A new commandment I give you...

In John 13, Jesus says that he has a new commandment for us, "love one another." While I worry a bit about proof texting, I think this one is worth quoting because it does a good job of summarizing what Jesus taught us to do.

Somehow this has not penetrated the consciousness of some of our Roman cousins. If ancient Greece gave us philosophy, and ancient Israel the revelation of the creator God; Rome gave us legalissm. In one sense this really was gift to a world that was used to lives ruled by the caprice of the guy with the most swords. Legalism defined a safer world.

Jesus however was not a legalist. Jesus was in the love business, the caring business and the healing business. I was asked once why so many of the miracles in the Jesus's ministry are stories of healing. I replied that Jesus was quite capable of doing other things but he was trying to tell us what we should be doing -- healing the world damaged by sin.

There is sadly another view. At two thousand years (more or less) Rome had descended into the dark side of legalism -- rules and rulers who make them matter. Love, caring and healing do not matter nearly as much. Today I offer you a particularly horrible example. This Article is about a new group of inquisitors. The money quote from the article is:

"We're no more engaged in a witch hunt than a doctor excising a cancer is engaged in a witch hunt," said Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com and St. Michael's Media. "We're just shining a spotlight on people who are Catholics who do not live the faith."

The grand inquisitors undoubtedly thought the same thing.

This is not love or faith, this is blinding, anti-prophetic legalism. It is also what the "covenant" offers the Anglican family. Once the rules matter more than the love, once we spend our time seeking misconduct and applying obtuse legal processes to stop it, once in short the covenant destroys the Anglican experience and drags us into legalism, the inquisition, the witch hunt, suppression of free thinkers and the death of intellectual inquiry inevitably follow.

Rome defines the limits of inquiry, the boundaries of conclusion and the limits of faith. Canterbury wants to do the same to us. I won't speculate on why he wants that but surely an archbishop with serious academic credentials in history and theology can see over the covenant and see the inquisition looming. No Covenant is not merely a graphic or a slogan it is a plea. Follow the link to see what happens if we do not fulfill it.

FWIW
jimB