In the United States, those who disagree with …[the Presiding Bishop] have found themselves excluded: One hundred priests have been deposed and 200 congregations have been exiled from their church buildings for not accepting the liberal Episcopal Church’s position.
For the 230 bishops who declined to attend the Lambeth Conference, the problem is that the American church has blessed people in their disobedience to God. In response to a plea by English evangelical bishops to attend the conference, representatives of these conservative bishops wrote that some of their co-religionists in the United States who had objected to the consecration of V. Gene Robinson “have been charged with abandonment of communion. Their congregations have either forfeited or are being sued for their properties by the very bishops with whom you wish us to share Christian family fellowship for three weeks.”
“To do this is an assault on our consciences and our hearts. How can we explain to our church members that while we and they are formally out of communion” with the Episcopal Church, “we at the same time live with them at the Lambeth Conference as though nothing had happened? This would be hypocrisy.”
The fundamental question is this: What allows for religious freedom and religious choice? An Anglican faith that adheres to the teaching of Scripture, calls people to choose to follow Jesus and all that he teaches, welcomes all to hear the gospel but is clear where the boundaries are. Or a so-called inclusive Anglicanism that seeks to improve on the Bible, observes no boundaries, and claims to welcome all – as long as you do not disagree.
Read it all. One wonders how many so-called “first-world” bishops at Lambeth could summarize why those who are not there are not present in words the latter would agree with. Say it again after me, it is not a boycott:
Now follow along and see where this goes in terms of the subsequent developments. The husband has consummated the affair. There has been much emotional and personal damage and the relationship is extremely frail. A marriage counselor is brought in. It is suggested because of the severity of the situation that a trial separation is necessary. The husband is asked to apologize and express repentance for his actions, and to cease the affair. The situation could not be more serious.
How to take the analogy further along the steps the Anglican Communion has taken is difficult, but, roughly speaking, there have been more meetings, including meetings of outside leaders who have asked for clarification within specified time limits from the husband, and, even though a group on behalf of said leaders has written a report saying that the husband has satisfied what he is being asked to do in order to repair the breach, his actions on occasion contradict those findings. Even though he has pledged his deep commitment to the marriage, has said he is sorry she has been hurt, and that he takes his wife’s concerns with the utmost seriousness, on certain days of certain months, he is still having the affair.
What does the wife do? Well, yes, at some point she may choose to leave the relationship, but, as a Christian, if she is persevering and prays for the lovingkindess of God to prevail, she might stay in the house.
If she were to choose to stay, the atmosphere would be very different from then on, and, the one thing she must do is act differently in what is left of the relationship itself. Indeed, not to act differently is not a sign of health, but a sign of real sickness. One example of an action she might take is that she might choose to move to another bedroom down the hall from the couple’s bedroom where she would choose to sleep from then on.
You can perhaps see where I am going here. If you were to drop a reporter who didn’t know a lot into this situation, he or she might write a story with the headline: “Wife boycotts marriage bed.” The reporter could write it, but it would not be an accurate description of what is in fact taking place–KSH.
chris Sudgen, like most reasserters, is guilty of creating the straw”seeks to improve on the Bible, observes no boundaries, and claims to welcome all – as long as you do not disagree.” this is ridiculous. We do not we have strong claims about “improving” upon the bible. Our understanding is, in our view, a direct consequence of the resurrection. Our simple understanding is that the real location of God’s power is in our current lives – scripture is the light; it is the map. But does not substitute for the real work of the spirit in our lives together, the territory. We seek no more relative improvement than those who have stopped believing that the sun revolves around the earth, stopped stoning adulterers or insisted that women keep silent in churches or that interest be permitted in the economy. If Chris thinks that these things are “improvements” then God bless him. He could have offered a more specific interpretation: reappraisers are agnostic about prioritizing biblical culture over our own.
Boundaries? Hm – there is geographic boundaries; but there are also other boundaries he seems to take for granted. But this is a cheap shot and fundamentally untrue. To be fair, perhaps the modern church might list them more clearly, but in the end, they are boundaries that make the fundamentalist, prosperity oriented wing of Christianity uncomfortable.
Third, as far as disagreeing – few bishops force churches to believe identical things. They ask churches to be a part of the community formally. Most bishops do not have the power to tell people or rectors how to think. What is at issue is purity – that pure thoughts are necessary for communion. Granted – perhaps some bishops have been heavy handed: but individual conservative churches mut bear part of the blame for threatening to take themselves out of TEC.
Kendall – as I’ve said, the metaphor doesn’t work. It has little basis in what is really happening. I can understand how it feels good, but wouldn’t it be better to search for a shared metaphor that each one of us can agree on?
How about a story which looks a bit more accurate? Two brothers live on very different continents. Both have been married. One throws lots of parties, is called a drunk and a glutton, and has a partner. The other has a very tight leash on his family. The one sinning brother invites the other brother over to dinner, has even paid for his tickets to go places, but the second brother is too frightened of what will happen to his family at the other house. They also think that the other brother is deeply sick and ill, although the first doesn’t feel bad at all.
Of course, there are lots of other brothers. Some side with one, the others side with another. The mother tries to bring the brothers together, but decides that the one brother should not come. But the angry brother doesn’t even want to see those who agreed with the other brother, who is still regarded with affection by at least half of the brothers. The angry brother wants to destroy the other brother, who is probably a bit careless sometimes.
The brother who is a bit more liberal and free doesn’t mind seeing the other brother. He doesn’t mind people thinking differently than he does. The other brother wants to cut off from the family, because he’s convinced it’s going to go to hell. In fact, he now has doubts the brother is truly related, for he seems to have given up on all the family traditions. so he throws his own party for the brothers who think like he does.
Still, most of the family does go to the family reunion thrown by the mother.
John,
For me, your analogy fails the test. It can’t be the Prodigal Son revisited, because Bishop Robinson doesn’t think of himself as “prodigal” so much as prophetic.
[i]But the angry brother doesn’t even want to see those who agreed with the other brother, who is still regarded with affection by at least half of the brothers.[/i]
The question is not whether Bishop Robinson’s consecrators hold him in affection, but whether they see his institution as appropriate in view of all the concerns expressed at the time and subsequently.
In his person, Bishop Robinson has come represent a profound revision of what is appropriate behavior for one charged with leadership of a Christian flock (and I don’t mean by that that he’s a sinner, since all bishops – just like the rest of us – are). Either it’s a profound change for the better, in which case the Archbishop of Canterbury has no business defending Resolution 1:10; or it’s a profound change for the worse, in which case those African bishops not in attendance are seeking to convey the reality of broken fellowship achieved by those bishops present whose affirmation of the the present state of affairs embodies the problem quite as much as the “absent” Bishop of New Hampshire.
If Presiding Bishop Griswold had had the courage of his convictions, he would have refused to sign the Primates’ Letter of 2003; if the present Presiding Bishop had been similarly minded she would have refused to sign the Dar-es-Salaam Letter. Can you explain why they did not?
Catholic and Reformed
John I would be very pleased with a shared metaphor, but I have not seen one suggested by you that even comes close to beginning to get at what is taking place here. Broken trust, betrayal, public immorality, covenant, decision making, truth, etc. are all missing from your attempts.
The point is to being by trying to state the other person’s views in a way they would agree with.
[blockquote] The innovators hold that these bishops may disapprove of same-sex behavior, but put this down to their conformity to the taboos of their culture. [/blockquote]
Of course it might just as easily be said that many western Anglicans approve of same-sex behaviour because of their conformity to an overly permissive society. How easily we confuse the voice from the Spirit of the Age with that belonging to the Holy Spirit of God.
Ross Gill. I agree. That’s why we need the Anglican Communion. And why we need a covenant. We need the world-wide church to help prevent any particular province from going off on “innovation” that reflects cultural blindness. Councils may err and councils have erred but they are less likely to err when they reflect the vast diversity of human culture (e.g. Lambeth ’98) rather than mainly (say) Americans (e.g. GC ’06).
We need each other, but we need each other to STOP us from falling into syncretism. It’s no good to do as TEC does, and say, we need you, and we will let you say things, but we won’t follow what the world-wide church says.
5, but the covenat will not do this. The covenant is not our savior. The hard truth is that we need to be willing to break the communion in order to save it. Nothing short of this, and maybe not even this, will stop TEC.
Is not Br. Michael’s third sentence the summation of the problem? I am not anti-covenant. Here this: The enemy must be engaged and it must be destroyed. There will be no new “nation” without bloodshed and hard hand strokes. Now, we can turn our backs on the liberals and pursue our own course, foregoing the fight. This may be best. But I doubt that the left wing, having the greater army in society at large, is going to say, “Well, let them go. And it would be cowardly to attack them when their backs are turned.” Larry
#4 – yes, people could say that, but this would misrepresent the innovative position. It is true that the church is living two lives within a permissive culture: few people I know who are under the age of 60 take traditional church teaching seriously. I think there are many cultural pressures that make teaching in the west difficult. Of course, theoretically, if the church decided to become truly counter cultural and was happy with forming about 2% of the culture, holding on to its traditional teaching would be much easier.
The reappraising view is, most accurately, not that promiscuity is good. It is that homosexuality is not in itself a disorder, and that the scripture that insists that it is should be considered in the same set as insisting that the earth was created in six days. To elaborate, it is the context of any act that helps us determine if it is God’s will for us. We are agnostic about the fantasies that people have about homosexual acts themselves.
I admit there is some inculturation here. But the church has often taught that some inculturation is blessed by God.
[i] few people I know who are under the age of 60 take traditional church teaching seriously. [/i]
John, you really have to get out more. I know of plenty of under 60-ers, in fact, a number of uner 30-ers, and under 20-ers who take traditional Christian teaching VERY seriously indeed. In fact our 5:00PM Sunday service (“Veritas”) is packed with these fine Christian young men and women. You are welcome to attend and broaden your knowledge base of acquaintences.
Peace
Jim Elliott <><
Jim – I’m proud of your church.
My problem, Jim, is that I do get out – of churches – a lot. In fact, I meet people who don’t have any religion at all. And I invite them to my own church. I meet them at bars. In salsa nightclubs. In art galleries. Usually they are intrigued by my faith. A couple have asked, “why do Christians hate gay people?” or they say, “I’m sure I’ll believe when I get older” or once, “do you think Jews and Hindus are going to hell?” Being in the New York area, which is a lot like Europe, I’m not in a place where there are many Christians at all.
I don’t want the faith to be mapped by homophobic old people, but – in general – that’s the way many young people feel. Not all, of course.
http://www.unchristian.com/
I talk to plenty of people who think that the church is genetically anti-homosexual, self-righteous, naive, judgmental, hypocritical and pushy. Fortunately, My own church has gone from the average age of 70 to 40, with several people in their 20’s and 30’s. But they are fleeing the self-righteous Christianity that they found abusive, and are discovering the God of Love known through Jesus Christ.
But Jim – I’m glad your church is doing well. That’s wonderful. I think I’m reaching people who have had no religion at all. I’d be interested to know if your young people were previously exposed.
Cheers!