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May 9, 1997
Episcopal News Service
Jim Solheim, Director
212-922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

97-1762
Anglican Institute conference seeks "The Truth About Jesus"

        (ENS) Drawing more than 500 people to consider "The Truth
About Jesus," an Anglican Institute conference in Birmingham, Alabama,
April 9-12, offered a direct challenge to the Jesus Seminar, a
longstanding but controversial consultation of scholars seeking to
determine Jesus' exact words.
        In contrast to the Jesus Seminar's efforts to trim away what it
considers culturally derived additions to the real person of Jesus, the goal
of the Anglican Institute gathering "was to build a case for the truly
historic Jesus, the Jesus of both history and faith, of both man and God,"
noted one participant.
        The Very Rev. N.T. Wright, dean of Lichfield Cathedral in
England, affirmed the quest for the historical Jesus, calling it both
necessary and non-negotiable. He admonished Christians not to become
complacent in their faith by professing an "effortless superiority" as if
Christians have nothing to learn. Not to search history for clues about the
identity of Jesus, he said, is tantamount to separating the world from its
Creator, to splitting apart the sacred and the secular. 
        "We who believe so intensely in the Incarnation of Jesus," Wright
said, "must deal with the flesh of his earthly existence, an existence in
ancient Palestine at the beginning of the first century."

Christ has shown his face on the cross
        Principal Alistair McGrath of Wycliffe Hall in Oxford affirmed
Wright's statement that the God who would not show his face to Moses
has shown his face on the cross, wounded for the world's pain.
Confronted with that reality, "we are asked to be faithful; we do not have
the right to change who Jesus is," he said.
        "We are under great pressure to homogenize Christianity, to make
it fit other molds," McGrath said. "Christianity is a unique and delicate
ecosystem which once disturbed can only be put back together with great
difficulty."
        The Rev. Fleming Rutledge, interim rector of St. John's Church
in Salisbury, Connecticut, denounced what she called the shallow
thinking of those who wish to push the cross, the central marker of Jesus
Christ's identity, to the periphery. She said, "The cross of Christ is the
touchstone of faith. It is typical of American Christianity to push the
cross away and boost ourselves up."
        "The Episcopal Church is a sideline church in the culture today,"
said Bishop Edward L. Salmon, Jr., of South Carolina, chair of the
Anglican Institute, in a call for Christians to be more active in their faith.
"This culture is not friendly to the church," he asserted. Christians
should be ever more energetic about sharing what they believe.
        Former Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie echoed
Salmon's call, and stressed that "a living Christian faith bears better
witness than finger-pointing. You can't just inject the rest with correct
thinking," he said. "People are infected, not injected, with the truth."
        Churches continue to play a necessary role in society, Runcie
argued. "Much of the influence of a church is hidden and long term," he
said. "Media reports focus on the immediate and the short term.
Churches have a great long-term effect on the strength and character of a
community."
        The conference, fourth in an annual series, was held at the
Cathedral Church of the Advent, home parish of The Anglican Digest
magazine and the cathedral of the Diocese of Alabama.

--based on articles in the Anglican Digest and the Birmingham News.