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Church of Ireland dean faces heresy charges
Andrew Furlong, the Church of Ireland's Dean of Clonmacnoise, will be tried for heresy on the basis of a Christmas message that attacked all the major tenets of the Christian faith. "I believe God is a God of infinite love and that human beings are of sacred and ultimate worth," he said in a message appearing on his church's Web site. "But I don't believe Jesus is his son or that he is divine or savior." He called Jesus a "mistaken and misguided" prophet, saying he "was neither a mediator nor a savior, neither super-human nor divine; we need to leave him to his place in history and move on." About Christmas, he said, "I believe in a God of love who cradles the world in all its trouble but not in a God who came as the babe of Bethlehem to be cradled in a stall." Is it any wonder that he's being charged with heresy? Actually, yes. The Church of Ireland has been loathe to question its leaders on doctrinal issues. This is only the second time in 130 years that the Church of Ireland Court of the General Synod has investigated such a case.

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April (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46