Decision (1)

I've made a decision this evening, which is not to contribute further to Fulcrum discussions. Rightly, people there have asked why I contribute if I regard it as an empty middle, and also I am asked to make my mind up between regarding it as designing the world and also as somewhat insignificant. As an answer to that last point: they are not incompatible. People of insignificance are forever designing the world.

I was always an outsider posting on Fulcrum, and today I found its reflection on Lambeth and GAFCON particularly negative in the sense of its willingness to design a two speed Anglican Communion, and who is being excluded. People are being excluded: I'm sure TEC and the ACC in North America as institutions are well capable of looking after themselves.

I'm not an evangelical of any kind. I was purely posting an honest (I hope) liberal viewpoint as (usually) a contrast.

Recently I had a discussion there with Pete Broadbent (for whom I have a lot of time; I think he is refreshing) about David Jenkins and John Robinson, where he saw these two the other way around from me. I saw Jenkins as making minor, detailed adjustments to Christianity, full of a Barthian and Bonhoeffer style theology and a high view of God, whereas John Robinson was making core shifts in Christian metaphors. Pete Broadbent thought Robinson applied a traditional faith into a different container, whereas by his own admission Jenkins regarded himself as a Cuckoo in the Nest. I think still Jenkins was well within the boundaries (Incarnation, Resurrection, God the Trinity) and that his rough time was because the boundaries had been closing in and people had become obsessed with details. Today the situation is far worse, far narrower, far darker.

However, if there is a cuckoo in the nest, it is me. Clearly in the Fulcrum space it is clear I'm of a different species. Different habits, assumptions, the lot. I really do not share much there. But this is wider, and something that has been increasingly bugging me recently. I'm not the sort of person who rushes to action, but when an action should be made then I'll do it. I don't know what Decision (2) is, or when Decision (10) comes, but Decision (1) is my decision to stop posting at Fulcrum. It is a very small decision but I know the direction. I'll read the thing from time to time, and I might even make a comment here, but I won't there, and that's something I will observe.