A few of the speakers yesterday connected the decision in 1989 to approve a woman bishop to the later decision to approve a gay bishop.
“After Feb. 11 [1989], how could we not consent to the election of Gene Robinson?” asked Byron Rushing, a Massachusetts state representative who is also an active Episcopal layman. “Today we celebrate that we have been changed. Although we are not what God, and we, want us to be, thank God we are not what we used to be.”
And later, during the liturgy, the Rev. Stephanie Spellers added an audible prayer “For Brother Gene – another first, but not last.”
Jefferts Schori said the significance of the anniversary is that “we’re marking the fact that transformation is real, and it lasts.”
Sorry, but this is a “transformation” that I can do without, thank you very much!
The reappraisers get it.
“It’s not an issue for her.” That really does explain a lot.
I really disliked reading this article but it is my practise to familiarise with what I’m commenting on. Having once met Barbara Harris in person in the later years of her purported ‘bishopric’, I can say without hesitation – and would have said then – that her election was part of the beginning of the end. It was ironic how at the particular evening lecture I heard her give in a hall with a window wall, a loud thunder and lightning storm raged outside for much of it and seemed a perfect backdrop to her revisionist outpouring. (To their credit numerous people including me got up and went out for fresh air, once the rain stopped, before the final phase of said address concluded.)
TEC had to have gone downhill from faith and orthodoxy to reach the point at which she came in, and parts of it certainly have raced to the bottom since. Isn’t the school in Dorchester the one started by the wealthy Boston scion who ‘married’ his boyfriend and got their announcement into the NYT social pages? Hint: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/fashion/weddings/20vows.html
I’ll borrow a quote from a previous poster who said:
Milestone? Make that Millstone!
After Harris’ election, an ECUSA gay activist said privately that Harris was such an embarrassingly unimpressive choice that the church needed to elect a second woman bishop right away.
CofE, take note. This is where you are headed. Profiles of leading female bishop candidates in England for the most part do not show women dedicated to preaching and teaching the traditional faith.
“we’re marking the fact that transformation is real, and it lasts.”
An article a few years ago, either in the New Yorker or the Atlantic Monthly, summarized the difference b/n reappraisers and reasserters as, respectively, “affirmation” versus “transformation.” If that’s a bit simplistic, it nonetheless highlights a telling distinction. But it now looks as though the reappraisers want to play games with the word, “transformation” as well.
My favorite commenter from the Boston Globe article article accuses Christians of being hate-filled (in which he agrees with Harris), then proceeds to call Christians G-D F’n A-holes. Typical, of a certain type of person, that.
The headline is a perfect setup for an Emily Litella:
Emily: I don’t know why the Episcopal Church is celebrating the anniversary of a millstone! Millstones are all right when they grind grain like they were made to. But to hang one around your neck on purpose and jump into the sea is crazy! Why don’t they just take it off their necks quick? And why did they hang….
News Anchor: Uh, Miss Litella, that’s not millstone. It’s mile-stone, not mill-stone.
Emily: Ohhh, that’s very different. (Beautific smile to sudience) Never mind!