Sunday, December 11, 2011

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes; the PC(USA) Through Middle Eastern (African, etc.) Eyes

Alec Hill sent us three IVP books after his visit to our home. One of them is Kenneth E. Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels. We've heard of this book, are simply delighted to receive it, and sadly reminded of what Dr. Bailey said about the PC(USA) and the Article 10-A decision.

I posted on what Dr. Bailey said this past September. It's worth linking again to his article for PFR, and reposting this quote from that article:

The recent decision to change our ordination standards is a rejection of Scripture and tradition as understood by more than one billion Roman Catholics. It is also an offense to more than 300 million Eastern Orthodox in their various communities in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and around the globe.

Western Christianity has been the “superpower” of the Christian world for more than a thousand years. Across the centuries we were able to define what it meant to be a Christian. This is no longer the case. As is well-known, the numerical center of the Christian world has moved South and East. That “global South” is becoming more and more important for the larger body of Christ and they (along with the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox) will see us as having departed from Scripture and tradition as the Church everywhere has known it for two millennia. Our relationships with them are now freshly damaged.

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