I realize that Bishop Tutu is admired by many in this country. Personally, I think he is suffering from the mental disorder of Liberalism.
A grand reception for Archbishop Tutu
"His message is a message of reconciliation, peace and harmony"
Friday, October 26, 2007
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu yesterday thanked Pittsburghers who worked to end apartheid in South Africa and received an unprecedented dual honorary doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.
He also threw down a theological challenge on a doctrine that the worldwide Anglican Communion is threatening to split over.
In his sermon, he poked fun at the belief that only those who accept Jesus as their savior can enter heaven.
I thought his message was one of reconciliation and here he is poking fun of traditional Christianity.
"Can you imagine that there are those who think God is a Christian?" he said to laughter from a mostly appreciative audience. "Can you tell us what God was before he was a Christian?"
Aaaah, yea, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
More than 1,300 people crammed into lofty Calvary Episcopal Church, East Liberty, yesterday for the interfaith prayer service, part of the archbishop's first visit here.
Jared Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University, noted the unusual setting for the secular universities to award their degree, but said the archbishop's role in ending brutal segregation and working for reconciliation in South Africa made extraordinary gestures easy. He awarded the degree with Mark Nordenberg, chancellor at Pitt.
They were surrounded by religious leaders, from evangelical Presbyterians to Muslims to rabbis to Catholic Bishop David Zubik of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Bishop Robert Duncan of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, a leader among theologically conservative Anglicans, also attended.
The location was significant for Bishop Duncan because Calvary is suing the diocese over Bishop Duncan's effort to change church property rules so that congregations can more easily leave the Episcopal Church. Calvary's rector, the Rev. Harold Lewis, is an old friend of Archbishop Tutu and towered over the diminutive archbishop, who was seated in a red chair near the pulpit.
The church was filled with those who supported the archbishop's social justice concerns both now and 20 years ago, when black people couldn't enter white South African neighborhoods without a "guest worker" pass. He opened his sermon with thanks to those who had prayed, marched and gone to jail to protest apartheid.
"One of the great privileges ... is to be able to come to places such as this and say to you: We asked for your help. You gave it. We are free. Thank you, thank you, thank you," he said.
He spoke of marching side by side with rabbis and imams.
"They were all inspired by their faiths. I have yet to hear of a faith that says it's OK to be unjust," he said.
How about those who have their followers straping on bombs and killing innocents.
"Injustice and oppression isn't just evil, which it is. It's not just painful, which it certainly is for the victim. It's like spitting in the face of God."
He invoked his friendship with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist leader who has been exiled from his homeland for nearly 50 years. Although others would be embittered, the Dalai Lama is filled with "bubbly joyousness," he said.
"You have to be totally, totally insensitive not to know you are in the presence of someone who is holy and good."
"There is none righteous, no not one". "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner".
He then asked, "Can anyone say to the Dalai Lama, 'You are a good guy. What a shame you are not a Christian'?"
Yes, I can say that.
His question drew laughs, but was a direct challenge to conservative Anglicans, who have long said that their deepest concern about the Anglican Communion is not gay ordination but the rejection of classic doctrines about Jesus. One of the most important is the belief that humans can only come into the presence of God if their sins have been forgiven, and that their sins can only be forgiven because Jesus died to atone for those sins.
You got it.
After equating that with the belief that "God is a Christian," Archbishop Tutu spoke of a human family in which members must love one another even when some relatives are obnoxious. When Jesus said he would "draw all" people to himself, he meant both President Bush and the "gay, lesbian and so-called straight," he said.
That is correct. All mankind would be drawn to Him (Jesus), not the Dalai Lama or Mohammed or even Bishop Tutu.
He spoke of God having a dream -- and drew laughter when he acknowledged in an aside that Martin Luther King "might have said something like that, too."
"Please help me, says God. Help me to realize my dream," he concluded, to great applause.
Aaah, what?
Bishop Duncan was torn in his reaction to the sermon.
Part of it "was Anglicanism at its best, which is its commitment to building God's kingdom here on earth," he said.
"But it was also partly an essay on what is dividing Anglicanism. I think a perceptive listener would understand that the middle part of the archbishop's sermon was a challenge to the traditional Christian understanding of the means by which we all gain access to heaven."
He said the archbishop had misrepresented the beliefs of conservatives, particularly in the line about God being a Christian.
"What the archbishop's sermon did was twisting the classic Christian understanding in a way that took the narrowest possible reading of traditional Christianity," he said.
Few others appeared to share the bishop's theological reservations. Dr. Lewis said he was "exhilarated" by the visit.
"His message is a message of reconciliation, peace and harmony," he said.
Right, he just made fun of traditional Christianity. Tutu is a typical liberal. He wants everyone to be reconciled to his way of thinking. Peace is agreeing with him.
First published on October 26, 2007 at 12:00 am
Ann Rodgers can be reached at arodgers@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416.
