In deference to his successor, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop Griswold declined comment on current events in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. He did, however, revisit some themes from his tenure as Presiding Bishop.
Contrary to some Americans’ assumptions, he does not believe that Nigerian Anglicans are fundamentalists. “In Northern Nigeria, your Muslim interlocutors are very clear about their theology,” he said, “so you have to be very clear about yours.”
Anglo-Catholicism has nurtured his sense of Christians living in communion.
“I see the Catholic tradition as alive and constantly unfolding rather than as constrained by the past,” he said. “The Eucharist is about [drawing together] this gaggle of unlikely souls, many of whom would find it difficult to put up with each other, if not for sharing one bread and one cup.”
Echoing the words of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, his longtime friend, he said that both communion and baptism “draw us into solidarities not of our own choosing.”
Seeing Bishop Griswold’s preening pretensions at being “contemplative” — his self-delusory fantasies about being an intellect and a “catholic” [heh] — reminds me all over again how grateful I am for PB Jefferts Schori’s frank and oblivious heretical mouthings and happy use of litigious and deposing brass knuckles along the lines of Tony Soprano.
I’d far far far far rather have someone like Tony Soprano’s crude fumbling bludgeonings than Grima Wormtongue’s lies, deceits, deconstructions, rhetorical sophisms, and deliberate malevolent hand-rubbing manipulations.
One thing that Jackson’s TLOTR series got right was Grima Wormtongue.
I was so grateful when Schori was elected. And I am still so. We’ve gotten much much further with her than we would have with someone like Person-of-the-Lie Griswold.
Schori merely reveals the underbelly of Griswold’s and Browning’s heresies and displays it for the Anglican world to see and gape at.
I have much more respect for Schori and her honesty [though sometimes she catches herself and tried to be more like Griswold] than I have for him.
Previous comment seems rather strident. Who is Grima Wormtongue, by the way? I caught the Tony Soprano allusion, the other one went right past me.
Here you go, NoVA. Always happy to oblige:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GrÃma_Wormtongue
I don’t think it’s too strident, NoVA Scout – it is Sarah, after all – maybe actually a little subdued 🙂
Actually, Bishop Griswold’s deception before the rest of the Anglican Primates on +Robinson’s consecration was the beginning of my journey away from ECUSA – it exposed for me what the church had become – that a bishop could do what he did and that most of the other U.S. bishops didn’t seem to see a problem with it. Despicable.
You know, it’s a huge gap in my reading that I have not ingested Tolkien. It was very popular when I was in school, and I just couldn’t get to it. You’ve encouraged me to find some time to absorb it.
Actually, he always more reminded me of Leonardo “Leon” Fortunato in the Left Behind series. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Fortunato]Leonardo Fortunato in Wikipedia[/url]
Thank you Branford.
Because of the cruelty and rigidity of the blood-tipped fanged elves, I restrained myself. For instance, one thing that I restrained my quivering fingers from writing was “Schori merely reveals the rotting underbelly of Griswold’s and Browning’s heresies, [formerly hidden as they slithered along the ground in TEC,] and displays it for the Anglican world to see and gape at.”
But because of the compulsive censoring and red-eyed stalking-after-prey of the elves I had to be all moderate, and kindly, and dolphin like.
But I am convicted by NoVA Scout’s gentle reproof.
I should be more moderate. Nuanced. Subtle. Rhetorically sophisticated in my truth-telling — or rather . . . story-telling.
As we are well aware, this is not an easy time in the life of the church, as we live with questions that yield no easy answers. However, branches must be pruned in order to be fruitful. And so it is that the love of Christ is a pruning love which at times can appear harsh and difficult to face. Divisions and polarizations are the order of the day both in our political and ecclesial life. I need to make plain that because something may appear to be an unfoldment of the Spirit in the life of the Episcopal Church that does not mean that it should or ought to become normative elsewhere.
Re #8:
[smack, slap, smack] Sarah? SARAH! SARRRAAAHHHH!! Snap Out Of It! DON’T LOOK AT THE GRISWOLD!! LOOK AWAYYY!!! Darn, where’s a comment-elf when you need one for a really hard pinch?
(Seriously, tho’ – isn’t it terrible to have bishops become bywords?)
This conversation — nay this sharing of stories and perspectives — has been about love. It has been about love at work in a community that heretofore had been able to live with both/and realities and now was forced to make an either/or decision. And yet, in doing so, something has happened that is larger than any one perspective or even the decisions this blog post has created. Paradoxically, our differences writ large have stripped us of our facile civility and plunged us into the vast sea of the divine agape. That is not to say one position is right and the other wrong. It is to say that God in Christ is with us.
Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field. I ll meet you there,” said the Sufi poet Rumi. The field is the field of the divine compassion where all things are reconciled in ways that we can only dimly comprehend.
Actually, I liked Progressive Carl better than Serendipitous Sarah.
The Rabbit
Now, dear and beloved Br_er Rabbit . . .
There would be no risen body of Christ if we were all a hand or a foot. Anxiety, confusion, fear and anger abound. Love possesses an urgency which directs it outward toward others; love by its very nature must give itself away. Would it not be far more helpful and truthful, albeit difficult, to deal openly with the reality which heretofore has remained hidden?
Now to be fair, Chris Johnson really misses Griswald. And I really miss Chris’ translations of Griswald.
All very droll.
“In deference to his successor, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop Griswold declined comment on current events in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. He did, however, revisit some themes from his tenure as Presiding Bishop.â€
What an elegant Griswoldian way to avoid the discussion of his role in the breakup of the ECUSA/TEC/GCC/EO-PAC!!! I am impressed. This is the one time in the history of the universe that Frank actually kept his mouth shut?! Miracles do happen, apparently.
Either that or Frankie is appalled (appalled, I tell you!) that the gentle, reconciling, ministering female-type PB sues the heaven out of everyone she can and he doesn’t want to be in her sights! Even he could be deposed. Then he’d have to spend more time with those grandkids than in Cuba each year!!!!!
Although, Frank has a superlative acquaintanceship with naughtiness to truly educate those grandkids. What sort of stories does he tell? Some titles that suggest themselves are:
“Rumi and the Pluriform Truth Field when You get Caughtâ€;
“Pretend to Listen and Do You Own Thingâ€;
“Manipulation: Yes you Can!’;
“North American Imperialism: Life Lessons and Applications”;
“Growth and Numeric Changes: See one, Do one, Count it Thrice”; and
“Uncle Robbie, Pointy Hats, and the Technicolor Tennis Shoesâ€.
We all tell the story we believe by what we do, so what would you say the Griswoldian Gozpell is, as told by Frank to grandkids? Other thoughts on these Griswoldian stories are solicited. Titles only, please. Elsewise, the storied Saruman-like powers of THE VOICE may gather the unsuspecting for the trek into the deserted wastes of Griswoldor.
Oh my. The [url=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/grizzolator.html]Grizzolator[/url] appears to have appropriated Sarah’s t19 account.
😉
RE: “All very droll.”
This raises the very important notion of context, to which I alluded earlier. Can we seek to live it faithfully and forthrightly in our various circumstances? Therefore, I ask myself and the members of my own church in the midst of this profound and straining disagreement if there is not some invitation or opportunity to live the mystery of communion at a deeper level, as difficult and costly as it may be.
Love opens us to constant surprise and supplies us with sufficient imagination and resiliency not to be utterly undone by God’s wild and unpredictable ways. We have each had our struggles, our successes and failures. We have had to live, in the fullness of our humanity, with all its paradoxes and contradictions, what we might call the scripture of our lives. Love possesses an urgency which directs it outward toward others; love by its very nature must give itself away. Therefore, I ask myself and the members of my own church in the midst of this profound and straining disagreement if there is not some invitation or opportunity to live the mystery of communion at a deeper level, as difficult and costly as it may be.
[hic!]
Nay, out with the Drolls!
Bring back the Trolls!
When you start to Grizzol it’s hard to stop.
I differ. I did not often agree with him, but he was more pastoral in nature (a trait and an experience conspicuously missing from Schori), and yet strong enough to not let the lawyers run the church, also unlike Schori, and I suspect we would have seen more reasonable settlements and less litigation with another PB like him.
Oh, how I miss the Griz’s babbling. Griz had episcospeak down to a fine art. Remember the “diverse center”?
Yes, Phil.
Schori’s just not able to pull it off.
She’s just naturally blunt and crude in her rhetoric, though she does try to lard it up a bit to try to blur it a bit more than she used to. I think she now recognizes the usefulness of Griswoldian cut-and-paste rambling fog, whereby one merely responds with set phrases and clauses strung together, no matter what the question, leaving the audience, hopefully, confused.
Throw in a pop quote from Sufi Rumi and talk about being “Anglo-Catholic” [heh] and it makes it even an awe-inspiring display of depth and literary breadth for the masses.
But she’s just not able to pull that off like he is. I have to smile when I think of Williams and Schori together in private, talking.