He goes on to say, There never was anything so perilous or exciting as orthodoxy. Perilous and exciting are good words to describe our Anglican Institute Conference conducted this past week in Birmingham, Alabama. And orthodoxy at this point in history needs some defending. Another article in the Times said that a majority of people today do not believe in sin, but do believe there is a hell. Seemingly a large number of Americans are in the same syncretistic mindset held by people in the time of Jesus.
Syncretism is the attempted union of opposite tenets is the current fashion in religion.
More and more often I hear H. Richard Neibuhr s prediction sited as an accurate description of the current religious situation. A God without wrath bringing men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. The primary mission of our parish s ministry in the Anglican Institute is to offer an antidote to this current syncretism, to proclaim clearly, often, and widely an orthodox understanding of the Christian faith. Shortly after I returned to the conference from the airport, I saw her walking through the Cathedral. Like the disciples thinking it was a ghost, I approached her to see if I was seeing things, but sure enough it was she.