Sunday, March 04, 2007

from ens: a conversation with presiding bishop katharine jefferts schori

Read the full text here. On the whole, her summary of the situation is quite fair. I was surprised. Of course, being a progressive, she fails to grasp the central point that some ideas actually do contradict each other, and the traditionalist/progressive ideas of Christian sexuality do just that. And she's got her Anglican history wrong AGAIN: the Elizabethan settlement was much more intolerant a period than is stereotypically portrayed. Where'd that woman go to seminary?

4 comments:

gwb said...

" Where'd that woman go to seminary?"

Father, as the seemingly awe-struck media constantly remind us: "She's an oceanographer AND (!!!) a pilot." Wow.

Also: I seem to recall reading somewhere that Elizabeth killed more catholics than Henry / Edward, and more protestants (i.e. Puritans) than Mary. Is this so? Do we know a source? Of course she reigned for a long time. But still.... an interesting fact (if it is, in fact, a fact).

Ecgbert said...

I agree that as a theologian, ecumenist (in the good sense of that word) and ad-lib public speaker she's a hell of an oceanographer and pilot.

Interestingly her late mother, an RC (Dr J-S is a born RC; her parents switched to Episcopal when she was a child) turned Episcopalian turned Orthodox, was sound as a pound in her basic theology and on the controversial issues.

Good point about Protestant Queen Bess and her in both senses bloody settlement.

Anonymous said...

About 189 Catholics were executed (for treason, real or alleged) under Elizabeth, and some 5 heretics (Anabaptists and anti-Trinitarians) were burnt during her reign, and about 5 or 6 more extreme Puritans for sedition/treason. About 212 heretics were burnt during the reign of Mary Tudor. Under Edward VI 2 heretics were burnt (one Anabaptist and one anti-Trinitarian), but no Catholics were executed for the treason of denying the Royal Supremacy.

Under Henry VIII, some 50 heretics were burnt in the course of his whole reign, and some 75 Catholics for denying the Royal Supremacy -- a mumber that increases to some 400/600 if you include those executed for "traiterous words" against the king, his marriages, his policies regarding religion, and those executed in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace and other conspiracies, real and alleged.

Anonymous said...

Henry VIII had an Act of Parliament passed in 1534 that made any "speaking against the king" treason. It was repealed in 1547 and never revived.

Btw, KJ-S's mother was a firm opponent of the pretended "ordination" of women, and left TEC for the Orthodox Church around 1977 or 1978. Her husband, who remained Episcopalian, divorced her, and is now on his third wife. KJ-S has three nominally Episcoplian siblings, none of whom go to church, while her father attends occasionally.