Sometimes what you don’t say speaks more tellingly than what you do. One famous case is that of the dog that didn’t bark in the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze.” The dog did not bark because the crime was an inside job and the malefactor was known to him. Some such case applies to the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church in their latest Statement from New Orleans.
I will not rehearse the details of that Statement, as everyone under the sun has already done so. What I want to do is to pose three questions which the bishops chose not to address but for which I think there are obvious unspoken answers.
I recall back in the ’70’s when some politicians were defending proposed cuts in the school lunch program. They showed a “wholesome” plate that could be prepared within their proposed funding levels. When their opponents noted there were no vegetables on the plate, the politicians immediately proclaimed that the ketchup accompanying the hot dog was, in fact, a vegetable and therefore met the guidelines.
I think some of the politicians later became Episcopal bishops…
Very interesting! Not the questions that were posed by the communion as a whole at Dar es Salaam — but these are truly pertinent questions. What will give this communion spiritual health again? We are living through events just as tumultuous as those that Athanasius experienced.
Good essay!
Thanks Stephen! All three questions go to the heart of the matter, and in my opinion, on these matters alone there is Biblical warrant for break in koinonia (communion), as TEC, being challenged to repent, is both unrepentant and unrelenting on all three.
This is a magnificent article and merits close reading.
I have decided to alter the ending (last two sentences) to read:
[b]“No, No, and No! You can come with us (via “the listening processâ€), but we won’t go where the saints have trod and where the wider Communion wants us to go. We have chosen to walk apart.â€[/b]
I think the allusion to 60s boomers may be too obscure for younger readers. In any case, the use of “hell” may be scandalous, as this doctrine has also dropped out of the TEC credo.