As a Communion Conservative, let me assure the Federal Conservatives who are departing the Communion that I in no way see your position on homosexuality as in any way connected with the ham-fisted “Rejectionist” category that Andrew Goddard has described.
I am quite able to disagree with Federal Conservatives and their tactics, even their eventual destination which appears to be the Common Cause Partnership, without making up out of whole cloth a category about their theology concerning homosexuality which does not in fact exist.
I suspect that most of the ComCons with which I work feel the same way.
So why would Collaborationists wish to create such categories? I think there’s a simple strategic reason. If one creates such large, grand, and very flawed theological categories, that allows Collaborationists within the Communion to group themselves with a much larger group of traditionalists than they otherwise would find themselves in. After all, the thinking might go, surely no one among the ComCons will want to be perceived as a “Rejectionist” — perish the thought!
Thanks, but I’ll stick with the Reasserters. And I’ll take note of the Collaborationists as well.
Read it all. Now, there are a lot of things I could say about this, but what I want to point out now is that this is one more indication of the diversity that exists among reasserters. The same diversity exists among reappraisers. I find the monolithic treatment of each “position” or “side” by some in the debate (read: The House of Bishops/Deputies listserv, a number of blogs,etc) very exhausting at present.
Also please notice that in general this is a model of how to disagree with someone. You try to reflect accurately what someone is saying, and you critique their arguments, using counter arguments and evidence, without making it personal. It would be helpful if this were kept in mind by all as the Advent season approaches–KSH.
Dear Kendall:
I couldn’t agree with you more. However I am totally lost in this jungle of labels and yearn to be merely Christian and a merely Anglican. I believe “in all things charity”. that it is our duty to identify commonality rather than discovering reasons why not to make common cause with sisters and brothers in the faith.
Fr. Tony/wvparson:
Nice to see you back online. Surely, prayers on your behalf have been answered.
All the best as we enter this Advent season,
Sarah,
I really appreciate that you have made clear that we are not all mean spirited homophobes. It is distressing how the press and even knowing people on the blogs can assume that is the heart of the issue and the dividing line within the church.
It is my own particular view that homosexuality was the chosen vehicle (Trojan Horse) by which to bring in a new theology/teaching because of the sympathy and compassion we would all have for our homosexual friends. It is a shame the way this decision to turn a pastoral and emotional issue into the center of attention in the midst of a more complex theological debate has distorted both our conversation/debate as well as our public image.
I would like to suggest that Common Cause is itself a refutation of Andrew’s splinter argument in that there is a real commitment to acknowledge nuances and overcome differences for the greater good..
Further, some of us were driven out of the church because we had held precisely your views from the beginning (see all the ACI documents on which my own name is affixed) and even that was not to be tolerated in the Schori/O’Neill vision for the future church.
We have a lot of different pressure points, situations, and circumstances effecting our positions and reactions—but God’s own generosity in our hearts is clearly the hope and basis for any way forward in protecting the truth, teaching and tradition of the church. I believe that should be the focus of our thoughts and prayers.
Don Armstrong
In any debate, it seems, one side seeks to put pejorative labels on the other side(s). Thus, pro-life and baby-killers versus pro-choice and clothes hangar distributors, etc. Goddard carries on this tradition.
Sarah rightly points out the clearly biased categorization:
[blockquote]The “Rejectionist” [ooh . . . cold and mean there!] position is characterized by:
[blockquote]a. showing little willingness to consider it might be wrong
b. a tendency to insist strongly that this is a ‘first-order’ and ‘church-dividing’ issue
c. interpretation of the current conflict in terms of ‘culture wars’
d. emphasis on a Christian response of ‘healing’ to enable people to experience heterosexual attraction and ultimately marriage.[/blockquote][/blockquote]
It is actually worse in that just before this slanted list, Goddard gives the example of hateful, “homophobic” rant, and implies that the rejectionists agree but just don’t vocalize their uncharitable, un-Christian feelings towards homosexuals:
[blockquote]and even where such obvious revulsion towards anyone identifying as a homosexual is not [b]expressed[/b], the more moderate rejectionist position…(above list ensues)[/blockquote]
So much for subtlety. Such a contrast to those warm and pastoral reassessors.
Let me [i]reject[/i] the rejectionist and reassessor monikers and use the more accurate (in my eyes, at least) the Stand Firmers (SF-ers) and the conservative compromisers (CC-ers), and look at the descriptors:
a. showing little willingness to consider it might be wrong. Hubris is not becoming. Most SF-ers are willing to consider that he or she is wrong but much less willing to consider that 2000 years of tradition and black and white scripture are wrong. The CC-ers? Probably no more or less guilty of intellectual hubris.
b. a tendency to insist strongly that this is a ‘first-order’ and ‘church-dividing’ issue. Ummm, are we asleep or merely ignoring reality? I guess by by this he means is it theoretically possibly is some laboratory setting, can we have a church where people on opposites sides sit in the pews together and do not bifurcate eventually. My answer is, “who cares?” There is just one Anglican Communion and in that organization it is a dividing issue.
c. interpretation of the current conflict in terms of ‘culture wars’. Again, reality comes into play. There really is not much controversy about this issue in the day to day practice in Nigeria or the like.
d. emphasis on a Christian response of ‘healing’ to enable people to experience heterosexual attraction and ultimately marriage. Most SF-ers do point out the hypocrisy that the re-orientation view being ignored in the listening “process” (Aack, I used the term! Hail Mary…x 10.) Scripture is not unclear, sexual relations are reserved for the married state between a man and a woman. As Kendall says, “Don’t get mad at me, get mad at God.” I am curious whether Goddard is saying that homosexual relations are ever permissible. I am pretty sure Radner and Seitz would say it is not. Perhaps, Goddard is saying that conservative compromisers are more willing to put a bushel over their lamp and merely not be forthright in their beliefs: “We secretly believe that homosexual relations are never permissible but we are not willing to put that in writing.”
Out of this whole exchange that began elsewhere, I like Kendall+’s commentary at ‘tag line’ here the best.
Wow, Sarah…unusually “breathtakingly…petty.”
You do exactly what you accuse Andrew Goddard of doing…”Reasserter=Good,””Collaborationist=bad.”
Your definition of dialogue is so narrow that it is pedantic. You will only “dialogue” with those who do not know enough to believe like you do. If they demonstrate that they show “little willingness to consider [they] might be wrong,” then you can not dialogue with these evil people. Your definition is almost as bad as it is sad. Dialogue involves disagreement. Because you show “little willingness to consider [you] might be wrong,” then no one can dialogue with you as you are “ideologically commited to a worldview” that will not change.
But then I am just involved in a process of pretense….