AR to arrive once more in the week beginning September 18th.

ATHEISM

A simple appreciation of worldview complexity helps us understand each other. Latest example: "Why America needs a new kind of atheism right now" by MSNBC opinion columnist Zeeshan Aleem <zeeshanaleem.com> (Aug 1 '22).

"There are two pressing crises tied to the state of religion in America today. A new style of atheism can help answer both of them.

"The first crisis is rooted in an excess of religion. Christian theocracy is not a far-off specter but an emerging reality in America. Fueled by a radically reactionary Supreme Court that is two-thirds Catholic, Thomas Jefferson's already-dilapidated and graffitied 'wall of separation' between church and state is crumbling. ...

"The second crisis is tied, ironically, to the decline of religion. The religious right is securing more power in courts and legislatures and becoming more influential within right-wing culture, but it's not becoming more popular. Instead there has been an accelerating American drift away from organized religion - and most often toward 'nothing in particular.' ...

"My belief is that an energetic, organized atheist movement - which I propose calling 'communitarian atheism' - would provide an effective way to guard against the twin crises....

"'There has been zero, and I mean zero, innovation in the doctrine of separation [of church and state] in the last 50 years,' Jacques Berlinerblau, a scholar at Georgetown University and the author of Secularism: The Basics, <www.bit.ly/3PzVWTN> told me. ...

"At the same time, atheism can address the social and spiritual vacuum emerging in the wake of the slow death of mainstream organized religion. ...

"My personal journey as an atheist - which involved disillusionment with religion and mainstream atheism - is a big part of how I arrived at this idea. It may help to share it.

"Atheism opened up my world. But it didn't hold it together. ...

"Losing my [Muslim] religion was an unexpected moment of ecstasy. I no longer blamed myself....

"Atheism enlivened me and spurred me to develop a broader skepticism of all manner of received wisdom. The displacement of heaven inspired me to think about achieving utopia on earth....

"I didn't, however, always enjoy breaking bread with the atheists I encountered. ... I found that the New Atheists caricatured religion, and neglected to consider all the nuances of religious belief and the positive role it could play in people's lives.

"The most consequential example of this blindness to complexity was the New Atheist fixation on Islam as an existential threat to humanity....

"The New Atheists also failed to appreciate how religion provides valuable things secular life often fails to find. ...

"Living in New York, I found myself chanting Hebrew and joining hands with septuagenarians after group meditation sessions in my local Jewish community center. ...

"Political activism didn't quite scratch the itch. ...

"I strolled to a Quaker meeting in Manhattan, and watched towering trees gently brush against the windows of the old meeting house in the wind. ...

"I made a few new acquaintances and learned that a former well-liked teacher of my high school was now at the school affiliated with the Quaker meeting house I was attending. I felt nourished, and at home." <www.on.msnbc.com/3A5ZW97>

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HOMOSEXUALITY

In "The FAQs: Anglican Conference in Conflict over Same-Sex Marriage," Joe Carter (The Gospel Coalition, Aug 2 '22) provides significant background: "The Lambeth Conference is an international meeting where Anglican bishops discuss church and world affairs and the global mission of the Anglican Communion over the coming decade. The conference has met about every 10 years since 1867. The last conference was 16 years ago, in 2008. The one originally scheduled for 2018 was canceled because of divisions among the bishops over homosexuality and same-sex marriage. It was rescheduled for 2020, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference was delayed until 2022."

Carter notes that "Leaders of a group of conservative Anglican bishops from the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches - which represents around 75 percent of Anglicans worldwide - say they will refuse to take communion while worshiping alongside partnered LGBT+ bishops at the Lambeth Conference. ...

"A joint program for the wives and husbands of the bishops is also being held. Partners of same-sex bishops were not invited after a threatened boycott by bishops who oppose acceptance of homosexuality. The same-sex partners who come are allowed to attend as "observers" and can attend meals but are excluded from the Bible study. ...

"Within Anglicanism, communion refers to both the Lord's Supper and the Anglican Communion, or association, of churches. The symbolic import of refusing to share communion is that the conservative bishops don't believe the LGBT+ supporters are repentant believers and thus are not in Communion with their fellow Anglicans. ...

"Anglican churches have been dividing over the issue for the past two decades, with no resolution in sight. The apostate supporters of same-sex unions will not cede to the biblical standard and the traditionalists will not abandon the authority of Scripture. That means the process of dissolution will likely be long and drawn out, possibly over several more decades." <www.bit.ly/3pJczC6>

Also from TGC on August 2nd, in "As Bishops Meet, Anglican Future Is Already Written," Jeff Walton describes the latest Lambeth meeting this way: "Missing this year are bishops from some of the largest and fastest-growing provinces of the 85-million-member global family of churches descended from the Church of England, which is the third-largest body of Christians behind Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox."

Walton, in reference to "the shrinking numbers of Anglicans in the Global North," finds that "Those 130 dioceses in the U.S. and Canada now account for only about 2 percent of global Anglicans...."

Leading the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby "wants a conference addressing global poverty and climate change, but those ministering in the Global South (arguably the most affected by those challenges) insist that the bishops of the Anglican Communion must affirm the authority of God's Word in the face of a militant secularism in the North and errant teachings like the prosperity gospel in the South."

Walton points out: "Global South Anglicans took the lead in 2008 when they called for the formation of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). The ACNA, which has been largely formed from groups that separated from the Episcopal Church across several decades, is now recognized as authentically Anglican by most Anglican provinces worldwide. The presence of the ACNA is now a fact of life in the changing religious landscape of North America, and its membership is now larger than that of a dozen Anglican provinces (out of 41 total). Similarly, the fast-growing Anglican Church in Brazil was constituted as a province in 2018 as an evangelical alternative to the revisionist Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil." <www.bit.ly/3CuBfGd>

Meanwhile, note the establishment of "the Diocese of the Southern Cross, an extra-provincial Anglican diocese in fellowship with the majority of the world’s Anglicans through the Primates’ Council of the global Gafcon network." Writing at The Gospel Coalition Australia, Claire Smith observes: "On the one hand, the creation of the new diocese is a cause for grief. It reflects the sorry state of much of the national church and the failure of its appointed shepherds to uphold historic and orthodox Anglican faith." Yet the new diocese "is an answer to the prayers of many. It will provide an Anglican home for churches which leave their dioceses and enable them to continue in faithful Anglican ministry promoting the biblical gospel of repentance and saving faith in Christ." <www.bit.ly/3CKVwaC>

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