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lthough I sincerely wanted to encourage people to engage the issues
before General Convention more fully, reading and responding to “Wounded
in Common Mission” was difficult for me. To explain why, I offer two
disclaimers. First, I am not an Anglo-Catholic, or even a cradle
Episcopalian. I grew up Presbyterian in New Orleans, believing,
ruefully, that Roman Catholics represented the dominant American
religion. I developed a certain fascination with theology as a teenager.
Because Catholicism seemed so alien to a Presbyterian and because the
Roman Catholics seemed to exhibit a propensity to fabricate doctrine out
of whole cloth, however, I was not immune to what Christopher Wells
called “old-fashioned anti-papal and/or anti-curial fear-mongering.” (To
the degree possible, I have gotten over it.) My second disclaimer is
that I am not a theologian, and that by choice. If we can only be saved
by correct theology, I reasoned, most of us are doomed, having no sure
way to escape our fate. I therefore refused to accept such a gloomy
notion and concluded that my efforts were best expended on other
matters. By training, I am a computer scientist or, when the occasion
demands, a mathematician or logician. My language should be understood
with the foregoing in mind.
Next: Introduction to the Dialog by Christopher Wells
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