The warning applied to the Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church:
Galatians 5:14-15 (TNIV)
For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
We are devouring one another. It is a travesty. The distinctive spirit of Anglicanism is under great pressure to give way to the spirit of the world, the devises and desires of men.
It’s too easy to be pulled off target. What should be the few basic things we aim for in life that will bring about an honest and true balanced life?
In a culture of consumption and a culture that demands our self-worth be defined by externals (the degree of wealth or power or physical prowess or beauty or talent or education or whatever-lifts itself-up-at-the-moment) that we can accumulate or attain, we will never make it to that point of balance if we allow ourselves to be subsumed by its demands.
To what are we called? Within the Christian faith, it is first to love God with all our being and secondly to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Selflessness? Considering the needs of or what will benefit others before our own needs? Rejection of those things within culture that work counter to the Way of Christ? What is the “Way of Christ?”
Really, what is that “Way” – can we disassociate from our culture enough and put aside the demands of our fellow citizens who consciously or unconsciously demand our acquiescence and confirmation to the culture’s way-of-things to begin to learn, to move, to have our being within God’s economy of life?
Jesus was crucified for looking at things in such a way. His disciples where martyrs because of that way of being. What could it cost us? What will it cost to keep balance, to keep our sight on the target? I don’t know if I’m doing such a good job.
Galatians 5:1 – Freedom in Christ
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.