The Program description may be found at the bottom of this page and reads as follows:
Most Rev Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop, US Episcopal Church
… on the on-going tension in the church over the election of an openly gay bishop and her views on the future of religion in this country. Jefferts Schori was Bishop of the Diocese of Nevada when she was elected the first female leader of the church in 2006.
The realplayer audio link is here–listen to it all (an MP3 link is also available on the program page if you prefer that).
I hope someone will tell me what she had to say. I cannot pick up audio links. Larry
Hi Larry. I couldn’t make it all the way through. It was just too draining. I think the whole interview must have lasted an hour. I did manage to make it 45 minutes through and I can’t imagine the last 15 minutes was substantially different.
Here are some key observations.
She did not mention Christ once. All of her comments were about generic “faith communities” and spirituality and could have applied equally well to liberal Jewish congregations, Unitarian congregations, Bhai groups, and so forth. No mention of Jesus Christ — striking given that she was speaking just weeks before Christmas.
She said her usual thing about church property: which is that dioceses and parishes cannot leave, only individuals, blah blah blah. There was no indication in the interview that she would deviate from her current path of sueing any parish or diocese who leaves.
She also trotted out the “big lie” so common amongst reappraisers, which is that reasserters demand that Episcopalians should “all have to believe exactly the same thing about every detail of our faith.” (That’s an exact quote — I replayed the interview several times to get the wording right.) That is of course a falsehood and she knows it. She knows that reasserters, like all creedal Christians, are only suggesting that there should be a BALLPARK of doctrinal belief, where people can differ widely within it. She knows that reasserters are only asking for there to be SOME doctrinal boundaries on some issues.
But that doesn’t play as well to the NPR audience, so she claims that Common Cause demands that all Anglicans believe exactly the same on every minute point of doctrine. It’s actually this sort of thing that bothers me the most — the lying. I could handle honest disagreement but its the deliberate spin that comes from 815 that makes me most ill.
She discussed abortion briefly and emphasized that it was an official position of TEC that abortion must be available to all women in the US.
She discussed salvation briefly and said that salvation of an individual occured by he or she being part of a community. She didn’t indicate in even the vaguest way that salvation might have anything to do with something called the Atonement, something called the Cross, Someone called Jesus.
Her discussion of community was spot-on in one respect. She explained that communities need defining boundaries, limits. She gave a great extended metaphor based on the human body and its skin. That without the skin, its muscles, organs, blood and so forth couldn’t function, and would indeed be at risk from invading organisms, etc. The skin defines in a sense: This Is Where This Body Ends.
The analogy was given to explore why Duncan, Iker, etc. were wrong to realign their dioceses. TEC needs boundaries, defining limits, as to what can be done. It did not occur to the interviewer to ask her if that analogy also applied to DOCTRINAL limits.
Like most interviews with KJS, and certainly all NPR interviews with TEC prelates, the interviewer was eager to make her into a wonderful person who could do no wrong. He threw her softball after softball, and even occasionally tried to offer her helpful answers.
One final note. She did indicate briefly what might be the defining beliefs of TEC. She said that these were:
* Feeding the hungry
* Caring for the homeless
* Seeing that children are adequately cared for
She gave these as a (apparently complete) summary of what TEC doctrinal faith involved. She did not indicate that TEC members might have any other concerns: e.g. telling people the Good News of the birth of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully Man; his death on the Cross for the sins of the world; his bodily Resurrection; our confident hope of salvation through and eternal life with Him; and the weekly encounter of Him through Word and the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. Apparently TEC priests and lay leaders have no significant interest in these things.
Larry, I’ve listened to about eight minutes worth and there is nothing at all that you haven’t heard before, ie. (and in summary): “Individuals are free to leave, parishes and dioceses are not. Every one is free to make their own journey. Communities have boundaries. Individualism is the American way but the Episcopal Church doesn’t operate like that. Differences of opinion are part of the history of Anglicanism. Those that have left have the truth, so they say.” And so on. That’s all I need to hear.
so let me get this straight #2. According to Ms. Schori; The primary role of ECUSA is to see that children are adequately cared for…
…yet ‘She discussed abortion briefly and emphasized that it was an official position of TEC that abortion must be available to all women in the US
Nothing else needs to bne said. This woman has no defined and consitent theology to offer. She is as shallow as she is liberal- were she not in a position of sich authority she would be dismissed as a lightweight joke…how sad. Compare this to the recent papal statement on bioethics…like comparing shakespeare and Micky mouse
[i] She . . . emphasized that it was an official position of TEC that abortion must be available to all women in the US [/i]
More first retort than last resort.
[i] Were she not in a position of such authority, she would be dismissed as a lightweight joke [/i] —Pageantmaster
True. And a very bad joke at that.
I turned her off after listening for five minutes, Actually, she turned ME off with her blather!
What bothers me most is NPR and the fact that it is publicly funded. I rufuse to give them a dime privately and I wish I could get a refund on my taxes too.
rugbyplayingpriest wrote:
. . . comparing shakespeare and Micky mouse
Mickey built and empire KJS is taking one apart.
#6 Um – not me, Ireneaus.
I used to play rugby but am not a priest, far from it.
I really appreciate this effort, Jon. But Columcil is obviously right. We have all heard this over and over. It is also true that the far-leftyness of NPR is taxing to the patience. I don’t know. See clearly believes that Barnum was wrong. You CAN fool all of the people all of the times.
But you know, the battle between liberal and conservative, which I have assumed would be one by the left without lifting a rifle, may turn out to be wrong. This battle may be one of the three great battles of the new century. Larry
As a Catholic, I apologize for butting my head into an internal dispute, but I have to say something.
Forget acceptance of gay clergy, fuzziness on biblical authority, questions about the priority of Christ, and all the rest of the disputes.
When I read this (quoted by Jon above):
“She discussed abortion briefly and emphasized that it was an official position of TEC that abortion must be available to all women in the US.â€
Frankly, a church that doesn’t understand that killing unborn babies is wrong is a church that is so far off the track that I can’t imagine it ever being brought back. This alone would be enough for me to leave, like a rat leaving a sinking ship.
No wonder everything else is so off-kilter. When you bring one horrible pagan practice back, all the rest will naturally follow.
Pageantmaster [#10]: Sorry about the confusion. The line was good enough to have come from you as well as from RPP.
[i] As a Catholic, I apologize for butting my head into an internal dispute [/i] —#12
No need to apologize. Join the scrum.
The Episcopal Church gives new poignancy to the class demotivational poster: “It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.”
#13 Irenaeus
Well I am not sure that I would have posted that particular comment but for the comparison with RPP – high praise indeed. Thank you.
Out of journalistic fairness, I wish to make sure I say that KJS also indicated in the interview that every abortion was a “moral tragedy.” I didn’t emphasize that in my summary because it is a standard qualifier for ALL defenders of abortion who are in the public eye. Everybody says that they hate abortion per se — they are only defending a woman’s right to CHOOSE it.
By the way I am not sneering at that type of qualifiying comment. For example, as a staunch defender of free speech, I often have to explain that I personally hate Nazi or KKK rhetoric, and deeply wish it would vanish from the earth; but at the same time I will vigorously defend the legal right of a Klansman to publish his pamphlets. So in principle one can sincerely and at times rightly say that one hates X and thinks X is most wicked, while agitating for X to remain legal.
So, as I say, that kind of qualifier is not in itself silly or disingenuous, but I didn’t feel in giving a recap of the KJS interview I had to mention it. Everybody thinks abortion is regrettable. What was remarkable in the interview is that KJS stated that “we” in the Episcopal Church believe that abortion should and must be a legal option for all women. She didn’t express that as a private opinion — she said that this is what We (TEC) believe.
Incidentally, can anyone direct me to the GC resolution which affirmed that? I think KJS may be correct here: that in some recent GC a resolution did state that abortion is a right for all women. (Correct in the sense of correctly describing the official position of TEC, I mean.)
Bumper sticker:
“Pro-choice before conception;
Pro-Life after conception!”
🙂
Ms Schori was the guest of the National Press Club, too. An hour of Unitarian blather and no mention of Jesus from what I can tell. (I only listened to ~25 minutes of it.) Makes me really happy.
[url=http://npc.press.org/video/player.cfm?type=lunch&id=16054 ]National Press Club Luncheon Series: Katharine Jefferts Schori[/url]
[i] Slightly edited by elf. [/i]