Almost everything we see coming out is rehash of old positions. I think things are stuck and that some who believe their job is to rescue us all from stuck positions will put forward compromises that will be rejected. However, what is needed is not compromise, but promise – a new beginning for life together, where most of us can say, “Not farewell, but fare forward voyagers.”
I agree (it does not happen all that often). I keep thinking of that AA statement the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and to expect different results.
Any attempt to put out a mushy statement and then have people go home and do what they have done before will be a disaster. And that has been the pattern again and again.
A system that is stuck needs a breakthrough; a radical proposal that actually creates space, movement, and offers real hope for the future to all as well as calling for sacrifice from all. Pray with me for that.
Stop the presses: I agree with both of you!
For what my humble and insignificant opinion is worth, I agree with none of you and I am not surprised at all. A political compromise or “deal” to “save” the communion will not change Susan Russell’s beliefs to make them congruent with Kendall Harmon’s or vice versa. When the deal is done, and Kendall remains Kendall and Susan remains Susan both in the same communion and church, my question is this: what was the point in all the arguing in the first place?
Well, I’m doing what little I can to get people on board. Let’s just say that I’ll be saying extra, extra prayers in church tomorrow. The big question, though, is whether any of this is getting to the bishops. Do they know of this “radical solution” Dr. Harmon has kindly and courageously suggested?
I know we’re on opposite sides theologically, but it would be a much lesser church without people like him, and I would miss him and all the others on here if we were indeed to part ways.
OK, so how do we do that? A big hurdle is the fact that the HOB keep disclaimimg the authority to do anything of substance and just dumps the problem back on GC. GC is not capable, institutionally, to resolve complex theological issues. The ship is heading into the rocks and nobody is at the helm.
In another thread I suggested that the HoB might encourage Canterbury to invite everyone, including the recently ordained African bishops, to Lambeth (and I would hope Gene). I know that creates some challenges with who “owns” the Anglican name, but then let Canterbury take the opportunity to scold us all for not talking to one another.
If some choose to stay away, so be it.
Thomas
Oh, and maybe the theme could be repentance and reconciliation, and everyone could be invited to reflect on their own sins in all this mess. I’m not saying that there are many who have valid complaints, but let’s begin by taking the log out of our own eyes before we see the speck in others.
Humility is an odd strategy, but it may work 🙂
Thomas
William,
I thought you had left. However, since you are reading and making comments, which of these parts of Mark Harris’ statement do you not agree with?
1) Almost everything we see coming out is rehash of old positions.
2) I think things are stuck
3) and that some who believe their job is to rescue us all from stuck positions
4) will put forward compromises
5) that will be rejected.
6) However, what is needed is not compromise,
7) but promise
8) – a new beginning for life together, where most of us can say, “Not farewell, but fare forward voyagers.”
Kendall’s #8) “a radical proposal that actually creates space, movement, and offers real hope for the future to all as well as calling for sacrifice from all.”
9) “Pray with me for that.”
RGEaton
Or Mr. Paine, we could join them at McDonald’s for a Big Mac and call that Communion as well. We can all indulge in as many rituals together as we like simply for the sake of being hospitable and while hospitality is a good thing, Jesus asks for more. Does it really impress you that much that Episcopalians will be taking communion tomorrow?
Of course a breakthrough is needed, that much is tautological. The hard part is reconciling unreconcilable principles.
#2 Well, what do you want, Kendall to become Susan and Susan to become Kendall?
Amen to #5! It’s about accepting the Lord’s invitation to come to the Table together because we are brothers and sisters (like it or not) by virtue of our baptism, not passing William#2’s theology test.
Well of course, staying also means accepting more than communion. It also means financing and accepting the reappraisers theology. And as in the case of WO we will be forced to accept it. Sorry folks (TPain et al) you have TEC and its yours. We will gone soon enough.
jeffersonian, if it was so self-evident, then there would have been some serious, radical enough proposals as to what to do about it, and there would have been real leadership–and alas up to now there has not been. Sometimes what is seemingly obvious needs to be named.
The difference between Susan and Kendall (if I may use them symbolically) is not a difference in degree but a difference in kind, and this is why the difference between TEC and the rest of the Anglican world cannot be negotiated and should not be. The adiophora business – and a tiresome business it is – and the “we should all go to the Eucharist together” business is applicable only to difference in degree. Otherwise, you are asking the foxes and the chickens to go to lunch together as equals and as believers in the equality of all animal-kind. BUt they will not understand “lunch” in the same terms ever because they cannot.
TEC has made itself different in kind. And we chickens, – I use the term for us correctly I think, in all its connotations – if we are going to sup with the devil, have no spoon long enough. Larry
Chris Seitz wrote yesterday, “I am surprised at the level of despair” in the responses to the ABC’s latest undermining of DeS. Despair is toxic drug that Christians especially can easily succumb to. I did not despair because I found the ABC’s words entirely predictable, [url=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/6142/#113116]another instance[/url] in a chain of disastrous appeasement. Despite this modus operandi, many have been saying that the ABC will eventually effect discipline, withdraw invitations, etc., And they are still defending him in his latest subversion of DeS, continuing to maintain expectations, [url=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/6142/#112714]here[/url], [url=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/6142/#113015]here[/url], and [url=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/6142/#113141]here[/url].
Now, apparently almost simultaneously, Ephraim and Kendall ask people to place their hope that the Episcopal church will concede to a voluntary withdrawal in some fashion from the Anglican Communion. As if that has the remotest possibility of occurring??? I find this worse than preposterous.
As Christian pastors, you are charged with maintaining the health of the flock. Listen to the anguish and don’t compound it. Tell them to expect no discipline from the ABC and not to place their trust in him. He is simply not trustworthy. The TEC will continue in its reckless, perfidious path. Don’t expect otherwise.
But do not despair but be faithful. The times are hard, but there have been many times in the past much worse, the Jewish diaspora, the Roman persecutions, the fall of Rome, the reign of Idi Amin, Mao and other tyrants, etc. We have “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” The Lord was faithful in those times and He will be faithful today.
Mark Harris’ quote from “Four Quartets” is interesting, maybe even ironic. Anyone who claims to know what Eliot meant is a liar, but I have interpreted these lines to mean “fare forward” to death, which for Eliot was a new beginning, but not the kind I think Mark Harris has in mind. Another famous line from the same poem: “In my end is my beginning.” Perhaps, more a propos?
in this case, that is, the U.S. rebellion from the Anglican Communion, if it were a ‘minor’ issue, then we could continue to go to the communion rail together to partake of the body and blood of Jesus the Christ. However, as the Bp Miller of Ireland said:
If God is not Father, Jesus is not Lord, the Son is not unique, baptism is not necessary, the creeds are optional, repentance and sin are dated concepts and the atonement is marginalized or even rejected, where do we go from here? The faith remaining will be a very different faith from the Christian faith once delivered to the saints – and I, for one, am not going there! ( Bp. Miller, Church of Ireland)
And I would add, the Scriputres are not inspired and authoritative.
That truly, is at the heart of this matter, and explains WHY we cannot approach the communion rail together in good conscience.
One way lies, possibly, more compromise than should rightly be made – I’m sure people on both “sides” feel this. The other way lie, perhaps, bitterness and rigidity and pride, for both “sides.” It really is time for new thinking.
I can’t find this in my Big Book (AA) but Kendall says it’s there: [blockquote] The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and to expect different results. [/blockquote] Before I heard this in AA, I had heard this as being attributed to Einstein, and have used it as such in my talks.
[blockquote]jeffersonian, if it was so self-evident, then there would have been some serious, radical enough proposals as to what to do about it, and there would have been real leadership–and alas up to now there has not been. Sometimes what is seemingly obvious needs to be named. [/blockquote]
The HoB (as a whole, obviously there are notable exceptions) is not even at a place where it recognizes that there is a problem, Canon Harmon. In their minds, they’ve acted “prophetically” in righting a two-millenia-long injustice…it’s those “pre-moderns” in Africa and elsewhere that are mired in sinful, exclusionary beliefs. There is no reason in the world a body with this attitude is going to accept even a modest remedy to what they view as a righteous act, much less a radical one that would abbreviate and postpone their triumph, even if it means that the faithful, who have resisted these sinful innovations, would debase themselves by putting their pecadillos on par with those of the revisionists (itself a preposterous suggestion).
We are at the end of the Left’s Long March through the Episcopal Church. They are not stopping at the gates, my friend.
Sherri,
I agree that there are many areas in which compromise can be made, even if those making it are uncomfortable about it. Up to now, WO was one of those issues, and a very workable compromise was in effect. (Of course, at the last GC, that was taken away and made a mandatory requirement to be accepted by all TEC parishes.)
However, on the basics of the faith itself, which is what Bp Miller is speaking about, there can be no compromise if one wishes to be called by the name “Christian”.
I really don’t see much of a way to maneuver through this. The reappreaser side is stuck on the sandbar of being prophetic. How do you repent from what you have proclaimed is a Holy Spirit, God directed course? The reappraisers are anchored to the belief that God has revealed through scripture and two thousand years of tradition the truth about sin and the right order of human sexuality. The issue is very clear and there is little room for fudge. Three years of dialogue and the “listening process” have not yielded a clear course or process to bring the two sides together.
Sorry I ment to say the reasserters at anchored to the belief…
T. Paine, I appreciate hearing from you but I think my meaning is clear. To me when the orthodox and progressives in tec symbolized by Kendall and Susan (apt description of my point Larry Morse, nothing personal susan and Kendal go to communion together its like eating a Big Mac together or going to a football game together. Relationship and hospitality are good. In a different setting I bet Susan would find me very entertaining. But we can’t be in the same church together because its phony. Our belief systems are so very very different even if our rituals look the same. I frankly don’t want Susan’s nose in my tent because we’re trying to accomplish salvation and do discipleship in the church I attend and we really don’t need her beliefs and actions to interfere with that.
Rob+, I did quit visiting here for awhile but came back. Nice to hear from you. I am in Rwanda if that helps you understand my interest, but really I do think this is a front line in the beginning of the end spiritual battle. As for what don’t I agree with, prayer is always good, but the question and premise is wrong. No political deal or compromise can change the inalterable fact that tec and the ac are a house divided against itself that cannot stand.
I said this to you Rob+ 3 years ago.
TPaine, I do find it difficult to believe that you don’t understand my very simple point. I think you understand well, would behave and do exactly as I if the situations were reversed, but you find Christianity as it has been known for 2000 years not to your liking. Rather than engage that fact you attempt to marginalize me with a negative label like “grand inquisitor.”
Instead of reacting negatively I would like to make one more attempt to communicate. I think it will help you to understand some of us instead of just labeling us to make yourself feel better.
I assume you are a churchgoing person. Let’s say that you have a a great choir that does a fantastic job of doing music from the 1982 hymnal. And I join your church and at every turn attempt to undo your choir and replace it with a rock band that sings contemporary christian music.
How long would it take before your Rector asked me to find a parish that was more to my liking and put my nose under their tent?
Or if I move to Pasadena and join Susan’s church and make it my mission at every turn to witness about the sinfulness of gay behavior?
Tpaine I am simply making the observation that a house divided against itself cannot stand. That doesn’t make me a “grand inquisitor.”
T. Paine, for the most part on this blog and in other places I see gay folk and their partisans referring to people like me as homophobic bigots. But you say I would be welcomed by them because “the tent is for everyone.” I give up dude, you win. Do you know of a Girl Scout troop somewhere I can join?