If you believe the headlines, schism is imminent in one of the oldest Christian denominations because the American branch of the church, caught up in the latest civil rights movement, approved an openly gay man as bishop.
Not so, said that bishop, who was in Honolulu this week, giving a small audience at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church some political, philosophical and pastoral insights into the issue that put the U.S. Episcopal Church at odds with some other branches of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
“I don’t think there are many bishops in the Episcopal Church who believe that 20 years from now we won’t have an authorized same-sex blessing, and that the issue of an openly gay bishop won’t be an issue any more,” said Bishop V. Gene Robinson, head of the New Hampshire Episcopal Diocese. About 60 members of the Hawaii Episcopal Diocese and a few from other denominations attended his unpublicized appearance at a meeting of Integrity, an organization for homosexual Episcopalians.
It’s a shame that reasserters have allowed the reappraising side to make the issue Living God (or Holy Spirit) vs. Scripture. There is no need to choose. I believe the Holy Spirit is moving in the global Church today, I believe in the authority of the Scriptures, and I do not believe the actiosn of the Episcopal Church come from God. There is no need to make this Living God vs. Bible. The more we let that happen, the more we lose.
thanks for allowing comments Kendall!
“I don’t think there are many bishops in the Episcopal Church who believe that 20 years from now we won’t have an authorized same-sex blessing, and that the issue of an openly gay bishop won’t be an issue any more,” said Bishop V. Gene Robinson, head of the New Hampshire Episcopal Diocese.
He might be right, but left unsaid is what ECUSA will in twenty years resemble. A shadow of its former self is where it’s headed…..
The article: “Robinson compared the current issue with the church’s evolving attitude toward divorced people. “In our lifetime, if you were to divorce, you were not welcome at communion and you were not allowed to be remarried in the Episcopal Church.”
I know that his second assertion, the forbidding of church marriages for couples of which one was divorced, is true. But I do not believe that the rubrics or canons said that a divorced person was therefore excommunicated simply because a divorce had been obtained. I do not think that even the Roman Catholic Church withholds communion to divorced (but not remarried) persons — and practically speaking, they do not withhold communion from someone who is divorced and remarried, unless that person is making a lot of noise about it.
Not all spirits are holy.
My projection is that in 20 years, The General Convention Church will be lucky to have 400,000 in average Sunday attendance — and will probably inflate that to claim about 1 million “members.”
My question is whether or not there will be a viable “Anglican Province” in North America and whether or not there will even be an “Anglican Communion.” If there is some contining “communion” of “reasserters” in North America, the United Kingdom & Commonwealth and a few others, it will be a shadow of its former self.
Gene didn’t sabbatical for week before making the news: as THE GAY BISHOP, I note. Thus making prophets of all those who predicted the same.