“Secularism is no friend of Christ.”
Melody Phillips, journalist for the London Times
(Salvator Mundi / Leonardo da Vinci cica 1500)
Salvator Mundi, or Savior of the world….
A haunting image is it not?
Soft, other worldly and ethereal yet also equally powerful.
Look into those eyes…
At first glance the sockets appear gauzy, almost empty or perhaps out of focus.
Yet upon further inspection, the eyes seem to be like a window, opening into a
different realm or dimension..as in, they invite the viewer to look further
and venture deeper to someplace else.
This particular painting by Leonardo just set a record sale at Christie’s Auction
House, fetching the highest amount ever paid for a single painting…
approximately 450 million dollars.
The buyer is so far undisclosed.
And there is an entire post alone waiting to be written about this particular painting,
of this particular version….but that is for another day—
for today we have more important issues to discuss.
Savior of the World—-
that is indeed, for the Christian believer, Jesus Christ.
He was not simply a moral teacher, a philosopher or Jewish rabbi…
He was, just as He said and just He remains today—
The Savior of the World.
He is of one point to the three pointed triangle of the Trinity.
It is through Him and Him alone that anyone is to be saved.
It is not through good works, it is not through thoughtful actions….
it is only through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Therefore to repent.
To die unto self.
To believe in His Resurrection and His saving Grace.
Grace.
As in nothing done by one’s self…for Grace is beyond self.
Saved from self, from sin, from death…..
That is the summation of the Gospel.
The Bible, particularly the New Testament is the Holy inspired, written retelling
regarding that summation—the Good News.
It is the lynchpin of Christianity.
There is no Heaven, no Salvation, no Grace, no Hope without Jesus Christ.
He is the only way.
And yet today we have mainline churches who are pushing, have pushed,
that one key integral component to Christianity to the side.
It has become secondary to their now all consuming main focus of secularism.
For those who adhere to the progressive Christian narrative,
they are the ones who have decided to make an alliance with those who
push for all things secular…
Progressive, uptick, Christians who now believe and embrace the stance that
the world would have them embrace….and that is to see Christianity in a 21st century,
more modern image.
Yet what they fail to understand is that such a “friendship” will be the death of the Christian Church as we know it.
In the latest interview of Gavin Ashenden on Anglican Unscripted, he makes this
point perfectly clear.
Bishop Ashenden notes that the “anti Christian Secular Narrative is being
swallowed whole as if it is Christianity—
and it is most certainly not”
That narrative being the open acceptance of same sex marriage, openly gay clergy,
the embracing of transgenderism, newly defined family units…
all the while making it clearly known that, anyone opposed to such, shall be
labeled as a hate mongerer…anti love, anti accepting, anti whatever…..
never mind that the lies offered up as a new progressive gospel run counter to
the actual word of God.
In steps a woman named Lorna Asworth.
Lorna is Saskatchewan by birth and was raised as a Mennonite.
But as Life has its way, she married a Brit who was Anglican and so
the UK and the Church of England have now been her home ever since.
That is until most recently.
Lorna has been an active member of the laity who works very closely with the clergy
as she has risen in the lay ranks within the working body of the Church of England.
Yet when someone like Lorna tenders her resignation from said working body of the
Church of England, such a resignation, one would dare assume,
would not, should not, be cause for some sort of henny penny
the sky is falling sort of reaction…yet that is exactly what has happened.
This mild mannered wife, mother and church lay worker who considers herself
a conservative Evangelical Anglican has been active on the Archbishop’s
Council as well as serving in the General Synod for the past 12 years,
has found herself at the center of a growing maelstrom and as somewhat of
a poster child if you will, for the Orthodox voice of the Church.
Lorna recently granted an interview with Anglican Unscripted where she explains her decision to ‘abdicate’ her position from the Church’s working body as
she explains what is currently happening to the Church.
She explains that the Church has lost its way.
It has left behind those who continue to claim the Gospel as the true teaching of the Church. “The Glory of the Lord has departed as the Church of England
is moving outside the presence of God.”
“There are now two different Religious communities.
One is rooted in Christ and its right to ask for the Holy Spirit.
The Second is not—and is where Glory has disappeared.”
Lorna verbalizes so clearly what so many others now feel.
“What am I to do?”
I didn’t leave them, they left me”
She spoke of meetings where those more conservative members would actually
cite scripture to reinforce a point only to be met by rolling eyes and even jeers
from the more progressive attendees.
She cites that the Church is no longer talking about Jesus and the saving message
of Christ as she actually uses the word heresy when describing what is taking place
within the Church.
And in order for the Church to save herself from the inevitable implosion,
Lorna warns that there must be repentance, from the top down.
“We have lost what it is to fear (respect in some translations) the Lord.
If you fear the Lord, you will fear nothing else…and we have lost that.”
And so we leave it to a Jewish woman, one who leans a bit right in her
journalistic style, to write an article for the London Times noting that the departure
of Lorna Asworth from the Church is putting the Church of England on a trajectory
involved in self destruction.
As in it appears everyone gets it but the Church herself….
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