Gays, Church, and the Press
This article in Christianity Today
(again, not my favorite mag, but it makes the attempt to provide some
range of voices and some occasional scholarship) about the challenges
in the Episcopal Church right now. It’s an unusually thoughtful
look at what everyone’s obligations — liberals, conservatives,
evangelicals, non-Episcopalians, Protestants, Catholics — in the
situation are. Here’s the last three paragraphs:
From the long perspective, the Episcopal Church’s
current battle bears real resemblance to a certain stand of General
Custer. Evangelicals may tend to take a kind of perverse pleasure from
this: “Those liberal so-and-so’s are getting what’s coming to them.”
But given Anglicanism’s signature values of moderation in religious
conflict, willingness to hear and work within the surrounding culture,
and nourishment from the historical tradition of the church, more
thoughtful Christian observers may wish to delay the party.
We may want to stop and ask, “What will America lose
if this venerable church experiences the kind of violent gutting that
now seems all but inevitable?”
Alien though their tradition may seem to many
conservative Christians, our Episcopal brothers and sisters are part of
the body of Christ. And as a church, they may soon be lying by the side
of the road, mortally wounded—like the man waylaid in Christ’s parable
of the Good Samaritan. God help us not to pass them by with a sneer,
but to recognize and act on our common bond in Christ.”
Another article from the Daily Telegraph
in Britain (again, not my favorite paper, as I’m not a subsriber to the
Tory party’s views and ideas) that points out, “The lesson of the
Anglican schism is that belief in one God is not
nearly enough to make Christians love one another: what works is a
belief in the same devil.”
Finally, for web based stuff this morning, we have Andrew Sullivan from this Sunday’s NYT. He talks about why he finally feels some measure of despair about the situation of gays in the Roman Catholic Church.
Ecto blogging software
21 October 2003 at 2:58 pm.
Nate — the writer of the CT editorial believes what the people that met in Dallas do not: that the ECUSA is part of the Body of Christ.
I am hopeful for our Church. In the gospels, Jesus often upset the religous folk of the day by his associations with types of people or his acts of healing. The religious people often told him that he had missed the mark with his scandalous disregard of what they thought was important. He continually surprised them, as well as the people who travled with him.
I don’t think it is selfish of Gene Robinson to consider his call to being a bishop. The cards are stacked against him in how he is being described (divorced man living with his male lover). He was of a generation that didn’t have many choices about dealing with his sexual orientation. It sounds like he dealt with his wife and family honorably. And he has been in a serious relationship for several years, as well as a good priest and leader in his diocese. If he turns down this call, another openly gay person will get it somewhere else. Meanwhile, we will say to the world that God’s love for gay people is different and conditional — not because of what they do, but because of who they are.
Our is the only Anglican church that allows its people to participate in the selection of bishops and to set out its governance. Which is why the Episcopal Church has pushed the envelope on women as priests and bishops, and gay people as clergy and leaders. Our parishes are involved in these processes.
If our Communion goes to a stricter governance, we will lose out on the qualities that have always been characteristic of being Anglican. Our loosey-gooseyness is what is distinctive.