The bishop asks, “Who has the right to decide?” and gives no answer.
What a vapid leader. What a poor theologian. What a shepherd that allows the wolves to ravage his flock! He says “Peace, peace”, but there is no peace.
[blockquote]The deeper question is this: Just what exactly is the problem anyway? Surprising to many people, serious-minded folks give very different answers. For some, perhaps for most, the answer as conceived by them is a simple matter of sexual morality: right or wrong. Others couch this dispute in terms of the authority of Scripture. Still others argue that not only does Scripture not speak with one voice to the actual question that is before us, but also the insights of science and experience of our faithful gay and lesbian brothers and sisters—integral members of our community—cannot simply be ignored. Yet others see this dispute through the lens of authority: Who has the right to decide? [/blockquote]
Being a good Anglican, I say that the answer to this question is “Yes.” It is a question of sexual morality, authority of Sripture, the experience of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, and authority. However the bishop does say that Scripture does “not speak with one voice about the actual question before us.” This is wrong – unless you say that the question is not one of sexual morality. Scripture is very clear on sexual morality. It is less clear on the locus of authority – who has the authority to change the moral teaching of the Church and even less clear on the “experience of our faithful gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.”
When we factor in the question of sexual morality, authority of Scripture and the authority to change, it become clear that TECUSA has erred in its new direction. It even violated its own resolutions of General Convention which said that TECUSA should not make this decision without the rest of the Anglican Communion.
I will hesitate in calling the bishop a liar. However, I would like to know what version of Scripture he reads as none of the versions I have ever seen are unclear about human sexulaity and our Creator’s wishes for us. Also, he states that TEC is being faithful and therefore will and is being blessed. Faithful to what I ask? It is not being faithful to Holy Scripture. If he is saying such things during his parish vistiations, I would hope he gets challenged on these points until he stops repreating them.
A simple-minded letter that brings nothing to the table, and, as has been pointed out, mendacious on the matter of what Scripture says about sexual morality. Also, anyone who can say with a straight face that the Episcopal Church has been “strengthened” by this ordeal, is completely out of touch with reality.
Through it all, I am convinced that our Episcopal Church has been strengthened, and I have confidence that the larger Anglican Communion, in whatever form it takes, will be strengthened as well.
Strengthened? What world is this guy living in? I think our Episcopal Church has been weakened, and the Anglican Communion has been weakened to the point of breaking apart.
When you have the Episcopal Church Center and dioceses suing parishes and individuals, how is that strengthening?
He firmly believes we are stronger when we are “right” and past scriptural rigidity. The fact that we are losing members and are about to get ex communicated is not important.
I don’t think things will be quite as rosy as the good bishop thinks they will be. My grandfather used to say “A fynno Duw, a fydd.” “What God wills will be.” I never knew him to be wrong.
Bp. Sisk’s message shows complacency with whatever happens. This is an indirect way of saying that TEC will not change course, no matter what the ABC, the Communion, or anyone else says or does. If you know what you are going to do, it really matters little what others will do. in effect, whether the Communion survives seems to be a matter of indifference to Bp. Sisk, who says that eventually relations will be restored, citing the revolutionary war example.
Bp. Sisk’s complacency implies that the Communion will not, in fact, side with TEC. If Bp. Sisk was confident the Communion would back TEC, he would say that. He did not.
Pb#3, “Divine Life that unifies all creation” is hardly pantheistic. Read and reflect on Col. 1:15-20 and 1 Cor. 15, esp. v. 28.
Contemporary science has illustrated well that everything in the creation is connected and interrelated from the subatomic to the level of species life. From the aspect of Faith, it is God that began our world in unity and will bring it to unity in God’s self. If you want to put a label on it, try “panentheism”: everything exists IN God (a notion by the way that the 27th Catholic mystic Jean-Pierre de Casaude expressed in “Abandonment to Divine Providence”).
Bob, I read the first passasge to say that all things were created by Jesus and that reconciliation would come through the sacrifice oon Calvary Hill. The second passage refers to end time (see v.24). I applied the duck test and missed the distinction between pantheism and panentheism. My book still says that creation is fallen and not yet restored. Also the creation and the creator are separate.
There are probably a number of reasons for this essay which, as you have noted, appears to be unacquainted with reality. This is, surely, Schori speaking in her low, dull monotone for its calming effect. But I hazard a guess that this essay arises primarily from fear; the writer is whistling in the dark. The text indirectly measures how serious the issues are and I intuit that the writer has seen the writing on the wall and knows in his heart that the he is in an end game from which there is no escape.
I sense real fear here as I have sensed it often from the TEC Big Voices. I know I cannot prove this, but the tone is familier now and a real giveaway.
For those of you who cannot speak Welsh, know tht “dd” is pronounced as “th” and that all Welsh letters, especially w, can be pronounced any way at all except as they are pronounced in English. This is a rule. It’s is also nice to know that John S can speak Welsh and has offered us a Welsh rare bit.
ap Gryffydd
John S. (#14). Perhaps “resigned” or “fatalistic” would better capture my meaning, rather than “complacent”. I don’t see fear in Bp. Sisk’s statement, as does Larry Morse (#21).
My comments on “strengthened” are [url=http://admiralofmorality.blogspot.com/2007/08/bishop-of-new-york-presenting-question.html#8844588679886457036]here[/url].
Hmmm. I tried reading the third paragraph ([i]”We have no reason to despair. We have nothing to fear”[/i]) as Al Haig (“There is nothing to fear: I am in control”) and as HAL 9000 (“Nothing can go wrong go wrong go wrong….”), but nothing really seemed to fit. I think I’d go with “breezy.”
OK, I can’t get the link to work, so sorry for the double post:
Reading the headlines of the last five years, it’s hard to understand how the church has been strengthened. But I believe that for every member who has left the church, there are 10 or 100 — on both sides of this issue — who have done their very best to listen actively to the experiences of their fellow Episcopalians, and who have come away willing to focus on the grace that unites them rather than the acrimony and fear that divides them. There is strength in respect and love.
When gay weddings start taking place at the altar of the church I have spent years supporting how am I supposed to get over something like that? How am I supposed to explain that to my children? The Bible and the Sacraments and Tradition are three of the pilars of the church and are not subject to the shifting winds of human sentiment.
The bishop said,
“…Yet others see this dispute through the lens of authority: Who has the right to decide? This, in turn, pushes others to state the problems in terms of polity—that is, the way we organize ourselves to make decisions and, at least by inference, obligate others by those decisions.”
ECUSA’s major usurpation of the synodic authority of the bishops of the Anglican Communion directly addresses the bishop’s question of “Who has the right to decide?”
If the bishop adheres to ECUSA’s policies and decisions, then, if he is honest, he must assert that ECUSA has the “right to decide” for both ECUSA and the whole Anglican Communion.
“ever closer to the Divine Life that unifies all creation. We have no reason to despair. We have nothing to fear.”
No consequences eh? God is a divine life unifying all creation, eh? This pantheology explains the bishops actions and lack of interest in their consequences.
Kendall was very astute in his comment that we should read it all and read it carefully. I see the message he’s put out as, ladies and gentleman, scratch a bit beneath the surface of this article so that you can discover the true value of it. The value of this missive is not in hashing out which contextual point is correct! Bp. Sisk has very lucidly and concisely covered them in the alloted space. The value of this article lies in something Publius has gotten: Bp Sisk and very likely others in TEC are resigning themselves to what is to come. The bishop is preparing his diocese for the reality of substantive change.
The key portions of this missive are the last four sentences. In them, the bishop vaguely says that he believes TEC has done the right thing and will not back down but rather continue to pursue a just course. Essentially, he says, we have no intention of repenting. We are correct and believe that in due time, we will be vindicated. I realize this is a lot of reading between the lines but this is a very bright and articulate bishop who, while writing to his diocese as a whole, is also focusing his writing to address the concerns of those who wield the finance and power within the NY establishment.
Note that he has couched his position with a reference which will ring with the cradle Episcopalians: our seperation from the COE during the American Revolution. Essentially he is hinting that we are back at such a moment. We, like early Americans must receive the impending change with the same fortitude the early Episcopal Church accepted the split from the COE. Eventually, they were reunited. This bishop hints at his resignation to a split but one which he believes is for just reasons and one which will in the long will vindicate the American church.
I have not presented my take on his views, rather have opted to dig a bit at what I thought Kendall might be hinting. I recognize that there may be other ways of viewing the bishop’s statements and would welcome those and hope that we can move this discussion deeper into the essensce of this important barometric reading by a very well respected bishop within the TEC structure.
Those of you who know me will know that I do not subscribe to the bishop’s ideology or TEC’s position. I am an orthodox and a former communicant from the Diocese of New York, well acquainted with how that diocese “couches” its positions to its communicants.
Adam 12 #25: “When gay weddings start taking place at the altar of the church I have spent years supporting how am I supposed to get over something like that? How am I supposed to explain that to my children? The Bible and the Sacraments and Tradition are three of the pilars of the church and are not subject to the shifting winds of human sentiment.”
1. Have a heart-to-heart conversation with your priest. No one is making you attend the service, but I realize that the church has been your spiritual home — and your distress warrants good pastoral care. Not to convince you that you’re wrong, but to possibly convince you that there are other ways of witnessing love which you, in your heart, may not accept.
2. Explain to your children that there are people who believe that God blesses their love no matter what their gender. Tell them that you don’t agree, but that we all could be wrong.
3. Holy Scripture is always subject to human interpretation — interpretation is done every time the Bible is translated. Whether or not such interpretation is faithful is your opinion — and mine — and, hopefully, we’ll be able to converse and pray about it.
The Sacraments — they took years and councils to sort out [i]by humans[/i]. Which are dominical, which are not; which are required for salvation, which are not. Two, five, or seven? Which branch of Christendom recognizes which?
Finally: Every tradition was once an innovation. We [progressives] believe we are doing God’s work. We recognize it is new, recognize it as difficult for many people, and recognize it is cause for consternation in the wider church. But our faith supports us and we carry on. And all the while, I hope and pray, we are feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, and offering healing to the sick.
Padrewayne,
What you wrote seems reasonable enough – why not recongnize that for us Traditionalists we cannot abide by the “new” and let the Traditonalists decamp with their churches. A peacable and loving separation would seem to be the Christian thing to do at this point instead of beggar thy neighbor.
Chips, I don’t think what PadreWayne said was reasonable at all. What he said boils down to “You can’t depend on the Bible or what the Churches have said for several thousand years. It *might* be true and might not. Everybody differs and God’s word isn’t a constant. All interpretations of scripture are equally valid”.
That isn’t reasonable; it’s deceitful. “They were fully aware of God’s death penalty for these crimes, yet they went right ahead and did them anyway, and encouraged others to do them too”, Ro 1:32.
hmm…
all blogspot (google) accounts seem to be down.
I finally got through.
The bishop asks, “Who has the right to decide?” and gives no answer.
What a vapid leader. What a poor theologian. What a shepherd that allows the wolves to ravage his flock! He says “Peace, peace”, but there is no peace.
“Divine Life that unifies all creation.” God is all, all is one,we are God. Let’s hear it for pantheism and the new age.
[blockquote]The deeper question is this: Just what exactly is the problem anyway? Surprising to many people, serious-minded folks give very different answers. For some, perhaps for most, the answer as conceived by them is a simple matter of sexual morality: right or wrong. Others couch this dispute in terms of the authority of Scripture. Still others argue that not only does Scripture not speak with one voice to the actual question that is before us, but also the insights of science and experience of our faithful gay and lesbian brothers and sisters—integral members of our community—cannot simply be ignored. Yet others see this dispute through the lens of authority: Who has the right to decide? [/blockquote]
Being a good Anglican, I say that the answer to this question is “Yes.” It is a question of sexual morality, authority of Sripture, the experience of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, and authority. However the bishop does say that Scripture does “not speak with one voice about the actual question before us.” This is wrong – unless you say that the question is not one of sexual morality. Scripture is very clear on sexual morality. It is less clear on the locus of authority – who has the authority to change the moral teaching of the Church and even less clear on the “experience of our faithful gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.”
When we factor in the question of sexual morality, authority of Scripture and the authority to change, it become clear that TECUSA has erred in its new direction. It even violated its own resolutions of General Convention which said that TECUSA should not make this decision without the rest of the Anglican Communion.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Pure pig piffle, quite emblematic of the underlying problem, of which Robinson and all that followed are merely symptoms.
I will hesitate in calling the bishop a liar. However, I would like to know what version of Scripture he reads as none of the versions I have ever seen are unclear about human sexulaity and our Creator’s wishes for us. Also, he states that TEC is being faithful and therefore will and is being blessed. Faithful to what I ask? It is not being faithful to Holy Scripture. If he is saying such things during his parish vistiations, I would hope he gets challenged on these points until he stops repreating them.
A simple-minded letter that brings nothing to the table, and, as has been pointed out, mendacious on the matter of what Scripture says about sexual morality. Also, anyone who can say with a straight face that the Episcopal Church has been “strengthened” by this ordeal, is completely out of touch with reality.
Bp. Sisk writes:
Strengthened? What world is this guy living in? I think our Episcopal Church has been weakened, and the Anglican Communion has been weakened to the point of breaking apart.
When you have the Episcopal Church Center and dioceses suing parishes and individuals, how is that strengthening?
He firmly believes we are stronger when we are “right” and past scriptural rigidity. The fact that we are losing members and are about to get ex communicated is not important.
I don’t think things will be quite as rosy as the good bishop thinks they will be. My grandfather used to say “A fynno Duw, a fydd.” “What God wills will be.” I never knew him to be wrong.
Cennydd,
Had me confused for a minute there. Welsh, I presume?
I’ve never seen so many words used to say, “Just sit down, shut up, fill the collection plate, and nobody gets hurt.”
Bp. Sisk’s message shows complacency with whatever happens. This is an indirect way of saying that TEC will not change course, no matter what the ABC, the Communion, or anyone else says or does. If you know what you are going to do, it really matters little what others will do. in effect, whether the Communion survives seems to be a matter of indifference to Bp. Sisk, who says that eventually relations will be restored, citing the revolutionary war example.
Bp. Sisk’s complacency implies that the Communion will not, in fact, side with TEC. If Bp. Sisk was confident the Communion would back TEC, he would say that. He did not.
I don’t find these reflections ‘complacent’. They are probing, troubled, faithful. Sorta Anglican?
Pb#3, “Divine Life that unifies all creation” is hardly pantheistic. Read and reflect on Col. 1:15-20 and 1 Cor. 15, esp. v. 28.
Contemporary science has illustrated well that everything in the creation is connected and interrelated from the subatomic to the level of species life. From the aspect of Faith, it is God that began our world in unity and will bring it to unity in God’s self. If you want to put a label on it, try “panentheism”: everything exists IN God (a notion by the way that the 27th Catholic mystic Jean-Pierre de Casaude expressed in “Abandonment to Divine Providence”).
I meant “the 17th cent. mystic” de Casaude. Sorry for the mistyping.
IMO, these musings from +Sisk, to paraphrase +Cantaur, “do not rise to the level of a bright 5th Former”.
And this from a man charged with spiritual and theological leadership of a diocese?
It’s just too sad.
11 Yes, Evan, Welsh to the core! Your name means “John” in English, by the way.
Cennydd bach, s’yd dachi, heddw? (Apologies for spelling.)
Bob, I read the first passasge to say that all things were created by Jesus and that reconciliation would come through the sacrifice oon Calvary Hill. The second passage refers to end time (see v.24). I applied the duck test and missed the distinction between pantheism and panentheism. My book still says that creation is fallen and not yet restored. Also the creation and the creator are separate.
There are probably a number of reasons for this essay which, as you have noted, appears to be unacquainted with reality. This is, surely, Schori speaking in her low, dull monotone for its calming effect. But I hazard a guess that this essay arises primarily from fear; the writer is whistling in the dark. The text indirectly measures how serious the issues are and I intuit that the writer has seen the writing on the wall and knows in his heart that the he is in an end game from which there is no escape.
I sense real fear here as I have sensed it often from the TEC Big Voices. I know I cannot prove this, but the tone is familier now and a real giveaway.
For those of you who cannot speak Welsh, know tht “dd” is pronounced as “th” and that all Welsh letters, especially w, can be pronounced any way at all except as they are pronounced in English. This is a rule. It’s is also nice to know that John S can speak Welsh and has offered us a Welsh rare bit.
ap Gryffydd
John S. (#14). Perhaps “resigned” or “fatalistic” would better capture my meaning, rather than “complacent”. I don’t see fear in Bp. Sisk’s statement, as does Larry Morse (#21).
My comments on “strengthened” are [url=http://admiralofmorality.blogspot.com/2007/08/bishop-of-new-york-presenting-question.html#8844588679886457036]here[/url].
Hmmm. I tried reading the third paragraph ([i]”We have no reason to despair. We have nothing to fear”[/i]) as Al Haig (“There is nothing to fear: I am in control”) and as HAL 9000 (“Nothing can go wrong go wrong go wrong….”), but nothing really seemed to fit. I think I’d go with “breezy.”
OK, I can’t get the link to work, so sorry for the double post:
Reading the headlines of the last five years, it’s hard to understand how the church has been strengthened. But I believe that for every member who has left the church, there are 10 or 100 — on both sides of this issue — who have done their very best to listen actively to the experiences of their fellow Episcopalians, and who have come away willing to focus on the grace that unites them rather than the acrimony and fear that divides them. There is strength in respect and love.
When gay weddings start taking place at the altar of the church I have spent years supporting how am I supposed to get over something like that? How am I supposed to explain that to my children? The Bible and the Sacraments and Tradition are three of the pilars of the church and are not subject to the shifting winds of human sentiment.
The bishop said,
“…Yet others see this dispute through the lens of authority: Who has the right to decide? This, in turn, pushes others to state the problems in terms of polity—that is, the way we organize ourselves to make decisions and, at least by inference, obligate others by those decisions.”
ECUSA’s major usurpation of the synodic authority of the bishops of the Anglican Communion directly addresses the bishop’s question of “Who has the right to decide?”
If the bishop adheres to ECUSA’s policies and decisions, then, if he is honest, he must assert that ECUSA has the “right to decide” for both ECUSA and the whole Anglican Communion.
Larry Morse, #21: It’s dangerous to assume your enemy is afraid; that’s when he turns around unexpectedly and kills ‘ya.
But I’ve heard the same thing. Some of the folks are getting shriller and others are getting fatalistic. But I’m not making any assumptions :^>.
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas
“ever closer to the Divine Life that unifies all creation. We have no reason to despair. We have nothing to fear.”
No consequences eh? God is a divine life unifying all creation, eh? This pantheology explains the bishops actions and lack of interest in their consequences.
Kendall was very astute in his comment that we should read it all and read it carefully. I see the message he’s put out as, ladies and gentleman, scratch a bit beneath the surface of this article so that you can discover the true value of it. The value of this missive is not in hashing out which contextual point is correct! Bp. Sisk has very lucidly and concisely covered them in the alloted space. The value of this article lies in something Publius has gotten: Bp Sisk and very likely others in TEC are resigning themselves to what is to come. The bishop is preparing his diocese for the reality of substantive change.
The key portions of this missive are the last four sentences. In them, the bishop vaguely says that he believes TEC has done the right thing and will not back down but rather continue to pursue a just course. Essentially, he says, we have no intention of repenting. We are correct and believe that in due time, we will be vindicated. I realize this is a lot of reading between the lines but this is a very bright and articulate bishop who, while writing to his diocese as a whole, is also focusing his writing to address the concerns of those who wield the finance and power within the NY establishment.
Note that he has couched his position with a reference which will ring with the cradle Episcopalians: our seperation from the COE during the American Revolution. Essentially he is hinting that we are back at such a moment. We, like early Americans must receive the impending change with the same fortitude the early Episcopal Church accepted the split from the COE. Eventually, they were reunited. This bishop hints at his resignation to a split but one which he believes is for just reasons and one which will in the long will vindicate the American church.
I have not presented my take on his views, rather have opted to dig a bit at what I thought Kendall might be hinting. I recognize that there may be other ways of viewing the bishop’s statements and would welcome those and hope that we can move this discussion deeper into the essensce of this important barometric reading by a very well respected bishop within the TEC structure.
Those of you who know me will know that I do not subscribe to the bishop’s ideology or TEC’s position. I am an orthodox and a former communicant from the Diocese of New York, well acquainted with how that diocese “couches” its positions to its communicants.
Adam 12 #25: “When gay weddings start taking place at the altar of the church I have spent years supporting how am I supposed to get over something like that? How am I supposed to explain that to my children? The Bible and the Sacraments and Tradition are three of the pilars of the church and are not subject to the shifting winds of human sentiment.”
1. Have a heart-to-heart conversation with your priest. No one is making you attend the service, but I realize that the church has been your spiritual home — and your distress warrants good pastoral care. Not to convince you that you’re wrong, but to possibly convince you that there are other ways of witnessing love which you, in your heart, may not accept.
2. Explain to your children that there are people who believe that God blesses their love no matter what their gender. Tell them that you don’t agree, but that we all could be wrong.
3. Holy Scripture is always subject to human interpretation — interpretation is done every time the Bible is translated. Whether or not such interpretation is faithful is your opinion — and mine — and, hopefully, we’ll be able to converse and pray about it.
The Sacraments — they took years and councils to sort out [i]by humans[/i]. Which are dominical, which are not; which are required for salvation, which are not. Two, five, or seven? Which branch of Christendom recognizes which?
Finally: Every tradition was once an innovation. We [progressives] believe we are doing God’s work. We recognize it is new, recognize it as difficult for many people, and recognize it is cause for consternation in the wider church. But our faith supports us and we carry on. And all the while, I hope and pray, we are feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, and offering healing to the sick.
Padrewayne,
What you wrote seems reasonable enough – why not recongnize that for us Traditionalists we cannot abide by the “new” and let the Traditonalists decamp with their churches. A peacable and loving separation would seem to be the Christian thing to do at this point instead of beggar thy neighbor.
Chips, I don’t think what PadreWayne said was reasonable at all. What he said boils down to “You can’t depend on the Bible or what the Churches have said for several thousand years. It *might* be true and might not. Everybody differs and God’s word isn’t a constant. All interpretations of scripture are equally valid”.
That isn’t reasonable; it’s deceitful. “They were fully aware of God’s death penalty for these crimes, yet they went right ahead and did them anyway, and encouraged others to do them too”, Ro 1:32.
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas
19 John Scholasticus: Gwir fynnon, diolch yn fawr! Very well, thanks!