Here’s an interesting comment from the latest national meeting of the Episcopal Church:
The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church called the evangelical notion that individuals can be right with God a “great Western heresy” that is behind many problems facing the church and the wider society. Describing a United States church in crisis, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told delegates to the group’s triennial meeting July 8 in Anaheim, Calif., that the overarching connection to problems facing Episcopalians has to do with “the great Western heresy — that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”
This fits in well with the pronouncements of Rome from the mid-16th century, found in the Canons of Trent:
- If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema. (Canon 9)
- If any one shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified … let him be accursed. (Canon 12)
- If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema. (Canon 14)
To which Paul says:
- Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. (Romans 3:28)
- Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1)
To which John adds:
- But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name. (John 1:12)
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