Head of Episcopal Church Rejects Exclusivity

                                                                                                 Vol. XIX, No. 9, Nov/Dec 2006

Katharine Jefferts Schori, who became the first woman presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church Nov. 4 at Washington National Cathedral, holds key views contrary to what her own church believes.

A CNN reporter asked Schori, “So what happens after I die?”

“What happens after you die? I would ask you that question,” Schori responded. “But what’s important about your life, what is it that has made you a unique individual? What is the passion that has kept you getting up every morning and engaging the world? There are hints within that about what it is that continues after you die.”

When Time magazine asked her if belief in Jesus is the only way to get to heaven, she said, “We who practice the Christian tradition understand Him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.”

And when a National Public Radio host asked her to elaborate on that answer, Schori said, “Christians understand that Jesus is the route to God. Umm -- that is not to say that Muslims, or Sikhs, or Jains, come to God in a radically different way. They come to God through ... human experience ... through human experience of the divine. Christians talk about that in terms of Jesus.”

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, noted on his blog Nov. 10 that the Articles of Religion used by the Episcopal Church clarify that “Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.”

Schori also affirms the ordination of homosexual bishops and the blessing of homosexual unions.

“Many Episcopalians and Anglicans around the world will recognize that the logic of subverting Scripture in order to ordain women to the preaching ministry opens the door to all these aberrations,” Mohler wrote. “This is a church in deep trouble.”

Eight Episcopal dioceses have asked to be placed under a leader other than Schori, the Associated Press reported.