When asked whether there is concern about The Episcopal Church accepting the consequences of General Convention possibly endorsing same sex unions or the consecration of more partnered gay bishops, Bishop Sauls says that Episcopal Church is ready to accept the consequences.
[i]Bishop Sauls says that Episcopal Church is ready to accept the consequences.[/i]
Is it?
My anecdotal observations lead me to believe that there is a good deal of indignation over said consequences. Most notably, I have been party to conversations with some who bristled at the idea of a “two-tiered” Anglican Communion, with TEC being part of the “second tier.” From a certain point of view, they could be described as wanting their cake and wishing to eat it as well. Granted, I paint with a broad brush, but, my feeling is that consequences will be accepted so long as they acknowledge the superiority of the reappraising point of view.
Sauls the Great, the Emperor intoneth his opinioneths, … watch out PB! The sun riseth in the East.
Well, on the one hand, it’s always good to be self-diffentiated, and this proud, defiant statement could be read in that light. But OTOH, this sounds like the usual political posturing and gameplaying to me. I think +Sauls, like +Tom Shaw, the PB, and many observers outside the HoB, still assumes that the consequences won’t be very dire. That’s why he can say so calmly that he doesn’t fear them.
In light of Kendall’s thesis that the key to this GenCon is the struggle between a HoD cominated by ideological reappraisers and a HoB that may (or may not) be dominated by institutional reappraisers, I see +Sauls as very much an ideological revisionist.
But FWIW, my hunch is that the ideological reappraisers are likely to win the tug of war within the HoB. For the bottom line is that most bishops are followers, not real leaders, and they are generally very good at telling which way the wind is blowing and aligning themselves itth it. And I think that the institutional reappraisers just don’t have much leverage to resist the relentless push of their ideological colleagues, when the whole drift of American culture and TEC’s main constituency is behind the putative New Thing that God is supposedly doing.
That’s the problem with mere pragmatism when combined with theological relativism. There simply is nothing that has to be defended at all costs, except the institution itself.
So I predict that +Sauls, arrogant jerk that he is, and his cronies are likely to win and that the HoD will prevail over the HoB. But we will see. We won’t have to wait long to find out.
David Handy+