This elf just finished reading the most-recent post by Chuck Blanchard, aka “A Guy in the Pew.” Chuck and some others on the “reappraising side” show some signs of reassessing strategy and musing whether TEC needs to “do what it takes” to ensure they remain a full member of the Anglican Communion.
Some of the “Next Steps” which Blanchard proposes for TEC are the following:
…what should the Episcopal Church do? I offer the following thoughts:
First, another response by the House of Bishops that speaks of polity and the independence of the Episcopal Church will not be helpful. We have made our points about polity and independence. It is time to offer a way ahead to reconciliation within the Communion.
Second, we need to end our obsession with Archbishop Akinola and the most vocal Global South Primates. They are not the audience for our response. I doubt even defrocking of all gay priests would be enough for them. Instead, our audience includes Anglicans across the world who want to preserve the Communion, members of our own Church for whom the issues of the day are of no import, and yes, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the majority of the Primates. This audience will not demand capitulation, but it will expect a respectful (and yes, compromising) response.
Third, we need to stop talking about the issues of same sex unions as if they were political issues that can be decided by majority votes. These are theological issues, that deserve theological attention.
You can read Chuck’s post (with quite a few links to other reappraising / progressive bloggers) here. (link is fixed)
(hat tip Nick Knisely)
It’s quite interesting to this elf to note how this soul-searching follows the CoE debate and vote on the Anglican Covenant. Perhaps there is actually much more listening going on than say, in 2003? I have no idea if Kendall would have posted this blog entry, or what he thinks of it. But I do think that it’s helpful to read some of the discussion among bloggers who have generally up until now been supportive of TEC’s decisions and actions at and in the wake of the 2003 General Convention.
I say, good luck to such reappraisers in getting the “prophetic” wave of TEC bishops and clergy to consider for a moment not running full speed ahead off the cliff. Boris Yeltsin got the tank driver to stop by standing in front of it, but anyone who questions TEC’s headlong rush off the Gadarene cliff will likely end up with tank tracks on his back.
Well, to stop insisting that polity is the most important thing and trying to work things out with the rest of the communion would probably be a good thing. Of course, that is what the Dar es Salaam meeting was for, and TEC has rejected it. TEC instead has embarked on massive persecution of the orthodox. And it will be difficult for TEC to be heard on anything while it is suing the clergy and lay representatives of the rest of the communion and otherwise trying to inhibit, depose, remove to mission status, and otherwise suppress the orthodox in the US. If it had been suggested that TEC stop that so that it could talk to the rest of the communion, then they might be getting somewhere. But to talk of sitting down and “reconciling” with people while you are pursuing scorched earth litigation against them is at best unrealistic and at worst not acting in good faith.
His chatter is wasted energy. TEC is poison, a systemic poison, and we need to flush it out of our system, a good strong round of dialysis. Compromise? What for? TEC gains because it buys more time for its agenda, and buying time is what it has done well so far. What do we gain? This is like having a druggie in the house. We can rearrange and compromise what we do to make him more tolerable, but he STILL a druggie and poison for the whole family. And please don’t tell me about love bearing everything and the like. This isn’t about love – for all this poor word is spread about like cow manure on the spring hayfield – it’s about survival. We either have the courage to protect ourselves by cutting out the cancer or we can, in the name of love ( and cowardice), die painfully.
Larry
A good fourth step would be for reappraisers to start offering actual arguments based in logic and sound reasoning instead of emotional rants and name-calling.
Note to the elves. You write as a hyperlink:
“You can read Chuck’s post (with quite a few links to other reappraising / progressive bloggers) here.”
But when I click on HERE it just takes back to this T19 page again — not to Chuck’s original unexerpted post.
Too little, too late. As others have noted, there is just too much momentum built up to divert this stampede. If the moderates on the reappraising side had heeded the warnings pre- and post-GC2003 and taken a deep breath, there might have been time to sort this out. Whether one is reappraising their reappraising, or deciding to take a step or two back tactically, this would have been the best strategy.
This might be a politically savvy step for TEC–but, at least in this excerpt, I don’t see any calls for repentance, not even for TEC’s arrogance. It is really just another round of plastic surgery and cosmetic makeover for a grotesquely diseased body. Set aside the same-sex issues for a moment–TEC has plenty of other (and even graver) sins to repent of. We know that there are primates who will never be deceived–let us pray earnestly for the others.
Link is fixed. Sorry for the problem. Thanks for the heads up.
Thanks much to the elves for finding this. The guy seems honest and open to seeeing things from the vantage point of the opposition, which is great.
My biggest overarching thought in response is that he doesn’t fully grasp the extent to which the possibility of reconcilliation has been damaged, probably irreparably, by the behavior of the ascendent party in ECUSA/TEC since the publication of the Windsor Report. My feeling is that Yes, Chuck! — there was so much room for possible reconciliation back in 2004 and 2005. To get a sense of this, it’s worth taking a look at a key address by Paul Zahl in early 2004…
http://www.adventbirmingham.org/articles.asp?ID=1625
…. where he outlined the fundamental nature of our concerns (how they went far deeper than homosexuality) and a healing strategy for how the ascendent party could still keep conservatives inside the American church.
It’s especially worth reading now to see how the behavior of the winners over the last 36 months has been the exact opposite of what PZ suggested they do — with of course the result of traditionalists becoming increasingly hurt, angry and rigidly committed to their own positions and to leaving the American church. The time to do what Chuck suggests was back in 2004 or 2005 — or perhaps even as late as 2006.
It’s a bit like this. A man cheats on his wife. Reconciliation was quite possible after that. Even compromise of a sort — she might have been willing to go to counseling and try to see what part she had played in his betrayal. She might have been willing (then) to do a huge amount to save the marriage, including finding things she could do differently in the future (who knows — maybe this was partly her fault?). Instead though, he hires lawyers, moves his mistress in, makes love while she’s still in the house, and so on. After two years of this, when his wife has gotten her own apartment and is getting ready to sign the papers, and it looks like the divorce may end up going very badly for him, a friend of his gives him some advice much like Chuck does. Well, the friend is right: that was really good advice. It would have been a very good thing to do right after the betrayal. At this point, however, it may not do a whole lot of good.
John, #9. No credit to us for discovering Chuck’s blog. Kendall had posted something from his blog in the past.
http://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/?p=19250
Very interesting about your look back to Paul Zahl and what we reasserters were asking for 2-3 years ago. Even 1 year ago, some such as our notable blog host, Kendall, were asking for what were pretty minimal things. (And Kendall took a lot of heat from those who thought he was asking for WAY too little.)
I’m referring specifically to Kendall’s BeliefNet piece “What Do Conservative Episcopalians Want” published during General Convention last June which I had the occasion to reread this week.
http://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/?p=13704
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/193/story_19365.html
Basically Kendall asserted we’re asking for two things: Love and Space. Here’s what he wrote:
[blockquote]We therefore need to say more than that we are sorry others are hurt by what we have done, we need to say that a life of interdependence in the communion matters to us and we are sorry that we went against the mind of the whole church in an area which we believe the whole church should decide on. It is what we have done and the consequences of what we have done which are it issue.
Next, we need to undertake the two specific requests to us with utmost seriousness. First, a moratorium needs to be placed on the election or consecration to the episcopate of any person living in a non-celibate same-gender relationship until and unless a new consensus emerges. Second, we need to place a moratorium on the blessing of non-celibate same-sex relationships in the same time frame.
All three of these requests—the statement of regret and the two moratoria–can be found in the language of the Windsor report.
Conservatives are for love—which takes specific pleas seriously. Conservatives are for space—which is the only way any possible future could emerge. Conservatives are for reconciliation—which only comes from an acknowledgement of the depth of the problem. Conservatives are for communion—and we are grieved beyond measure that the third largest Christian family in the world could break up over this if we do not act clearly and honestly.[/blockquote]
Listening to the CoE debate on the Anglican Covenant, I was struck by the seriousness which most speakers, even those who were quite troubled by the idea of a Covenant, treated the demands of interdependence. Such a contrast to the ECUSA shrill cries of “our polity is unique! No one understands us! We’re right and everybody else is wrong!” I think it is that huge difference in tone and content of what is being said that is finally getting through to some reappraisers.
–elfgirl
I would also point out that there were revisionists in then-ECUSA at the time of GC 03 who thought that a wise course would be to seek a PCUSA/PCA-type agreement that evangelical and orthodox parishes and diocese that were strongly (for example, 75% plus vote) in disagreement with ECUSA could split into a parallel structure, still technically part of ECUSA, but with the ability to choose their own bishops, not have to worry about not being able to call a Trinity or Nahotah grad, and so forth. It never went anywhere. Why? Some say it was because the extremes of both sides could never live together, but I think it would have been a good compromise to the vast majority of the laypeople on both sides. I suspect that what killed it was a combination of things among ECUSA leadership – misjudgment by the “this will all blow over” crowd, and fear on the part of those in the national leadership who could see it would not blow over that any such plan might cause a rush to the door. Anyway, the folks whose salaries are paid by TEC squelched any such talk.
If Mr. Chapman wants TEC to revisit that plan, well and good. It is never too late ’til it is too late, and the DES arrangement is essentially a version of it. If not, it is undestandable that some may doubt that a person is sincere about reconciliation while adding more defendants to his string of lawsuits every day.
#6… I just noticed APB’s comment. Obviously, I agree!
#7, I totally agree, Newark! That’s my second concern with Chuck’s post. The real issues here have nothing to do with homosexuality. The real issues are much deeper. In the Paul Zahl piece I reference in my post (#9), he correctly identifies that there are two twin issues that lie at the foundation of Christianity, and which TEC’s decisions reveal serious confusion about. The first is anthropology (the human condition) and the other is soteriology (the saving power of Christ). The arguments of the gay lobby (we didn’t choose to be this way) reveal an understanding of sin and the human condition that is at total odds with the Dominical and Pauline witness: we are all born with sin we can’t control which is why we so much need a savior that can provide total absolution for paralyzed sinners, not just encouragement or guidance. TEC’s break with traditional Anglican teaching is here — the place to see the problem is not with SSBs themselves but in the justifications used for them.
An alternate way to see the deep foundational crack in TEC, rather than the comparitively minor issue of gay sexuality, is to look at the degree to which basic apostolic teaching is constantly being devalued across the country in TEC — aside from issues of ethics, but simply in terms of theological claims that virtually all Christians of all times have believed. (People as diverse as Pope Benedict to Luther to Thomas Aquinas to Calvin to St. Jerome to Jonathan Edwards to St. Francis to St. Augustine.) The recent case of the person who claims to be both a Muslim and an Anglican priest — and who’s bishop thinks that is exciting and wonderful — is a good example. But even better is the degree to which books by Borg and Spong are sold in church bookstores and used in Sunday school classes. Honestly: what percentage of TEC church leaders (I include priests, bishops, deacons, deputies, vestrymen, seminary professors, seminarians, lay teachers of adult sunday school) believe in ALL the basic doctrines of the faith as they were understood by the great doctors I mentioned above? How many believe in a real virgin birth, a real empty tomb and bodily resurrection of Jesus, a real Satan, original sin, salvation through Christ alone and by his cross alone, substitutionary atonement (not necessarily penal, and not to the exclusion of supplemental theories like Christus Victor), a true Trinity, and so on? How many sermons preach the cross vs. how many frame the value of Jesus as a wise teacher?
This is the problem we are facing. I truly believe that real love and dialogue and “staying-together-ness” could be accomplished so easily, even between a person who favors SSBs and a total traditionalist, if the traditionalist could really trust that his (from his perspective) mistaken brother was on the same page as him regarding everything else. That we are NOT on the same page here is something that reappraisers of good will are not facing properly — they are not addressing the reality of the Borgs and Spongs on their side and the vast extent to which their side has been moved by them to jettison one or more theological claims that the great theologians of the past regarded as absolutely essential.
Thanks to ElfGirl for the quotes from Kendall regarding Love and Space. They were GREAT.
One last problem I have with Chuck’s piece (and here let me say that the guy seems like a nice fellow and I do appreciate his attempt and extending an olive branch) is his comments about Peter Akinola.
Basically, Chuck has been programmed here by his side — this is what it sounds like to me. His claim that Akinola has been demanding that all gay priests in TEC be defrocked — these are wild claims with no relation to reality. All Akinola has asked TEC in the last 2-3 years to do is to comply with the three Windsor requests (say they are sorry, no new gay bishops, no gay weddings). Akinola is a bright guy who was well aware back in 2001 and 2002 that there were many openly gay priests in TEC — he thought this was not a good thing but he still had a good relationship with TEC and with our then PB.
Actually, it’s worth looking again at the three Windsor requests again and see how very MODERATE they were. Take request #1, for example. It COULD have asked ECUSA to declare that it repent of its theology in ordaining VGR. But it didn’t. It didn’t ask ECUSA to admit that their theology was wrong, only that they were wrong to do it in defiance of what the rest of the Communion asked them to do. Or take request #2: it didn’t ask ECUSA to defrock VGR, which would certainly have been a legitimate request from a traditionalist perspective. It said (amazingly) that the rest of the communion would recognize VGR as long as we agreed not to do it again — a very moderate request. Likewise in #3 it didn’t say that gay couples couldn’t be welcomed into the parish, or receive communion, or even get private pastoral support for their relationship — only that we not be conducting public ceremonies in which priests blessed the relationship (gay marriage by any other name). Again, a moderate compromise. And Akinola signed on to all of that and didn’t demand more.
To all:
I appreciate the comments. At this point, I think it most appropraite that I listen rather than react point by point. I do appreciate the spirit in which most of the comments were written. Only one brief comment–my comment about Peter Akinola was not intended to be taken literally–my point for reappraisers is that he is not the real audience for our response since the response I lay out would be inadequate to him (and perhaps ultimately most of you). If you want to see my more nuanced views on Akinola look at my post here]
You people astonish me. How can you say that the homosexuality issue is a minor one? This is TEC’s horcrux; this is what the uproar has been about for months and months. You cannot demonstrate your evenhanded tolerance of homosexuality by saying it is a matter of small consequence – which seems to be the purpose of the dismissal of the issue. Robinson brought down the roof. Period. And what is making the pot boil right now is the homosexual agenda and our church. We are under attack, and the homophiles are attacking, and you say that this is not a central issue? Get real, people. And be honest. Lm
As a “reappraiser,” I wade in here with some trepidation, having witnessed the response to some others of my p.o.v. here. Nonetheless, wade in I will, seeing an opening in the reception being given to Chuck Blanchard’s post.
Look, I’m a reappraiser who nevetheless would have been happy with greater provisions for “alternative structures” *within* TEC if it could keep us all together as some sort of worshipping, dialoguing family. But I must be honest, I’m a bit surprised to see people here asserting that all that was demanded a few years ago was “moderate” and that it’s shocking that we reappraisers opposed it.
Let’s be very frank: Many of us reappraisers thought, and continue to think, that the “moderate” public proposals from “reasserters” back then, and now, were — to be blunt — nothing but Trojan horses.
Why do we hold such views? Well, it’s hard not to once one reads the Chapman Memo, or many intra-reasserter dialogues on SiF, T19, and so forth.
Though not a reasserter, and very definitely a reappraiser, I’m among the potential allies you have for setting up stronger alternative structures within TEC and/or the AC.
Btw, I also think CWOB is insane, I think that Mother Redding should have been more formally inhibited and should be defrocked if she can’t renounce Islam (even while I think Zen and Christianity are compatible, and follow such teachers as the Jesuit Robert Kennedy, who’s both an RC priest in good standing and a recognized Zen sensei; Islam directly contradicts Christianity’s essential truth claims in ways that Zen practice or Buddhist *philosophy* do not), and I believe Christ is *the* way, the truth, and the life — albeit sometimes via Rahner’s “unknown Christians.”
Yet many of us “moderate” reappraisers — who might otherwise be completely in your corner for a secure, indefinite “safe space” for traditionalist views within TEC, as indeed a *justice* issue! — have had no comfort that that is in fact what you, or at least your leadership, truly wants.
We have read and heard too much in which we are caricatured and dismissed as “heretics” and “Episcopagans” who follow another religion (not even Christianity at all, according to many of you!), and etc., and you discuss amongst yourselves setting up a structure within TEC if you could, or a fullblown parallel Province, not so much as an end in itself but rather as a mere way station toward the goal of getting TEC and ACoC evicted from the Communion, and replaced by yourselves as the ***sole*** North American member of the Communion and the sole “authentic” expression of Anglicanism on this continent.
Can you really blame us if we distrust your “moderate” proposals, given the tenor and thrust of your “internal” discussions?
If you all accepted me as a Christian sister, maybe in error but not a “heretic,” who in good faith seeks to follow Jesus Christ and with whom you will accept the Eucharist, and allow me my Province without seeking to remove me from the Communion, it would be easier for me to believe you and support your “moderate” proposals for stronger DEPO or a separate church-within-the-church or even a full-blown separate, parallel Province.
I’m genuinely here trying to understand. If you were we, and you read the Chapman Memo and many of the posts here or on SiF, would you really believe that my supporting parallel structures for the “orthodox” would not simply be used as a Trojan horse to later on evict *me*?
I am so tired of gays making everything about themselves. I think they get far more than their share of pastoral care, blog space discussion, and ordinations to priesthood. What needs attention and care is heterosexual procreation and family formation and preservation…care for mothers and children and support for men who commit to fathering families. Look at the way Anne Kennedy was trashed by that woman Episcopal priest Kaeton on her blog.
I feel like singing the song “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you, don’t you, don’t you?”
Elves–You should post the link from #9 John as a regular posting, especially after the post from TLC on the atonement. Note to all–please read the link to Dr. Zahl’s address in February 2004. If the HoB had done what he suggests we might not be in the fix we are in–slashing and burning thanks to the Presiding Chancellor and his bishop.
If you really read closely you can see several very different reasserter viewpoints in this one post. This is why I don’t see a good ending to this. Within one supposed “party” there are views ranging from grace to Anglo-Catholic to Semi-Pelagian evangelical to self righteous pharisees creating a hierarchy of sin.
I agree with John S.; PZ’s piece referenced above is the best short summary of the problem that has been written.
#17 The answer to your question is that the facts show otherwise. I’m not aware of any orthodox bishop deposing or inhibiting a revisionist priest, I’m not aware of any orthodox bishop changing the locks on a revisionist church at night. I’m not aware of any orthodox parish or bishop suing the clergy or lay people of a revisionist parish. I am aware of orthodox bishops like Duncan saying there should be an amicable separation without lawsuits and each side should be able to keep their parishes. For which he was sued by the revisionists in his diocese, by the way.
It is not that hard to make an agreement that offers true protection to both sides. I don’t think the vast majority of orthodox would oppose an arrangement that offered true protection. They’d be willing to allow the test of Gamaliel. It has only been that TEC has not wanted to give up the power that extending true protection would mean.
Thanks much, Chuck, for the clarification on Peter A. In your more nuanced post, you concluded:
I loved that. I agree entirely. Thanks so much. And my apologies if I was out of line.
Let me say something to you that may be of help to you. I’ll say this trying to imagine I am wearing a Reappriaser hat, but also being a Reappriaser who wants to understand the opposition and wanting to love them and think charitably of them. The key to understanding Akinola’s apparently incredibly strident pronouncements on gay folks (from an American perspective) — e.g. his support for the law criminalizing gay Nigerians — is the terrible position he is in regarding Islam. A friend of mine wrote to me 15 months ago the following:
It is hard for us to realize, but Akinola is in some sense a moderating voice there! The Muslims want Nigerian gays and their supporters executed — Sharia law. So Akinola is up against a wall and is still trying to moderate this. The thing we Americans demand — that he abandon all support for the law, that he speak up in favor of gentle and nonpunitive treatment of gays — is just unrealistic given the climate there. I am not saying that he’s right — but I am mentioning that as a context for understanding how tough it must be to be in his shoes.
It may also help you understand why it is that he feels that the actions ECUSA/TEC takes have such an immediate and visceral impact on him and his church. In your more nuanced post, you expressed bafflement at why he insists what we do is pushing our agenda into Nigeria. Understanding the Islamic connection will help you understand this better. When the Anglican church in America (which he had close ties with in 2002) elects a gay bishop and gives a greenlight to gay weddings, it has a direct immediate consequence on how Nigerians, especially Nigerian Muslims, deal with the Anglican church in Nigeria.
Nadine: the truth is, your concerns could be equally stated in reverse. We have a long history of ECUSA taking cosmetic actions simply to buy time to create “facts on the ground,” or assuring reasserters that such and such a position will not be made mandatory, before eventually doing exactly that. There is rhetoric that is just as extreme on the reappraiser sites: “bigot,” “homophobe,” etc. I’m sure you’ve seen it, too.
Considering you’ve had your uninterrupted way for thirty years (at least), we are the ones who are more entitled to ask, “Can you really blame us if we distrust your ‘moderate’ proposals, given the tenor and thrust of your ‘internal’ discussions?”
In spite of that, what some people want to do in terms of kicking ECUSA out of the Anglican Communion is of no more import than Episcopalians who want traditionalist opinions outlawed in ECUSA because they are supposedly bigoted. If such an agreement had been made, it would have been signed on to by these opposing camps, who would then have had to live with it. Similarly, Dar es Salaam proposed basically this “parallel body” arrangement, and it was apparently as far as the Primates were willing to go. Kicking ECUSA out, realistically, would vanish as an option the moment ECUSA complied with the Communique and the Pastoral Vicar setup; the political support for expulsion would be dead.
In other words, deals have been on the table that would have marginalized the farthest reaching wishes of both sides, yet ECUSA wasn’t, and isn’t, interested. Put simply, you’re not the same kind of reappraiser as the type running the institution, or their lawyers.
Chuck and Nadine; thanks; there probably is a way to come together if we weren’t so self absorbed. Your posts offer a glimmer of hope.
Not to be repetative, but I would encourage reading the Paul Zahl’s piece referenced above. Paul has been consistent in decribing the problems in the Church since at least 1989 when I first heard him, and the discussions at that point never had anything to do with sexuality ; but rather the failure to preach the Gospel.
They want to “stay in communion with the AC…”???
They are ALREADY out of it.
bl
One wonders how many more times something like this will be floated as the Sept 30 deadline approaches? Dare one predict how it might go? Forgive my suspicious nature, but maybe this way:
1) Some time around Sept 30, or not too long after, TEC follows the lead of Chuck and Nadine, and announces, “OOOOO Kay, it goes against our deepest convictions but, for the sake of the FAMILY, we will not make any more homosexual bishops or conduct any more homosexual blessings. Oh, and we’re sorry everybody got boned up over what we did”. TEC even accepts a covenant with teeth in it.
2) Reasserters relax; everything is taken care of now. Reasserters ignore the fact that, on an unofficial basis, only committed homosexual candidates can receive assent for election to bishop, and there are an amazing number of “house church” blessings of homosexual relationships by offduty TEC clergy who just happen to be close friends of the couple.
3) Reasserters continue relaxing while TEC evangelizes the rest of the Anglican Communion for its gospel. Achieving a majority of Provinces, TEC re-writes the covenant and re-emphasizes that it has teeth.
Naawhhh! I’m just paranoid. But, be careful guys!!!
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas
I don’t see the point. So far, we reappraisers have managed to survive without any “discipline” by the wider communion. There are one of two possibilities going on here:
1. True belief that the Anglican Communion is better together
or
2. True belief that we will be expelled.
I don’t see number 2 as even a remote possibility. So you would need to believe that the AC as it exists today is worth preserving at the cost of following God’s will. I don’t buy it.
Nadine Kwong: “If you were we.” Oh! How I admire an English speaker who has the courage to use the nominative case for the subject complement in a sentence of this sort. My dear! Highest marks!.
May I take you out for a lemonade someday? Larry
Nadine Kwong I do not understand your comment.
You say that you are a reappraiser. I take you at your word.
So when you say this — “If you all accepted me as a Christian sister, maybe in error but not a “heretic,†who in good faith seeks to follow Jesus Christ and with whom you will accept the Eucharist, and allow me my Province without seeking to remove me from the Communion, it would be easier for me to believe you and support your “moderate†proposals for stronger DEPO or a separate church-within-the-church or even a full-blown separate, parallel Province” — I am confused.
Why on earth would reasserters in the Episcopal church want or need to have any kind of separate structure within ECUSA, if we all “accepted me as a Christian sister, maybe in error but not a “heretic,†who in good faith seeks to follow Jesus Christ and with whom you will accept the Eucharist, and allow me my Province without seeking to remove me from the Communion” . . .
I mean, if reasserters didn’t have a problem with sharing communion with folks that they believe are deliberately violating scripture, seeking the church’s blessing on immoral behavior, denigrating the sacrament of marriage, lowering the authority of scripture, and on and on, then . . . why would we need any kind of separate structure at all?
It’s as if, four years later, you still don’t understand.
That’s fine, I guess. I don’t need to be understood.
But it’s just very strange.
I mean, I understand that for reappraisers the whole homosexual issue is about their vision of justice and hospitality and authority and overturn of oppressive institutions . . . and thus is about The Gospel. And of course, they cannot violate The Gospel. The Gospel must be implemented.
But that necessarily means that my — and other reasserters — vision of The Gospel is in fact diametrically opposed.
So I really don’t understand it.
If our difference were minor then of course the reappraisers would have said “oh — our bad — we don’t need gay blessings, same sex unions, membership in the RCRC, consecration of non-celibate homosexuals — and of course we’ll pass your silly Jesus is the only way resolution and delete that trifling resolution about the anti-semitic passages in Holy Scripture, if that will make you happy.”
But . . . the reappraisers did not say that, because it would violate The Gospel. It is, in fact, Core Doctrine for them, otherwise they’d be all laid back and casual.
They are not.
We are not.
The two parties have separate and distinct and opposite gospels.
So . . . how on earth, given these circumstances, which have been plowed over endlessly over the past four years on this very blog, can you then turn around and say “If you all accepted me as a Christian sister, maybe in error but not a “heretic,†who in good faith seeks to follow Jesus Christ and with whom you will accept the Eucharist, and allow me my Province without seeking to remove me from the Communion . . . ”
My mind just boggles.
[blockquote] Larry Morse #16, “You people astonish me. How can you say that the homosexuality issue is a minor one? This is TEC’s horcrux; this is what the uproar has been about for months and months. You cannot demonstrate your evenhanded tolerance of homosexuality by saying it is a matter of small consequence – which seems to be the purpose of the dismissal of the issue. Robinson brought down the roof. Period. And what is making the pot boil right now is the homosexual agenda and our church. We are under attack, and the homophiles are attacking, and you say that this is not a central issue?”[/blockquote]
Good grief.
Well, is not homosexuality the point of that “dump-the-Bible” spear TEC is pushing through the body of orthodox believers? No, homosexuality isn’t the whole issue; but it IS the presenting issue. It’s the first sin which has been presented to us as being blest of God. That isn’t an accident, surely?
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas