We’ve now added TWO updates at the end. Please check them out.
Trying to scan the blogs tonight and there is just WAY too much information and commentary out there to begin to try and post a lot of separate entries, or even many excerpts or highlights. What follows is an attempt to capture some of what caught our eye around the blogosphere tonight.
We’ll start tonight on the reappraising side of the aisle since we assume many of our readers are less up-to-date with reading the commentary from that perspective.
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Jim Naughton’s Day 2 roundup is here at Episcopal Cafe.
Here’s the section that jumped out at us from his report:
One bishop we spoke with said a member of the Joint Standing Committee had offered a private apology for Archbishop Anis’ remarks.
All three of the people we spoke with said the mood of the bishops after the morning session was glum because most of the speakers seemed to be pushing them toward an either or choice between conscience and unity.
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Integrity has a very short blog entry entitled HoB Update: “Pastor Rowan” speaks, focused on a question asked of the ABC at today’s press conference:
[John Gibson writes:] I asked +Rowan what word of hope he had for the gay and lesbian baptized. He repeated assurances of the communion’s stated opposition to discrimination against gay and lesbian persons. I followed up and asked whether that opposition to discrimination applied to the world outside the church but not within the church.
He answered it was a matter of how people perceived a person’s “choice of a style of life” and how that affected what level of role that person was “eligible for” within the church. (”˜Choice’ of a ”˜lifestyle.’ Flashback to the 70s.) He also said we’re concerned with the appropriate limits of pastoral response to gay and lesbian people.
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Scott Gunn at Inclusive Church focuses his latest blog entry on +Marc Andrus’ statement from yesterday [which Kendall’s posted below]. After posting +Andrus’ statement, Gunn shares his personal opinion:
All that is true. However, we cannot expect to talk about justice and experience and think that we will nurture conversion among the wider Communion. We Americans had better start talking about biblical and traditional grounds for our innovation.
Obviously, writing for a blog called by the name “InclusiveChurch” and affiliated with IC in the UK, I favor the full inclusion of GLBT Christians in all aspects of the life and ministry of the church. However, I support this “new thing” because I believe this change — and it is a departure from the historic practice of the church — is warranted. I believe this change is warranted on scriptural grounds, and I believe it is warranted on grounds of tradition. And, finally, my experience tells me that it’s the right thing to do.
This elf appreciates Scott’s honesty here, and wishes all would be similarly clear about their positions. But we can’t help thinking there’s a contradiction or oxymoron in what Scott writes. In one sentence he admits that the GLBT agenda is a “departure from historic practice,” yet in the next believes it can be supported by tradition? Is there such a thing as “traditional innovation?” (our word, not his, but that seems to be what Gunn is trying to claim is possible.)
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Susan Russell loudly (with 4 exclamation points) cheers on Gene Robinson. Susan writes:
It is time to name it as unconscionable for a people of God committed to seeking and serving Christ in all persons and repecting the dignity of every human being to continue to perpetuate a defacto sacramental apartheid precluding the full inclusion of the gay and lesbian baptized in the Body of Christ.
And it is time to recognize the clear truth that there is no compromise short of our explusion which will satisfy the Tribal Council convening to vote us off the Anglican Island.
Those are my two cents.
Those who are praying for clarity are certainly getting it in spades tonight from Susan!
Susan’s following post is also of interest. She watched the Anglican TV live feed of the press conference (and offers her thanks to Kevin) and notes what she thinks to be the takeaway quote:
That said, the “take away” quote of the day award goes to Archbishop Williams for “There is no ultimatum involved.”
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Susan R. is clearly not alone in thinking the “no ultimatum” quote is the takeaway quote of the day. We’ve seen it all around the web on both sides of the aisle. Notably, both Fr. Jake and Simon Sarmiento highlight that quote in their blog headlines:
Jake: Canterbury: “No Ultimatum”
Simon at Thinking Anglicans: Archbishop Williams says “no ultimatum”
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We could have missed something (and please comment if we did!), but we didn’t see many blog entries on the reappraising side of the aisle that dealt in much depth with the plethora of proposed resolutions that were posted today by Stand Firm (though Thinking Anglicans did cover these. Thanks Simon.) Nor did we see much commentary on Archbishop Mouneer Anis’ remarks. Yes, Jim Naughton commented about Apb. Mouneer’s remarks (seeking to discredit them, it seemed). But for example in NINE posts so far today at Thinking Anglicans, not one mention of Mouneer? That seems hard to believe, so maybe we really did miss something.
Similarly we saw nothing on +Mouneer at Jake’s or Integrity’s blog or Susan Russell’s Hello? Anyone listening? Maybe we’re being rude and impertinent to ask this, but, what’s the point of inviting the Primates to come and speak to you if you’re going to ignore what they say? Just wondering.
There’s lots on +Gene Robinson. And +Marc Andrus, and now +Kirk Smith and their statements. But nothing on +Mouneer or Apb. Aspinall of Australia. It really seems like many in TEC only want to listen to themselves.
And yes, this is elfgirl writing her own opinion (Hope that’s ok Kendall). I’m not speaking for Kendall. But this stuff needs to be pointed out in my opinion.
-elfgirl
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(Note: please forgive my lack of using titles (“the Rev’d” etc.). I’m working quickly trying to get this done before I need to call it a night. No disrespect intended. Short and simple is just easier at the moment, especially since I don’t necessarily know the exact status (clergy, lay) or titles of all these bloggers.)
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UPDATE / CORRECTION:
Although his focus is on ++Rowan, Fr. Jake actually quotes parts of Jim Naughton’s post from “The Lead” — so there is a mention of the fact that +Mouneer spoke and that the bishops didn’t like it. Here’s Jake’s excerpt of Jim (ellipses are in the post at Jake’s exactly as they are posted here, I’ve cut nothing):
…(Presiding Bishop) Anis was the most confrontational. The bishops we spoke with were depressed by his presentation because it contrasted so sharply with the flexibility expressed in private conversation by other members of the delegation…
…One bishop we spoke with said a member of the Joint Standing Committee had offered a private apology for Archbishop Anis’ remarks.
Right. So +Anis was confrontational. But what did he say??? The reappraising bloggers aren’t telling us or their regular readers.
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UPDATE 2: Ok, it gets even more interesting. The reappraising bloggers are one thing. After all, most blogs aren’t meant to be comprehensive news sources. Bloggers cover what interests them, what they have something to say about. So maybe they choose to ignore +Mouneer. I can live with that. But ENS?
ENS has 4 stories posted under today’s date, Sept. 21.
Archbishop of Canterbury ‘encouraged’ by bishops’ meetings By Pat McCaughan, Sep 21, 2007
Raise prophetic voices against poverty, Paul Farmer tells bishops By Mary Frances Schjonberg, Sep 21, 2007
Archbishop Rowan Williams’ opening remarks at September 21 news conference Sep 21, 2007
Archbishop of Canterbury gets a taste of New Orleans By Mary Frances Schjonberg, Sep 21, 2007
Anyone want to guess how many times the names Mouneer Anis or even Australian Primate Aspinall appear in these 4 articles? If you guessed ZERO, you get the gold ring! Nope. Not one mention of either Primate. No mention of +Morgan who supports TEC’s agenda. No mention of any of the Joint Standing Committee or their remarks that I can find at ENS today.
And yet, we have an 800+ word feature on some medical anthropologist and his remarks. Simply unbelievable.
the clear truth that there is no compromise short of our explusion which will satisfy the Tribal Council convening to vote us off the Anglican Island.
This, from Russell, is simply not true, as I expect she well knows.
Elf lady, Nice catch there on “traditional innovation”. What caught my eye there is that Mr. Gunn claims to have scriptural support for his opinion, but fails to give it. After all these years of seaching, has anyone actually claimed to have found a single passage of scripture supporting or approving of homosexual activity?
Dr. Harmon and Elves, in the face of ENS’ silence, I am more grateful than ever to you and the folks at Stand Firm for getting *all* the news out there where we can read it. I wouldn’t take anything for having been able to read Archbishop Anis’ address today. Thank you for not leaving us in the dark.
ENS, The Pravda and Izvesta of the ECUSA/TEC. With equal reliability as to either, we must observe, just like the originals.
Sherri, thanks for your kinds words. The real thanks today go to the SF crew and BabyBlue who acquired and published the text of +Mouneer’s speech, typing it in by hand.
For those of you who are grateful, consider a contribution to Stand Firm (which also covers hosting and bandwidth costs of TitusOneNine since we share a server).
Here’s the Link to donate: http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/525
It looks like we’ve had about 160,000 page hits combined between Stand Firm and T19 in the past 30 hours or so. Anything folks can donate to help cover costs of this kind of bandwidth would be appreciated.
[blockquote] It really seems like many in TEC only want to listen to themselves.[/blockquote]
There’s another one to be chiseled into TEC’s gravestone.
#2, my point was this: our tradition, over the last 2000 years, has been to change on all sorts of things. We worship in the vernacular now (again, after not doing that). Some of us ordain women. We don’t generally shun those who have been divorced. We do not practice slavery. Doing a “new thing”, in other words, is not a “new thing.” It is our pattern.
I agree, though many progressives will vehemently hold other opinions, that scripture — where it speaks about homosexuality — does not contain an explicit approval of this activity. In a broader sense (the loving, generous practices of Jesus, etc.) I believe there is warrant.
If explicit scriptural warrant is all that matters, we’d still have slaves, we’d not ordain women, and by the way, we’d all give up all our possessions. There are all sorts of things we’d do differently. Maybe once things settle a bit in blog-land, I’ll try to take some of this up in a way that would yield a fruitful conversation with my conservative friends and critics.
For now, I hope you can at least see my point (even if you disagree) that Christian tradition is full of all sorts of changes of practice and scriptural interpretation.
Pax,
Scott+
An odd experience for me, but I find myself in agreement with Fr. Jake…at lease on his last little Q & A:
Q: What will follow September 30?
A: October 1…and not much else.
Thanks for the clarification Scott. That’s helpful.
If Napoleon had ENS the world would never have heard of a sleepy village called Waterloo.
For the record, Scott Gunn has now posted a blog entry re: +Mouneer Anis but that wasn’t online while we were working on the post above (about 8 – 8:30 p.m. Eastern)
http://inclusivechurch.blogspot.com/2007/09/mouneer-anis-speaks-plainly.html
Nick Knisely has a post at The Lead (Episcopal Cafe) on +Mouneer’s and other speeches to the bishops here:
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/bishops/excerpts_from_bishop_anis_spee_1.html
That may have been online when we were writing our entry, but as it was the 4th item on the Lead’s page under an item we thought was older news from yesterday (re: +Wales rejection of Covenant), we may have missed it.
Glad to see that there were some folks out there covering this on the other side of the aisle. Thank you Nick.
#8, Scott, Thank you for the kindly worded response. I do agree that you and I might be able to have a reasoned conversation these matters over coffee without having it degenerate into a food fight, even though we probably do disagree on almost everything being discussed here.
Let me tell you where I am coming from. I am a 69-year-old man who was born into and raised up in the Episcopal church, comfirmed in 1949. I was a Lay reader when I was 18. A few years later I had a “crisis of faith” and spent 30 years inthe Wilderness. When I came back to faith, I tried to come back to the Episcoal church, but it wasn’t there any more. You speak glowingly of the services now being “in the vernacular”. The first time I went to an ECUSA service (I won’t call it Episcopal any more), I was horrified. The only word I can think of to describe the liturgy of your 1979 prayer book is FLAT. Not only did it not speak to me, the theology repelled me: No prayer of Humble Access, beginning the creed with “We” instead of “I” hymns for which the words neither rhymed nor scanned. I hope you get the idea. I knew I could never be “at home” in that church. And I recognized that a lot of what repelled me were simply matters of taste.
I don’t know what happened here, but about 2/3 of what I wrote disappeared into the electronic limbo. I’m sorry, but it is too late for me to try to recoup it. May God guide us all.
+Anis’ words seem to betray him. He uses the oft repeated diatribe about how TEC clergy dont believe historic doctrines and are creating a new religion, heard here, at virtue online, and stand firm.
I find, after serving in four dioceses in three TEC provinces, that that particular criticism fits +Spong, but not the hundreds of priests I have known throughout the church. In fact, during my ordained life, I have known only one priest whose doctrinal stances would not gel with Nicaean Christianity. It is my contention, like Greg Jones+ and so many others that boundaries should have been kept with +Spong, but because they weren’t, the “reasserter” crowd believes that they should throw the TEC baby out with the bathwater in a matter similar to the way +Spong wishes to re-envisage the church, tossing the resurrection aside.
I would find it remarkably helpful if we couched the conversation about human sexuality in terms of serious theological disagreement -which is what it is- rather than call the fidelity of faithful clergy preaching the Gospel of Jesus into question.
I will be adding various further links during Saturday. Unlike some of you, I do have a life outside of all this! Yesterday was a busy day.
So this blog has now gotten to the point of criticizing other blogs for “not being good enough?” That’s unfortunate. I recall mentioning at one time about something not being posted on this site, and I received strong words from many readers, including an Elf, that it is Kendall’s blog and he can post whatever he likes on it, and similarly not post what he doesn’t want to post.
This whole debate already has folks fractured enough, let’s at least try to avoid going after one another’s blogs. Peace.
DaveJ–But Marc Andrus and crew realize that the center is their ride–their vehicle to carry the freight.
Mr. Sarmiento–Ouch! “Unlike some of you, I do have a life outside of all this!”
See #14 and his response to the “new” church.In essence, he said that his esthetic sense was offended by what he found. Now, esthetic is a troublesome word to use here because, among other things, it has become both secular and academic. But in the best way, the sense of the beautiful has informed anglicanism as it has informed Christianity. The KJ’s Bible is beautiful, the psalms are beautiful, the church’s music is beautiful.
Is beauty truth? Well, at one complex level it certainly is, for the sense of the beauty is a way of knowing that operates outside discursive argument.
Has TEC’s service become “flat,” its music unlovely and pop-tunish (as has RC music), its prayer book something that only a committee would write? I may have overstated the case, but in general, this is true. This is the price of secularization, that the magic has flown, the glory turned to pablum because for TEC, truth is not beauty but a social service agenda. Perhaps I have overstated Mathematicus’s intent, it which case I apologize to him, but I still think his accusation of “flatness” is correct and compelling. Larry
That ENS is functioning like the White House press office (or any other press office) is no surprise. It also doesn’t matter. Anis’ address is out there and was mentioned in the press conference and in some independent media. More importantly, it was heard by the HoB.
Somehow, BCP28, I like to think it also matters that the HOB knows that we know what they heard….
No, Larry, you did no overstate my case in #20. I [i]was[/i] repelled by what I saw and heard. I felt the meaning in the old analogy of the frog in the pot. I was not slowly warmed up over the 30 years since 1957. In a sense, I was dumped into the boiling pot in 1987 and promptly jumped out. Yes, it was largely aesthetic, but, as I indicated, there were also places where I felt the theology was wrong, or at least skewed from what it had been.
What follows is a little of what I lost last night through an errant keystroke or something. It took more years to find it, but I am now happily ensconced in the Reformed Episcopal Church for which our BCP is essentially the 1662 book with some of the sort of changes the Americans felt necessary in 1785. However, it does include an alternate service for Holy Communion that just happens to be right out of the 1928 BCP. I now have a church that has a liturgy and theology that seem right to me. I just keep wondering why more conservatives, reasserters, call them what you will, have not come to the REC as I and many others have done.
I also continue to pray that the Lord will guide ECUSA and all of us through this mess and that no souls will be lost because of it.
Peace and blessings.
Mark Johnson, your comment that we shouldn’t criticize other blogs for not reporting something is fair enough, and that’s actually something we recognized in what we wrote above (Update 2):
[blockquote]Ok, it gets even more interesting. The reappraising bloggers are one thing. After all, most blogs aren’t meant to be comprehensive news sources. Bloggers cover what interests them, what they have something to say about. So maybe they choose to ignore +Mouneer. I can live with that. But ENS?[/blockquote]
I was surprised by the silence about +Mouneer on many of the reappraising blogs. I figured there would be many mad about what he said, or others actually cheering him on “Yes! We should have the courage of our convictions and ACT on them, no matter the cost!” But I certainly support their right not to mention the story. I do think it a bit symptomatic of a problem that many chose not to.
By the end of the night though, my real gripe and frustration was with ENS. The left a gaping hole in their reporting that I found inexcusable.
Thanks for your comments though. Fair point and one I’ll try to remember when it’s tempting to spout off about others’ blogs.
–elfgirl
See #23: I have often wondered why someone has no written about the esthetics of Christian theology, for much of the truth one finds in scripture is in its wholeness – not in the investigation of its parts Descartes fashion – as Right and as esthetically satisfying, as much an statement of the truth as Euclids proof that there is no final prime, or Watson and Crick’s perception that the double helix was to perfect to be wrong. One must take scripture as a whole,however, as one looks at a Rembrandt self-portrait, all at once, entire, complete in itself, incapable of improvement by so much as a single brush stroke. The is wha the truth looks like if you only stand back a little bit and see it whole. Larry
Frrememberthat,
If you look through the posts on T1:9, you will find many, MANY people and articles that attempt to pull the discussion back to the scriptural and theological issues.
However, it seems the ‘reappraisers’ don’t want that, they seem to just want to harp that it is all over homoseuxality and ‘gay civil rights’ and this is what the ‘reasserters’ object to. And the media has gladly picked up on this, as well.
You and I know that this is NOT true, but a lie shouted loudly and long enough becomes to be believed to be the truth, yes?