the Awesome Highlighter

It was the presiding bishop’s remarks at the convention opening on Tuesday that have apparently roiled elsewhere, but caused barely a ripple here. In telling the more than one hundred bishops and eight-hundred deputies collected, that “business as usual” was not going to get the job done, she added that that it was a “great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”

In a gathering dedicated to stressing the cause of unity, the “individualistic focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy…that heresy is one reason for the theme of this convention.”

The people here got it, and I don’t sense any particular distress because of her remarks challenging that salvation depends on an individual reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. The tapestry I see being woven is one of community and shared interests, of inclusion and reaching out. It remains to be seen if everyone gets stitched in.