Sister Gloriamarie Amalfitano offers some insights on Article One

Thank you to Sister Gloriamarie Amalfitano, a solitary nun from San Diego, for the following comments:

Yes, I too have been thinking about the fact that in Genesis we are told that God created humanity in His own image, male and female, He created us. No matter who we are, at a very basic level of identity, all human beings share this: we are the result of a deliberate act of creation.

I don't know that we are born free. I simply don't know. If Original Sin exists, then we are not born free. We are born into a world of sin that has not universally claimed the salvific work of Jesus' incarnation, death and resurrection.

Then there is the Baptismal Covenant of the Book of Common Prayer of The Episcopal Church, USA where we vow to respect the dignity of all persons.To me the above does not merely "suggest that we are equal in dignity and rights", it states this is so in no uncertain terms.

"Does Jesus ever appeal to reason or conscience?"

All the time, IMO. In the Beatitudes, in the parables. Telling us to judge not lest we be judged ourselves. Telling the person who is without sin to cast the first stone. Those examples are but the tip of the iceberg as far as I am concerned.

"In your view, does Article One of the Declaration:—Emphasize rights but not duties?—Value the individual above the community?"

I do not see an either/or in Article one. I see a both/and. Am I a good Anglican or what?
Maybe I am too much a product of the USA, but I recall being taught that with freedom comes great responsibility. If we are ourselves free, then it follows that we must then extend that freedom to others.

But this is not license to do whatever seems good to an individual. The Book of Judges, for example, shows us the anarchy that results from that. We need appropriate boundaries and limits.

While setting aside for the moment my issues with the gender exclusive word "brotherhood", the meaning of this clause is, I believe, community. Community is a delicate balance between the rights of individuals and the needs of the community.

Yet a community that does not respect the rights and freedoms of its members is not a community at all. For instance in refusing to dialog with people of differing opinions. Nor can an individual exert their freedoms and ignore the guidelines of the community. One can choose to cross the street in the middle of the block instead of the crosswalk, but there may be a high price to pay.

Sister Gloriamarie AmalfitanoEpiscopal Solitary, San Diego, CA
March 26, 2008 1:37 PM

Sister Gloriamarie also has a blog, "knitternun," found at http://knitternun.blogspot.com/

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Welcome to all participants

I'm Donn Mitchell, the editor of The Anglican Examiner. I will offer a few preliminary thoughts on the questions about Article One. Please add your own thoughts or pose additional questions.

Personally, I believe Christ asserted the dignity of human beings by accepting human shape and form and living among us. When he said, "As you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me," I hear him saying two things: First, that something of Christ is present in each and every human being. He doesn't limit it to the morally upright or the repentant. He seems to be saying that by virtue of their birth, by virtue of their humanity, all human beings have something of Christ in them. Second, by saying that he is present even in "the least of these," he seems to be asserting a kind of primal equality, an equality that precedes and outweighs any human-created or socially constructed differentiations as well as any inherited or God-given differentiations.

I believe Article One captures these two concepts by simply asserting that we are born free and equal in dignity and rights. The language also suggests that we are born with a duty to respect each other as brothers and sisters in the human family.