Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
Faith writes:
GDR, do you really not get that most "serving" that is done is done for personal benefit? To feel good about yourself, to feel superior to others, to get credit of one sort or another, some kind of reward from God or whatnot? That's the most common sin there is, and it's a form of spiritual sin. When Paul said it's not about works "lest any man should boast," that's what he meant. Boasting comes with doing good works, not with salvation.
Have you studied the Beatitudes? "Blessed are the poor in spirit" is the first one. It's not about literal poverty, being poor in material goods, it's about being poor IN SPIRIT, which means not trusting in ourselves, not thinking we have anything good to offer God or anyone else. It's foundational to the whole Christian life. Basically what it means is that we have to be free of self-righteousness, of thinking we can accomplish anything at all in our own strength. We have to know that we can do absolutely nothing on our own, no good works for sure, nothing, that we are incapable of anything good, it all has to come from God. That's basic humility, pointing to your good heart or your good deeds is pride.
If you read what I have written Faith I think I have been clear that serving is about serving with no consideration of any reward and all that you describe above would be a reward. As C S Lewis says the greatest sin is the sin of pride. You have completely misread what it is that I have been saying.
Faith writes:
The Reformation doctrine of "Total depravity" is another way of saying that. We CAN'T do good works, GDR, it isn't in us, we're fallen. Salvation is regeneration of the spirit we lost at the Fall by which we can eventually reclaim some of the ability to do good that we lost but the more we reclaim the more we will learn that it all comes from God anyway and not from us. But you'd have us somehow think we can have a good heart without that. That's self-deception to a monumental degree. Even after being saved we are subject to our wretched fallen nature, and one of our biggest sins is thinking we're good or are capable of doing good.
Life is a gift of God and so is the ability to love others. We can choose to accept that gift of being able to feel and act on love from God, or we are free to reject it.
Faith writes:
The saddest people are the ones who think they'll go to heaven because they've been good people. Well I don't doubt that they have been good by our woefully inadequate standards, but it isn't goodness that gets us saved, that is what Paul meant, we are sinners deserving only of eternal damnation, saved only by God's grace and by nothing in ourselves. We need Jesus' goodness in our place to save us, or to have any ability to do any kind of good at all.
IMHO the saddest people are those that think that they'll go to heaven, (and going to heaven is Platonic and not scriptural), because they believe they have the correct doctrine. It isn't about what we do it is about the heart, which is the motivation for what we do.
Out of curiosity, I wonder about yourself. I'm sure that you do things for others that cost you time and/or money. If Tangle were to convince you that your beliefs are false and you accepted atheism would you still do those things that you do now?
Faith writes:
I understand that you sorta kinda give credit to God for our ability to do good, but as long as your focus is on doing good you are building up pride and self-righteousness or "boasting."
I know you don't mean this but read what you just wrote. You make it sound that if I want to get in good with God by being humble, that I should stop doing good for others.
I think that you have a rather low opinion of people in general if you believe that they can't do good without being prideful and self righteousness. The Bible tells us we can. Just read my signature. We are called to humble kindness and justice.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
If you read what I have written Faith I think I have been clear that serving is about serving with no consideration of any reward and all that you describe above would be a reward. As C S Lewis says the greatest sin is the sin of pride. You have completely misread what it is that I have been saying.
You are right, I should have addressed that. The thing is it's impossible and we easily delude ourselves if we think we are accomplishing that. I read a lot of the mystics at one time, both Catholic and Protestant, and they get so deeply into watching their motivations at such depths they know that we deceive ourselves all the time and can't see it.
In any case you denigrate salvation which is the only way we could ever begin to do a single good deed in the requisite purity, and although we are to do good deeds based on our salvation that's based on knowing that God accepts our efforts at that point because He overlooks our sinfulness based on Christ's work.
You however talk about having a good heart as if that's even possible and it simply is not, and you compound that error by the way you talk about salvation as something selfish rather than the merciful gift of God to miserable sinners who are incapable of doing one good thing by His holy standards.
Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
Faith writes:
Yes we are to do good deeds, but fallen people can't do good deeds, or to be precise, good deeds that God regards as good deeds, you have to be regenerated and if your focus is all on good deeds as is the case with some here there is no sign of regeneration involved, especially with those who denigrate the whole idea of salvation.
Maybe YOU can't do good deeds but fortunately the rest of us can!
The whole concept of some Fall is yet another snake oil being sold by the conmen and medicine men from the back step while the horses are still hitched for the get away once the rubes have been fleeced.
Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
capable of doing good.
Life is a gift of God and so is the ability to love others. We can choose to accept that gift of being able to feel and act on love from God, or we are free to reject it.
Yes everything comes from God but the whole point of a teaching like "total depravity" is that we are fallen and do not have the ability to love as God would have us love. Our love is riddled with self seeking too, the idea that we can do anything good without desiring reward is some kind of self deception. I think some of us sometimes come close, sometimes all of us may come close at some times, but the main message of scripture is that we are fallen and have to be regenerated in order to recover the lost life of God of Eden.
IMHO the saddest people are those that think that they'll go to heaven, (and going to heaven is Platonic and not scriptural), because they believe they have the correct doctrine.
It isn't an intellectual doctrine, it's FAITH and faith is an active almost living thing, the "evidence of things unseen, the substance of things hoped for" or the other way around I often get it wrong. Faith grasps realities we otherwise have no way of knowing and one thing it grasps is our regenerated spirits that were lost at the Fall. And that is absolutely basic. We cannot do one good thing until we're regenerated, born again.
The study of Revelation I've been doing has been truly a revelation for me. Yes we will go to heaven, we who are raptured, and so will all those who die in Christ during the Tribulation as well, but that isn't our final abode. The millennia kingdom is really something to think about, the restoration of Eden, and that willb e followed by the eternal kingdom. But I don't want to get into all that. The point is that salvation is a change in our nature that recovers spiritual abilities we lost, and it is abdsolutely necessary for fitting us for a future life, first on a renovated Earth and then the New Jerusalem. The Love we should grow into over that time is far beyond anything we can imagine now.
It isn't about what we do it is about the heart, which is the motivation for what we do.
You always make it sound as if we could just DECIDE to be that way and overlook the scriptural requirement that we be CHANGED, that is, born again, our spiritual faculty restored.
Out of curiosity, I wonder about yourself. I'm sure that you do things for others that cost you time and/or money. If Tangle were to convince you that your beliefs are false and you accepted atheism would you still do those things that you do now?
I definitely do a lot more good deeds as a Christian than I ever did as an atheist.
I understand that you sorta kinda give credit to God for our ability to do good, but as long as your focus is on doing good you are building up pride and self-righteousness or "boasting."
I think that you have a rather low opinion of people in general if you believe that they can't do good without being prideful and self righteousness.
Believe me I don't have the spiritual wisdom to recognize such things, I get it all from the Bible and reading the best most spiritually experienced Christians. They see into their own hearts to a depth I'm not capable of.
The Bible tells us we can. Just read my signature. We are called to humble kindness and justice.
It's not that we're to stop doing whatever we can, it's that we're to stop thinking it amounts to anything in God's eyes unless it's through Christ's sacrifice for us, and to stop giving ourselves credit for any good we might ever seem to accomplish.
Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
Faith writes:
In any case you denigrate salvation which is the only way we could ever begin to do a single good deed in the requisite purity, and although we are to do good deeds based on our salvation that's based on knowing that God accepts our efforts at that point because He overlooks our sinfulness based on Christ's work.
You however talk about having a good heart as if that's even possible and it simply is not, and you compound that error by the way you talk about salvation as something selfish rather than the merciful gift of God to miserable sinners who are incapable of doing one good thing by His holy standards.
Again though Faith your whole reason to be a Christian is to figure out how to gain salvation. It isn't that it doesn't matter but it is actually a by-product of fulfilling the vocation that God calls all humans to. Certainly nobody fills that vocation even close to perfectly. We all succumb regularly to selfishness. The point is that we are called to set our lives on a trajectory that leads us in the direction of a Christ like life based solely on sacrificial love, not that we ever, at least in this life, come close to achieving it.
There will always be those, possibly because of growing up in abusive homes, that are virtually incapable of living the lives that God hopes we will, but at the same time they may hate the way they live and in their hearts desperately want to live the life that we are called to. It is about the heart and I am quite content to let God look after things after this life comes to an end. As Paul says judge not that you be not judged.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
Again though Faith your whole reason to be a Christian is to figure out how to gain salvation. It isn't that it doesn't matter but it is actually a by-product of fulfilling the vocation that God calls all humans to.
No, you have it backwards. We are not called to anything UNTIL we are regenerated. It is only the regenerated spirit that God can use. But anyone who has any inkling of how we all deserve Hell and what Hell is, would be some kind of nonhuman not to make that the first thing we seek. Without even understanding what it is and how necessary it is. To call a desire to avoid an eternity of torment selfishness, or its fulfillment a mere by-product of something you think is bigger or more noble is a strange idea about humanity. Do you have ANY idea of what Hell is going to be? Or the Lake of Fire? If God didn't save us from that we'd just spend our lives fearing it anyway, if we believed in it of course, and that would make us useless to everybody.
Certainly nobody fills that vocation even close to perfectly. We all succumb regularly to selfishness. The point is that we are called to set our lives on a trajectory that leads us in the direction of a Christ like life based solely on sacrificial love, not that we ever, at least in this life, come close to achieving it.
Again you act like you think this is possible in our present human condition through a mere act of will. You don't believe in the Fall then, don't think we are fallen, having lost so much of our original human qualities we CAN'T do what you keep saying we are to do. You are missing all the scriptures that require us to be changed, regenerated, born again, etc. We have to be restored to the spiritual capacities we lost at the Fall. That is the whole point of Jesus' incarnation, to restore the lost Creation Satan stole from us. I hope you'll want to take a look at Revelation some time, it's fascinating once you have a teachere who helps you get a handle on it as MacArthur is doing for me. THAT's our real "vocation" or destiny, the recovery of the whole Creation, destroyed by the Fall then doubly destroyed in the Flood not to mention by all our sinfulness ever since. And if what you want is agape love THAT's where it's going to be found, not anywhere on the planet as things are now.
There will always be those, possibly because of growing up in abusive homes, that are virtually incapable of living the lives that God hopes we will, but at the same time they may hate the way they live and in their hearts desperately want to live the life that we are called to.
Teach them about being born again. They'll still suffer from their broken lives but being born again is the way we get to where they want to be. MacArthur has a teaching on it.
It is about the heart
I think it's Jeremiah where we are told "our hearts are deceitful above all things." Putting any trust in our unregenerated human hearts is folly. Even regenerated we can't trust them.
and I am quite content to let God look after things after this life comes to an end. As Paul says judge not that you be not judged.
Please don't be content with not knowing whether you are saved or not, you HAVE to be saved GDR. I don't "judge" you, I don't judge anybody's sins, I've got worse ones anyway, but you may be pure except for one teeny little lle you told when you were five and you still need to be regenerated.
Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
Faith writes:
It isn't an intellectual doctrine, it's FAITH and faith is an active almost living thing, the "evidence of things unseen, the substance of things hoped for" or the other way around I often get it wrong. Faith grasps realities we otherwise have no way of knowing and one thing it grasps is our regenerated spirits that were lost at the Fall. And that is absolutely basic. We cannot do one good thing until we're regenerated, born again.
..but faith in what. It is fine to say faith in Jesus but what does that mean? Is it Faith that he lived; is it faith that He was good, is it Faith that He was God, is it faith in an inerrant Bible or is it faith that the life of sacrificial love that He calls us to is the basis on how our lives should be lived regardless of our doctrinal beliefs.
Faith writes:
The study of Revelation I've been doing has been truly a revelation for me. Yes we will go to heaven, we who are raptured, and so will all those who die in Christ during the Tribulation as well, but that isn't our final abode. The millennia kingdom is really something to think about, the restoration of Eden, and that willb e followed by the eternal kingdom. But I don't want to get into all that. The point is that salvation is a change in our nature that recovers spiritual abilities we lost, and it is absolutely necessary for fitting us for a future life, first on a renovated Earth and then the New Jerusalem. The Love we should grow into over that time is far beyond anything we can imagine now.
That understanding of doctrine comes from reading the Bible with a western 21st century understanding of something written by a 1st century Jew to a 1st century audience. It is if I wrote that it was raining cats and dogs and someone 2000 years from now understands that our pets were picked up by a cyclone and then rained down on us.
Faith writes:
You always make it sound as if we could just DECIDE to be that way and overlook the scriptural requirement that we be CHANGED, that is, born again, our spiritual faculty restored.
It isn't a matter of one day deciding something. It is just that one day we might have an opportunity to do something kind for some one. Maybe give a couple of bucks to someone who is homeless. Something we hadn't done before. Maybe a week later we do the same thing again, and then again and the again. Gradually we start understanding that this is normal and the way that we should live out lives.
On the other hand maybe one day we stick a chocolate bar in our pocket and leave the store without paying for it. A week later we get away with it again, and again. Ultimately that way of life becomes the norm for us.
It isn't that those trajectories can't change and start going the opposite way but hopefully you get my point. I might suggest reading C S Lewis' book The Great Divorce" to see what I'm getting at. Also his last book in the Narnia series, The Last Battle, can be really helpful.
Faith writes:
I definitely do a lot more good deeds as a Christian than I ever did as an atheist.
Then maybe you are just doing good deeds to get in God's good books. My point was if you now became an atheist, and as a result you stopped doing the good deeds, then it sounds like you would have been doing them as you expected a positive result for yourself. If you would keep doing them it would be an indication that the good deeds represent who you are regardless of belief.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
Sure there are lots of ways we have faith but I'm talking about the faith that saves us, faith that Christ died in our place to save us from eternal punishment. One of the five "solas" of the Reformation: "Sola Fide" It's even in that passage we've already discussed here: "For it is by faith that we are saved and not by works, lest any man should boast." It is BY FAITH that we are saved.....
Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
GDR, do you really not get that most "serving" that is done is done for personal benefit? To feel good about yourself, to feel superior to others, to get credit of one sort or another, some kind of reward from God or whatnot? That's the most common sin there is, and it's a form of spiritual sin. When Paul said it's not about works "lest any man should boast," that's what he meant. Boasting comes with doing good works, not with salvation.
If your spirit of servitude is coming from a selfish place then, absolutely. But I don't think that is what GDR was saying at all. Works are not a matter of salvation, that is very clear in the scriptures. But good works are evidence of salvation. Again, not self-serving or boastful works, but humble works where there is no expectation of return.
You know, soldiers in combat jump on a grenade instinctually to save their buddies.... I guarantee they aren't contemplating, "Gee, if I jump on this grenade I will be awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously." They just do it for their brethren. People do a lot of selfless acts, not for publicity.
The Reformation doctrine of "Total depravity" is another way of saying that. We CAN'T do good works, GDR, it isn't in us, we're fallen.
The bible would beg to differ.... one of many verses on the subject.
quote:What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." -- James 2:14-17
Salvation is regeneration of the spirit we lost at the Fall by which we can eventually reclaim some of the ability to do good that we lost but the more we reclaim the more we will learn that it all comes from God anyway and not from us. But you'd have us somehow think we can have a good heart without that. That's self-deception to a monumental degree. Even after being saved we are subject to our wretched fallen nature, and one of our biggest sins is thinking we're good or are capable of doing good.
That is not what he is saying at all. No one can earn their way into heaven. No amount of good works will save you. All true. BUT to be born again of the spirit is to fulfill a desire to WORK OUT your salvation not WORK FOR your salvation. And working it out is with a heart of servitude, again, not for some personal gain but a genuine love. Are you suggesting that its impossible to do good things without an ulterior motive? Lets see what Jesus has to say on the subject:
quote:Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
Faith without works is dead. I would be careful with your rationale. If your reason for not helping people is because it might be construed as self-serving, God is going to know your heart and your motives. So maybe its just that you are incapable of doing a good work without expecting something in return but Jesus very clearly wants you to work out that faith and he will examine every deed and every thought.
Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
The study of Revelation I've been doing has been truly a revelation for me. Yes we will go to heaven, we who are raptured, and so will all those who die in Christ during the Tribulation as well, but that isn't our final abode. The millennia kingdom is really something to think about, the restoration of Eden, and that willb e followed by the eternal kingdom. But I don't want to get into all that. The point is that salvation is a change in our nature that recovers spiritual abilities we lost, and it is absolutely necessary for fitting us for a future life, first on a renovated Earth and then the New Jerusalem. The Love we should grow into over that time is far beyond anything we can imagine now.
That understanding of doctrine comes from reading the Bible with a western 21st century understanding of something written by a 1st century Jew to a 1st century audience. It is if I wrote that it was raining cats and dogs and someone 2000 years from now understands that our pets were picked up by a cyclone and then rained down on us.
Balderdash!
You always make it sound as if we could just DECIDE to be that way and overlook the scriptural requirement that we be CHANGED, that is, born again, our spiritual faculty restored.
It isn't a matter of one day deciding something. It is just that one day we might have an opportunity to do something kind for some one. Maybe give a couple of bucks to someone who is homeless. Something we hadn't done before. Maybe a week later we do the same thing again, and then again and the again. Gradually we start understanding that this is normal and the way that we should live out lives.
Let me see if I can say it more clearly. You make it sound as if we could do all this from our current human nature in a way that would please God, and I'm saying no, all THAT kind of righteousness is as "filthy rags" as scripture says, it's worth nothing to God. It has to be motivated by the regenerated nature in which Christ comes to dwell in us.
On the other hand maybe one day we stick a chocolate bar in our pocket and leave the store without paying for it. A week later we get away with it again, and again. Ultimately that way of life becomes the norm for us.
One way I think I'm probably born again is that I can't bear to find out that inadvertently I got through the line without paying for something and I have to go out of my way to take it back and pay for it. Either doing good or stealing for me couldn't be a mere matter of habituation, I have a strong sense of having to do the right thing. I did not have that strong a sense when I was an atheist although I was generally honest.
It isn't that those trajectories can't change and start going the opposite way but hopefully you get my point. I might suggest reading C S Lewis' book The Great Divorce" to see what I'm getting at. Also his last book in the Narnia series, The Last Battle, can be really helpful.
I read everything Lewis wrote but so long ago I'm afraid I've forgotten most of it. But it's hard to think he'd say that a CHRISTIAN who was born again could get habituated to a sinful habit. Or if we did we'd lose all our spiritual sensitivity, as in the scripture verse about our souls becoming lean. Have to look that one up.
I definitely do a lot more good deeds as a Christian than I ever did as an atheist.
Then maybe you are just doing good deeds to get in God's good books.
Why would you think that? My motives may not always be pure and in fact i'm sure they aren't but I do good out of obedience to Christ.
My point was if you now became an atheist, and as a result you stopped doing the good deeds, then it sounds like you would have been doing them as you expected a positive result for yourself.
.
I wouldn't, I'd figure I hadn't really been a saved Christian. If I had been I couldn't become an atheist or if I tried my conscience would be killing me all the time. As it is I sometimes violate my conscience enough to know how much it hurts.
If you would keep doing them it would be an indication that the good deeds represent who you are regardless of belief.
Well, yeah, people are different and some people have a naturally stronger conscience than others do so what you are saying could be true, but then I'd assume the person never was a Christian in either case, just doing whatever their natural character leads them to do.
In everything you've said here you are clearly not thinking in terms of the change I keep talking about, the need to be regenerated. You really do seem to think it's all based on our normal nature which is fallen nature. If we "become a Christian" and do good deeds we are doing them in some way that doesn't spring from the heart, and if it IS all coming from our unregenerated nature that would be true, and some "Christians" ARE unregenerated and don't know it. So if they fall away and become atheists they never were born again anyway and they just give up the good deeds that didn't spring from the heart anyway. And what I keep trying to say to you is that they CAN'T spring from the heart of an unregenerated person, you really do have to be born again.
Turns out MacArthur has quite a few sermons on being born again, listed at this You Tube page. I'd like to listen to a couple of them myself but I haven't yet so I don't know which is the best for someone who rejects the idea. But I'll post one of the videos for a start anyway: . . .
. . I suspect we've said it all anyway, the same discussion we usually have and since it's more or less off topic here let's call it finished, or take it up somewhere else.
Re: Dr.Turek weighs in on Protestant and Catholic differences.
GDR writes:
We all have our own view and you as an atheist have your own view of what Christians should believe. As a Christian I am saying that it is my view that your view is wrong.
I'm a 'Christian atheist' actually, I've had as much teaching of Christianity as you have and once believed as strongly in it as you do. Plus, as a non-believer, I'm able to look objectively at all the flavours of Christianity, not just the one I'm most comfortable with.
Love of others sums up ALL the law and the prophets.
Oh, I wish that was true. If that was all that was actually what your religion is about, there would be no need for the religion at all; no need for worship need for preaching about everlasting damnation for the sins of the father, no baptisms, no bells and smells, no knocking on doors and martyrs, no eucharist, no holy armies, no hours wasted in prayer, no bible study groups, no indoctrination of children with fairy stories about everlasting life at the hand of god, and so on. All that would be necessary would be to say 'be nice'. Why mention Jesus at all?
In effect, you and me are identical in our values, I say to Phat, just lead a decent life, treat others with respect and help with what you can. You say follow you conscience and do as you would be done by. The only difference is that I don't waste my time grovelling to a non-existent entity and hoping for everlasting life.
*You* may not think that anything other than being nice to people is all that is necessary to be a Christian, and I might hope that you're right, but that is NOT what the bible tells you and it's not what the majority of religious institutions founded around it have preached and still preach. According to them - and the book - entering the pearly gates requires baptism, prayer and belief.
Where I do agree with you is that Christianity as a whole would be a far better thing if they all held your nice liberal Anglican views and Phat would be a lot happier as an Anglican than he is now.
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
Where I do agree with you is that Christianity as a whole would be a far better thing if they all held your nice liberal Anglican views and Phat would be a lot happier as an Anglican than he is now.
Remember that Anglicanism is not monolithic. Yes, we do have our decennial Lambeth conference that tries to build some kind of consensus position statement but in general almost all decisions on liberality or conservative positions are left up to the individual dioceses and parishes.
About the only uniform position in the Anglican Communion is that if I disagree with your position I will not tell you to change it with very few exceptions.
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