Bishop Gene was speaking at the annual conference of the Modern Churchpeople’s Union held in Hertfordshire and chaired by the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan.
He warned that telling gay people to go to some churches was akin to telling an abused wife to go back to her husband. He also compared the church’s attitude to him as that to parents whose son or daughter tells them they are coming out. He said:
“What is happening now in the Anglican Communion is what happens in a family when a kid comes out. It goes through a process of grieving and resistance to change until it can find a revised world view. .This church is not ours to win or lose, it is God’s church . It may be looking pretty rough now but God will take care of it. It may look a bit different in the end but God is not going to abandon his church so we don’t need to be so afraid.
“We are not at liberty to think we are on the selection committee for God’s family, our job is to be on the welcome committee and the sooner we learn that in the Anglican Communion the better off we will be.
“I don’t believe God stopped revealing himself when the canon of scripture was closed. God promises to be with us and never let us go. We are promised that the spirit will lead us into all truth. I believe that God is now leading us to the full inclusion of people of all types of sexuality. Maybe where we’re headed is just to acknowledge that all of us are incredibly diverse and God loves us all.”
VGR has finally said something we can all agree on:
The ABoC needs to be a leader now.
The time for ‘managing’ is past. The only disagreement is on WHAT direction he would lead the Anglican Communion into.
Jim Elliott <><
TO the idea that God didn’t stop revealing himself in just the scriptures. Isn’t that kind of what the Mormons teach? Hmmm … maybe TEC’s PB has more influence from her childhood than we thing.
Brian
[blockquote](1)I don’t believe God stopped revealing himself when the canon of scripture was closed. (2)God promises to be with us and never let us go. (3)We are promised that the spirit will lead us into all truth. (4)I believe that God is now leading us to the full inclusion of people of all types of sexuality. (5)Maybe where we’re headed is just to acknowledge that all of us are incredibly diverse and God loves us all.[/blockquote]
Where does one start?
1) Wow. In one sense this is correct. But in another sense it shows a stultifying ignorance of the nature and function of canon in general and Scripture in particular.
2) Yup. So? What does this have to do with your agenda?
3) Lead you but not anyone else apparently. See #1. Lead into “truth” which basically you determine/define. (Africans and Asians allegedly think they have a corner on truth. Hey – these guys have a corner on the spirit!) Gene Robinson is a quintessential solipsist.
4) Really. You really believe this? On what basis should we head toward “full inclusion” of those who prefer animals, children, cars, appliances, multiples, the dead… ? (Not to equate homosexual persons with those categories but only to pursue his vapid anti-logic.)
5) Well yeah sure. God loves addicts, the anorexic, the alcoholic, the depressed, the self-righteous, the solipsist, the pagan, the Muslim, the atheist, the agnostic, the neurotic, the pornographer, the artist, the surfer, the Vulcan science officer, and so on and so on God loves us all and so on and so on we get it already… where is holiness? what of sin? should all hold positions of ordained leadership? is this person capable of articulating a rational, logical argument for anything?
Why not form your own dang church and be done with it?!? (Of course we know why not. It would not possess the same aura of self-authorizing legitimacy.)
Why not form your own dang church and be done with it?!?
Rosemary Reuther was once asked why, if she repudiated everything the Catholic Church stands for, she stays in it. Her reply was, “Because that’s where the Xerox machines are.”
[i] Edited by elf. [/i]
[Deleted by elf.}
God didn’t stop leading us, and the Holy Spirit didn’t leave us, when the canon of Scripture was closed. BUT: God doesn’t reveal to us things which contradict his previous self-revelation. He didn’t send a new prophet to seventh-century Arabia to put people back under the tyranny of the law after Jesus came to save us. He didn’t send a new prophet to nineteenth-century upstate New York to completely revamp religion and reveal multiple gods. Since the revelation Gene Robinson sees contradicts the anthropology and understanding of human nature and purpose in Scripture and tradition, he (and we) should understand that this is not coming from God.
VGR: “…a revised world view.” Kendall, please add to your list of footnotes for the tag “revisionist.” It is a very accurate term and here VGR owns it. We are truly in a war of world views.
I always liked the German for this: Weltanshauung.
OY…I think VGR has forgotten the full Gospel…I pray for him…
“…I believe that God is now leading us to the full inclusion of people of all types of sexuality.”
[We ARE all God’s creatures and by His Grace He sent his Son to the cross to salvage sinners.]
“Maybe where we’re headed is just to acknowledge that all of us are incredibly diverse and God loves us all.â€
[We ARE incredibly diverse…and that’s why God sent his Son so that we might through His Grace have the hope of salvation from our sins.]
Katherine, et al:
It so sad that VGR seems unable to understand the import of his own words (or deliberately chooses not to). The juxtaposition of (3) and (4) is so revealing isn’t it? He wants us to believe that God can reveal Himself through the Holy Spirit (in accordance with the New Testament model), but then proceeds to show us he believes himself to be God’s chosen prophet; a role, which you rightly point out, no longer appears to be part of God’s plan.
It seems so clear from the description of Pentecost that the Spirit was never intended to be revealed to any individual, but rather to a community who possessed shared gifts which could be used to corroborate what they had heard. If the Spirit has truly spoken to ECUSA, why is it that no one is able to provide any documentation as to when and where this happened, and which individuals were involved, and what their specific gifts were?
The Bishop says “..It may look a bit different in the end ”
I guess that is what is called an English ( he is in the UK today) understatement!
A serious question for any trained therapists: Do not VGR’s comments reflect a deep-seated narcissism? To this untrained observer his comments show a self-focus that is breathtaking.
Anyone else besides me notice the ramp up in rhetoric since GAFCON concluded? First Rowan, then Sentamu, then bishop Wright, then Schori and now Gene. IMHO, Rowan et. al. have finally made their choice since they figured out they were no longer going to be allowed infinite time to deliver infinitesimal actions. I look for something unexpected to come out of Lambeth that will enable the aforementioned folks to rid themselves of the vexing, orthodox segment of Anglicanism. I think the GAFCON folks know what is going on since they have been silent since their follow-on meeting in London concluded.
From The Guardian, we have Gene Robinson saying the following: “The God I know is alive and active in the church, not locked up in scripture”, says Gene Robinson”.
Having been a Christian for 29 years, I can say with absolute certainty that God is most definitely not “locked up” in the scripture; rather, God is revealed in all His glory and truth in the scripture.
Robinson then asks: “Could it be that God revealed in Jesus Christ everything possible in a first-century Palestine setting to a ragtag band of fishermen and working men?”
Yes, Gene. He did. “At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.” (Matt. 11:25-26).
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor. 1:26-29).
Oh-and Gene. Is there something inherently wrong about the Holy Land in the first century that makes it so terribly inferior to North America in the 21st century? It is, after all, the place and time that Christ came to this earth. Perhaps God should have changed His appointment calendar and geographical center to better suit your modern Western sensibilities?
Yes, Gene, this is EXCATLY what God did. That “ragtag band of fishermen and workingmen” were entrusted with the oracles of God. As Jesus spoke about John the Baptist: “What did you go out to the wilderness to see?” Certainly not a richly apparelled nobleman living in a kings house-or the suite at ‘815’, for that matter.
Then BP Robinson goes on the contradict Himself in the same article. “The Bible told me about God’s love when the church turned its back on me,†he said. “I owe my life to this book (The Bible) because it communicated God’s love to me.” So lets see-this decidedly limited book, given to us by [as Robinson disdainfully calls them “a ragtag band of fishermen and workingmen”]; a book whose meaning changes with every wind that blows by-this all the sudden becomes the book that you “owe your life” to?
And thus, we see the self congradullating ethos of the Episcopal revisionistas-spelled out in all its self contradicting glory.
TEC, Robinson, and the ABC are anachronisms of the dying branch of Anglicanism. They just don’t recognize it yet.
GSP98 (#13) writes: “Having been a Christian for 29 years, I can say with absolute certainty that God is most definitely not “locked up†in the scripture; rather, God is revealed in all His glory and truth in the scripture. ”
Okay. Whatever.
I’ve been a Christian for 32 years (dunked by hard-shell Campbellites at 14), and so am, at best, a mere infant in Christ (I really mean that – though I’m responding with irony to the assertion of 29 years’ Christian experience), but my only cetain understanding as a Christian is that God has revealed himself “in all His glory and truth” *in Christ* to whom scripture can only bear, at best, imperfect witness.
The disciples, or so the witness of Scripture discloses, *never got it* before the Ascension. (To my shame, I never really noticed that before I read William Stringfellow – I’m sure it must’ve been in a churches-of-Christ sermon before then. However, for the disciples, it seems awfully convenient). Even St Peter’s confession of Christ’s Lordship was contradicted immediately by his own understanding of what that Lordship meant (get thee behind me…).
*We* (that is, The Church) closed the Canon of Scripture. Did God? To ask that question is not to open the door to Mani, Jospeh Smith or Mohammed. Indeed, the fact that Scripture records that the disciples *didn’t get it” prior to the Ascension is the best argument, inernal to the text, that the subsequent revelation is at all trustworthy.
I mention Mohammed because that is *their heresy, not ours: that God’s Word became Written. That is an idolatry. It is also a perennial temptation: we always want Law; we are made to obey; we will happlily bow down to Satan if only he will save us from the burden of nuance.
btw. I am no troll, though I seldom post. I am
Howard Preston Burkett
hpb at hotmail dot com
imperfectly recusant Christian
tempted to be an athiest-for-Christ’s-sake
parishioner
sometime asst. director of the Compline Choir
St David’s Episcopal Church
Austin TX
#15 – re: your entire post: Okay. Whatever.
#16:
y’ok.
I’ll pray for you. You’ll pray for me. ‘k?
Sounds about right. Goodnight.