I thought this was the most incredible thing to say about the late Desmionbd Tutu, written whilst he was still alive, of course:
Rowan Williams on Desmond Tutu pic.twitter.com/gR59YNYqXO
— Andy Coates (@Andy_Coates) December 26, 2021
Tutu seemed to understand that if you are to love your neighbour as yourself then you have first to love yourself.
It's the forgotten dimension of that instruction, and so important, but in the way that Rowan Williams notes.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
The problem of course comes if you love yourself more than your fellow man. Then you are into a dangerous area of self delusion, much favoured by American self help books on always thinking positive.
Anyway, Happy New Year, and thank you for your consistently interesting blog.
Whilst a staunch non-conformist (eg. CofE = Tory Party at prayer; Labour Party = political wing of the Methodist Church)……
… I always liked Rowan Williams. However, it seems that the world was unwilling to listen to such a thoughtful man with all the subtleties those thoughts included.
Agreed
I had dinner with him once
Fascinating man
This has been a developing preaching theme of mine over several years. Flourishing comes when people are allowed and encouraged to love themselves. Some, however, want to prevent that. If they can get you to feel bad about yourself it’s to their advantage that you become a lesser person so that they can exercise to their benefit a measure of influence and/or control over you, and you become a cog in a machine that deploys you to service their purposes. As a model, it can be applied to politics, sociology and economics. My starting point is as a ‘test’ of church life and whether it will truly flourish. The purpose of love is to liberate but when that willingness to liberate is absent, then it is not love and tends towards leadership models that can foster abuse. But when that love is present in individuals collectively it becomes the gift for the neighbour. Sermon over!
Good sermon though