With this move, the stuffy old colonial Church of England went radical

From: Sri Lanka's Anglican Church adopts Liberation Theology, Bishop shows symbolic solidarity with Kilinocchi

 

The goings-on of the hitherto staid Anglican Church of Sri Lanka have caused some controversy. It started when the good old Church of England, euphemistically called the Church of Ceylon, passed a revolutionary resolution. Tabling a complexly-worded document, the head priest of the local Church of England, the Right Reverent Duleep de Chickera justified what he called a fundamental "paradigm shift" as a necessity for the  church "in the context of the present post-modern political, social, economic and cultural reality in Sri Lanka."

The resolution urged the members of his church to form themselves into a socialist-style "Jesus community with shared resources, shared decision making and shared activities," with Reverend Father S.D.P. Selvan proposing "a synthesis between the teachings of Jesus and Karl Marx."

Church clergy and lay leaders from around the country who gathered at the headquarters of the Church of Ceylon's Colombo diocese for its annual council sessions passed the resolution through a majority vote, with only one dissenting voice who objected to the phrase "paradigm shift," calling it to be changed to "a return to the teachings of Jesus." (That is a strange proposal; why would a church want to return to the teachings of Jesus? What were they practicing all this time? Capitalism? Colonialism?)

With this move, the stuffy old colonial Church of England went radical and turned itself into a Marxist Jesus Community, that is to say, they adopted Liberation Theology.

The members of the church are, by and large, the Anglicized elite of Sri Lanka. (The late Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgarmar, who was murdered by the Tamil Tigers, was a prominent member.) The resolution called church members to "work towards a life style of the poor, which some speakers criticized as "impractical." Indeed! It is hard to see these folks ever becoming what Bishop De Chickera is asking them to become, a traditionally privileged elite going down to the slums to work for the poor. More likely they would limit their activities to charity events well away from the stench and ferality of the slums...