During Holy Week Archbishop Rowan Williams is preaching at All Saints, Margaret Street, London.
In his Wednesday sermon Rowan compares the power of Pontius Pilate with that of Jesus Christ.
Towards the end of his sermon (position 12.30) Rowan questions how we live out the power that belongs to Jesus:
"If I say patchily, that is a polite understatement because there is our own kind of gravitational power as well. The gravitational power of egos and fear which draws us back again and again to Pilate's world and Pilate's power. We all ought to be heartbroken when we see how readily that happens.
"How often, at the moment, are we reading about problems of bullying in the Church? The misuse of authority at one level or another.
"Every preacher ought to be aware that whenever they stand in the pulpit there will be some members of the congregation who have experienced Pilate's power at work in the Church and who are aware of their own danger in sitting where they sit. And how it ought to break our hearts when we see on the other side of Europe, a Church invested in the power of the state, not merely the power of the state to control but the power of the state to invade and slaughter."
That should have some ears burning!
There was also a powerful attack on Kirill's hypocrisy in the Irish Times from Maria Jansen
ReplyDeletewho is the retired Dean of Waterford. It was emailed me by a Russian Orthodox priest who is also a friend of Rowan Williams. Slava Ukraine.
The ears will only burn if they have been listening and the cranium to which they are attached has then understood that the text and preacher is referring to them.
ReplyDeleteIt was Rowan Williams who bullied Jeffrey to stand down as Bishop of Reading in 2004.
ReplyDeleteA bit harsh Jon? Rowan trying to hold together the Anglican Communion.
DeleteSo the end justifies the means, AB?
DeleteMethinks not.
That is not what I meant 1662.
DeletePlease speak freely.
DeleteThe Anglican Communion is already dead thanks to Barry Morgan and Rowan was complicit.
Did Rowan speak out over the Jeffrey John Electoral College scandal when John "Shirley" Davies and Gregory Cameron stitched it up?
DeleteHeigh Ho!
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DeleteBelated sermonising is all very well, but where was ++Rowan when his successor, ++Barry turned the bullying and abuse of power cogs fully on when he took over the mantle in Wales. By his unchecked example others of senior appointments including two of Barry Morgan's favoured women priests who'd go on to serve as Deans in Bangor and archdeacons elsewhere, assumed that his style - unchecked by Rowan Williams - was the way to greater things. Rowan surely can't pretend he didn't know the goings-on ... just perhaps a little to nice a man to do anything about it.
ReplyDeleteIt amazes me how former archbishops of Canterbury - including George Carey - seem to have these brain-storm thoughts to pontificate on only once they're left Lambeth Palace.
Ad Clerum
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61130841
ReplyDeleteAnother chocolate teapot.
Pathetic.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-61133614
ReplyDeleteAnother chocolate teapot.
Nigel Farage describes Williams as 'a Marxist'.
ReplyDeleteDom
Norman Tebbit also once described the Church of England's report "Faith in the City" as "Marxist" - quite a misguided comment by the former Tory Cabinet Minister.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent Holy Week sermon by Rowan Williams who recently called for the Russian Orthodox Church to be expelled from the World Council of Churches. What power is Patriarch Kirill currently displaying with his wholehearted support of Vladimir Putin - is it the power of Pilate or the power of Jesus?
Norman Tebbit is a damn sight more sensible than any Archbishop of the Church of England in the last forty years or more.
DeleteBut is it a true assessment? That's the point.
ReplyDeleteDom
More than a grain of truth in it, I suspect.
ReplyDeleteTom