(ENS) Some bishops remarked about the cold and wet weather at Kanuga. Bishop Stephen Lane of Maine said this in his blog about the gathering: “The spring meeting is always a longer meeting of the House of Bishops because at this meeting we have time for continuing education for all the bishops.
“The past two days we’ve been reflecting on our roles as bishops in this time of recession, when we are very divided politically about what to do. Friday we heard from Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann and from author Bill Bishop about “The Great Sort,” the self-imposed segregation of communities into like-minded cultural ghettos that are coming to dominate our political landscape,” Lane wrote.
“Saturday we heard from Harvard Business School professor Warren McFarlan about the state of the economy, and North Carolina Congressman David Price about the political process of addressing the recession and President Obama’s proposals for our future. Very good stuff and very hard work.”
I simply do not understand the buzzword “work” as used by TEC operatives, “Very good stuff and very hard work.” Digging ditches is hard work. Roofing a house is hard work. Laying carpet is hard work. Being an overweight college-educated later middle-aged hierarchically privileged individual at a posh retreat center sitting on one’s rear end all day, talking, eating, listening to people address your exalted gathering is SIMPLY NOT WORK.
Now, now, they *were* getting lectures in economics, right? What did you expect? Sheesh, it reminds me of the Stringfellow book on James Pike. When the bishops were going to have to discuss his “theology” one was heard to say “You mean we’re going to have to talk about — God?”. These guys and gals are no more able to discuss that than their predecessors in the mid 60’s.
“Also discussed were enhanced General Convention staffing, including new roles such as press officer, rapid response coordinator, corporate communications advisor, Episcopal Church bloggers and offsite media manager.”
“The bad news? It is the worst economic crisis since the Depression, and will affect us in some way for the next ten years (or at least the seven lean years the Bible speaks of),” he wrote. “The cause? An unprincipled get-rich-quick ‘extended drunk’ that affected us on every level. We are now paying the price for our greed,” with churches likely to be impacted as donations decrease, he wrote.
Let me see – staff increases, donations decrease.
Perhaps they will talk about bonuses as that seems to be the trend for organizations in financial distress.
Why IS it the business of these bishops to comment on or weigh in about what they clearly cannot comprehend: crisis leadership and economic crisis. Makes them feel important and useful, so let’s play along like anybody cares what the HOB advises.
[Slightly edited by Elf]
The bishops heard from Walter Brueggemann? That must have really challenged their theological worldview!
“The Bible is an act of faithful imagination. It is not a package of certitudes, it is an act imagination that invites our faithful imagination that makes it possible to live faithfully.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZuU7-xA2NU
Well, Prof. (and UCC minister) Brueggemann was addressing a group that has certainly embraced his call to engage their own imaginations as they consider the Bible! One wonders, when do you know when your own imagination takes over completely and the Biblical text is completely lost?
Here is how Newsweek characterized Prof. Brueggemann’s own imaginative engagement of the Biblical text when he looks to no less a figure than St. Paul in justifying gay marriage:
“The great Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann, emeritus professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, quotes the apostle Paul when he looks for biblical support of gay marriage: “There is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ.” The religious argument for gay marriage, he adds, “is not generally made with reference to particular texts, but with the general conviction that the Bible is bent toward inclusiveness.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/172653/output/print
I’m sure the Episcopal House of Bishops was deeply challenged by this novel theology of imagination. I don’t suppose they’ll ever really push the intellectual and theological envelope and invite Brueggemann’s great nemesis in this debate, Robert Gagnon, to address them. But why challenge yourself theologically when you’ve got so many other hard things to do?
I believe that the term “Ghetto” is an apt description of the HOB.
#1, that is LOL funny!
THX Chris. It’s funny, and I mean it. :]
So this tired old out-of-context wilfull misinterpretation of Galatians 3:28 is the best the great scholar Brueggeman could do for a Biblical support of same-sex marriage? The only reason he can say that “the Bible is bent toward inclusiveness” is because he and his sympathizers bent it that way, by twisting it and distorting it!
Too bad the HOBuddhists didn’t invite Walter Wink instead. At least he is honest. His view is that any honest reading of Scripture shows that it clearly condemns and forbids homosexual relationships, but that the Bible is archaic and wrong on that issue and more modern favorable sources used instead to justify the Christian sanctification of same-sex relationships. At least he lets Scripture speak for itself, even when he disagrees with it.
RE: “Love the negativity, even though no one was there. You all remind me of grumpy old men.”
But then . . . here you are . . . reading it. How strange.
We simply don’t respect most TEC bishops, Slitch, for their revisionism. Hence the entirely appropriate negative comments here. And there’s plenty of *facts* mentioned here in the thread that will allow further disdain and contempt for the actions of their meeting.
But . . . I could see why you wouldn’t like us to not respect the theology of most of these bishops.
That would be the “imagination” of most of these bishops; not theology. If anything has been clearly and consistently evidenced about the HOB it is that they as a whole have no theology. A nostalgia for some sort of “rights” movement in which they can participate, perhaps; but assuredly no core doctrine which might inform properly such actions. “Oh, goody, ‘imaginitive’ Bible study! That’s like inadabadaveeeeeeeeeeda on home soil!”