Q: What is your reaction to the consecration of some Americans as bishops of churches in Africa?
A: Well, the consecration of those bishops would be more helpful if they were going to work in those countries. It’s exceedingly unhelpful to have them consecrated to work here in the United States.
Q: Why is it unhelpful?
A: Because it generates confusion among the faithful, people who do not understand that the Episcopal Church consecrates its own bishops. We elect our own bishops, we do not appoint them, and they are elected and consecrated for work in a particular diocese by the members of that diocese.
Q: Is reconciliation possible?
A: Reconciliation is always possible. Christians live in that eternal hope of complete reconciliation. Signs of reconciliation within this church are, I think, abundant. When people really do sit down and have honest conversation with each other in a way that does not immediately leap to judgment, we begin to make some progress in understanding each other’s beliefs and circumstances.
Now, just who has generated confusion among the faithful? I believe we are stealing the Faith from our people. It’s terrible! And the very reason we cannot “reconcile”. What will we be reonciling? Someone surely will answer that and stop simply stating it.
I beg to differ with Dr. Schori. THe African consecrations were extremely helpful to me. I am not confused one bit. I now have a bishop whom I can trust to provide Christian guidance and leadership, qualities which I find extremely lacking in Dr. Schori’s church.
“That’s where it is.” says Schori. Does this not say it all? Regardless of what the final communique says, she has made completely clear where TEC stands on the homosexual agenda. Our only question, therefore, should be, “Will we accept this?” I cannot imagine the AC saying “Yes.”
You know, I listen to Schori and I almost am willing to believe that Satan is real, just what traditionally he is said to be. She imparts a coldbloodnedness, a flat, impassive chill, that I can feel in my bones – no, feel in my soul. Under all the talk, she is implacable, unyielding, unswerving, and I cannot help feeling that she is like a winter rain, look for soft soil which, when she pours on it, will cause it to erode and spread like a desert cover over fertile ground. This is non-life seeking to destroy life, for it is implacably hostile to it, and this is why she is so pro-homosexual, whose deep sterility is like water in an alkali desert: It looks like any other water, but to drink it is death. ONe tries to reason, think one’s way though the dilemmas and contradictions, this fear is fundamental, essential, in the dark place well below words where the powers of life and anti-life at all times struggle for the upper hand. Christ spoke for life, the perfect vitality, and the other force, less than He but intrinsic to all mortality, pursuades successfully because it counterfeits life by substituting self gratification for self discipline, the sweet and bland false for the sharp and pungent true, the distant and the secondary for the near and primary. Listening is what Eve did after all. I don’t believe for one minute in the old myth of Adam and Eve, but the symbols exist because literal words do not penetrate to the heart. As I listen to Schori, I am listening to the old cthonic gods who have darkened man’s spiritual history from the beginning.
I am sorry for going on so long on a matter that is rooted in intuition, but I suspect that I am not alone in this intuitive response. There is a penumbra about Schori and her words that concepts and discursive reasoning cannot encompass. Larry
“Because it generates confusion among the faithful, people who do not understand that the Episcopal Church consecrates its own bishops. We elect our own bishops, we do not appoint them, and they are elected and consecrated for work in a particular diocese by the members of that diocese.”
I don’t get it. I understand other provinces appoint bishops, and ECUSA votes them in, just like it votes to see if Christ is still Lord this week. The former is helpful, and the Schori model has been less than helpful, at least to those trying to deepen their Christian walk. Where’s the confusion?
Remember children….understanding each other’s beliefs and circumstances — and having them by the cojones — is the key to getting along with others.
#3: I agree that “that’s where it is” is a very revealing statement from Katherine Schori. And, those who truly believe in this new polymorphous sensuality have it as a settled, prophetic reality.
And, to tie to Bp. Jenkins’ interview: what possible “spiritual” compromise can be made with those for whom this issue was settled by General Convention action? (And, to use the forked tongue, other resolutions can claim that there is no canonical permission for SSBs in our church…so, we are Windsor-compliant!!)
#3 Larry says:
Wow.
I have no idea whether you’re alone or not, but I assure you your response is not universal. If I were inclined to attribute human failings to an Evil One, I wouldn’t find it’s influence in this present situation coming from ++KJS.
See…the thing about the Episcopalians is…they’re very very genetically smart. In fact they’re so smart they don’t even reproduce anymore. But they’re also kind of given to confusion…you know, fuzzy-headedness like Einstein and other genuius.
So…if you were to explain to an Episcopalian that there are conservative groups that don’t want to be under the direction of liberal bishops or the liberal PB and therefore have sought refuge by bringing in bishops consecrated by African churches, they would get all confused if they met one.
“I..I don’t get it. You were consecrated by an AFRICAN church? But you seem to be in AMERICA? But…but what does that mean? So…you must have been appointed by KJS…or wait, rather elected because we don’t appoint bishops…or…or wait…I’ve got….*I* must be in AFRICA and it just looks like America? Oh…I’m SO confused I’ve just got the worst headache.” 🙂
LOL, thanks for the chuckle, Catholic Mom!
I don’t know, when I meet a bishop, I’m not really inclined to ask WHERE he comes from or WHERE he was consecrated to office. He’s a bishop. Period. My main concern is whether or not he holds to the faith handed down.
Catholic Mom, I was thinking along those same lines. She isn’t giving Episcopalians much credit if she believes they are that easily confused. Hmm . . . wonder if she’d care to reconsider the things she said about Catholics and Mormons last year?
Larry Morse, I think I know what you’re talking about and that’s why I can’t listen to her. I’ll read a transcript of what she said later but I can’t handle watching and hearing her voice.
(However, unlike you, I don’t believe the story of Adam and Eve is just a myth and I do believe that satan exists.)
#11. I guess what I was trying to say was this: The opposite of life is not death. Death is an extension of life, intregral to it. No, the opposite of life is anti-life, another force ( not an absence of life), very great and, as we say, dark. This is why I cited the old cthonic gods, the ancient powers of the traditional underworld which, even now, there is an upsurge in worshipping. Have you not seen the increased numbers of covens and pagans? Part of us worships darkness, loves darkness, strives to extend it in all directions, hopes to control its potencies andpotentials, and it hates the light. Is this satanic? See DH Lawrence’s poem “The Snake.” Clearly, he has seen a god. Did Hades actually come and snatch Persephone, stealing the spring and the sun and the light from us all? Note that Hades is not death and Persephone did not die, but ruled for six months in another world, just as alive,but a world of darkness, a world antithetical to the light. A myth? Why of course, but what does it tell you of the opposite of life, the anti-life?
And so, when I listen to the dead,gray, flat voice of Schori, I hear what RL Stevenson would say, “gies me a cauld grue,” as he says of Thrawn Janet. Spong was a liberal fool, no danger to anyone. We are familier with the Spongs;TEC is full of them. But my intuition tells me that Schori is different.
Someone will say, “Prove it. If you can’t, it’s slander” and the elves may wipe the above because it is personal. BUt the intuition is another way of knowing, dangerous and uncertain, but real. I hear her and I get a cauld grue. Larry