In the early ’70s, comedian Flip Wilson created a character for his NBC television program called “Reverend Leroy” of “The Church of What’s Happenin’ Now.” Like some contemporary “reverends,” Reverend Leroy was a con artist who, among other things, once took up an offering to go to Las Vegas, explaining he had to study sin in order to effectively preach against it.
Reverend Leroy would feel right at home in the modern Episcopal Church, which recently voted at its denominational meeting in Anaheim, Calif., to end the ban on the ordination of gay bishops and permit marriage “blessings” for same-sex couples.
What is it about conservative radio talking-heads that makes them so hateful?
I’m serious about this. Many of you are Episcopalians or ex-Episcopalians. I may disagree with you, but I can understand the heat that I find in your writings about TEC. But Cal Thomas is not, as far as I can tell, an ex-Episcopalian (Wikipedia is unhelpful on this). But he’s a Christian, a leader of the Moral Majority.
So I ask you, is there any group of Christians (Ok, I’ll even go the extra mile and say “nominal Christians”) about which you would write such a gleefully, derisively mocking an essay if you wrote a national column? I disagree with lots of denominations — some way too liberal for me, some way too conservative — but I can’t think of one I’d feel call to mock in public.
To quote Flip Wilson, maybe the revisionist ECUSAn excuse for what happened at General Convention 2009 will be,
“The devil made me do it!”
and MarkP (#1.), its not that Cal Thomas is mocking ECUSA, its that ECUSA has and is making a mockery of itself.
Its sad, but true.
If “hateful” means “you disagree with me”, then I suppose MarkP has a point.
I don’t read Thomas’ column as “gleeful” or “hateful”: what he says is true about TEC and Jimmy Carter. Both make patently ridiculous theological claims. It’s no sin to ridicule the ridiculous, and Thomas documents his arguments, unlike TEC or Carter.
BTW, I am not a fan of Cal Thomas. It’s my understanding that he’s a Catholic, although I’ve read him more than once choose doctrinal American conservative over Catholicism. If he is Catholic, he qualifies as a (right-wing) cafeteria Catholic.
Perhaps, MarkP, he’s outraged by this band of apostates soiling the word “Christianity.” I didn’t see anything particularly hateful, can you cite?
RE: “So I ask you, is there any group of Christians (Ok, I’ll even go the extra mile and say “nominal Christiansâ€) about which you would write such a gleefully, derisively mocking an essay if you wrote a national column?”
I don’t see what you’re seeing. I didn’t see any derision or mocking — just matter of fact plain speaking. I didn’t see any glee either. I agree with Thomas’s thesis — The Episcopal Church of which I am a part, at the national level, is following culture and allowing culture to transform it, not the other way around.
It is, in effect, the Church of What’s Happenin’ Now.
I say that not with glee or mocking. It just is what it is.
As nearly as I can see, MarkP, really just has a problem in general with “conservative radio talking-heads.” It’s the fact, in other words, that some conservatives get to talk on the radio, which irritates him so profoundly and which he will call “hateful.”
I guess I can understand that.
I am really fed up with people proclaiming what is [b]hateful[/b] when what they are really trying to do is censor others who question bad behavior. My definition of [b]hateful[/b] is someone who denies others their personal freedom of conscience. Yes there is a new religion that worships self. “Don’t judge my actions and I will not judge yours.†The problem is, the majority of the population is dealing with anthropologically normal family relationships and ethics. How do you raise your children to be productive and ethical members of society? How do you show care and compassion to your elderly relatives? How do you really follow the Second Great Commandment to love your neighbors? – Not by government, but by your own sacrifice and charity. This requires not always putting self first. Marriage is such an important concept in a reproducing society and also a sacrament to many people of traditional faith. It is not understood as an entitlement or civil right to be conveniently redefined, but as a sacred bond between a man and a women to procreate children, raise them and to care for each other through old age. This becomes more of a sacred duty than a sacred right. It is hard enough to instill these values on a large amount of the heterosexual population. The media and popular culture tries to teach that it is all about [b]ME[/b]. That is a big enemy to fight. The traditional church, grounded on the Biblical Canon, tries to teach the principal that [b]it is not all about me[/b]. The enemy wants to corrupt that traditional church so that they can feel blessed and affirmed for their selfishness. What they easily forget is that the secular rights they enjoy are actually protected by a western culture grounded in a tradition of Judaeo-Christian values. A society that values the unborn, the sick and the elderly. Take that away, and society will falter and lose its hard won sense of basic human rights and dignity.
I thought the whole Flip Wilson “Church of what’s happening now” angle was derisive, and suddenly realized I couldn’t imagine writing a piece that was derisive in that way about, say, the UCCs or Southern Baptists or Lutherans Missouri Synod or Unitarian Universalists or any other church that might be too liberal or too conservative for my taste. I thought it was sneering in a way that I couldn’t imagine being sneering about a church I had no association with, no sense of ownership of. And, yes, maybe “sneering” says what I meant better than “hateful.”
#7, Sarah is entirely correct…the Flip Wilson reference was descriptive, not derisive. TEC made that official when it passed C056, rationalizing its move on changes in civil law allowing same-sex marriage. The cultural tail is wagging the ecclesiastical dog with TEC.
The only point that Mr. Thomas misses is that TEC has been transforming into Flip Wilson’s “Church of What’s Happening Now” for decades now…and we have just sat back and let it happen, with the standard lines of “it won’t happen here” or “they won’t go any further” or any number of things. We have let the world shape and change the church, in contrast to the way it is supposed to be–the church shaping the world! Sad, but true!
When a commentary such as this one by Cal Thomas makes the OpEd page of a major metropolitan liberal newspaper (Denver Post, 24 July 2009), then you know that the post-modern heresies of Christianity are being noticed finally.
Some of the “continuers) who fantasize about staying with the Episcopal church to reform it from the inside are now realizing that it is a futile hope unlikely to happen. The chickens are coming home to roost now that the denomination’s heresies are official and being led by an anti-Christ as defined by 2John.
MarkP: I speculate that had the Apostles read Cal Thomas’s OpEd commentary, they would have chuckled and totally agreed with his observations. Just a hunch on my part.