Meanwhile, from Lambeth...

It's worth noting -- since I don't think Rod will -- that in a press conference around the same time as this statement from Archbishop Deng, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams reiterated the Anglican Communion's adherence to Biblical teaching not only on homosexuality, but also on heterosexual intercourse outside of marriage.

So much for Williams's "apostasy," alleged not long ago on this blog.

Daniel,

It's also nice to know that things are so calm and so orderly for some Episcopalians (wealthy Americans all) that they can go to Lambeth to fight the biggest menace to the Anglican Communion -- not famine, not war, not AIDS, but those won't-step-and-won't-fetchits in Africa who won't say "yassah" to "Bishop" Gene.

Daniel: are they dancing to the tune of American conservatives? Is this not an issue stemming from the Bible? I'm a conservative myself, so let that inform my comments - but its not like these conclusions are new to the church. Indeed, the liberal (theologically liberal, just so we're clear) interpretation is the new one. Just because they disagree with you doesn't mean they are simply puppets of American conservatives.

Indeed, while I agree that there are many problems in Africa, I see no reason why they cannot critique the Episcopalians from America for doing something contrary to Scripture. In fact, it could be a useful dialog - both sides bringing observations to the table about something the other is failing at. I'm thinking that's not how this will go, but it is something that we could pray for.

Maybe if they would have asked us nicely (and been a little nicer to our duly-elected bishop), we would have paid for their air-conditioning? (Didn't think so ...)

The fellow makes fuzzy allusions involving the words 'God says' and to 'norms of the Anglican world'. There's a problem of authority here, and the case he's trying to make for his side is...unimpressive.

Well, that settle's it. If Jillian -- that most well-informed and open-minded of all of us on all things Christian -- if *Jillian* is "unimpressed" by Archbishop Deng, then the ABC should hear of it at once -- and not only the ABC, but Richard Hooker, John Wesley, and T. S. Eliot too.

Oh, Augustus, you're such a sweetheart! Well, if must be, do go ahead and tell them I side with Desmond Tutu and the inward greatness of human beings over Peter Akinola and small mindedness on this matter.

But what I really don't get is the insistence of folks like Daniel that we can't object to innovations in teachings regarding sexual morality because it detracts from these other important issue.

That's the luxury of privileged, white American conservatives who don't have people dying of hunger and AIDS practically on the steps of the Anglican cathedrals in Africa. American conservatives can fight the sexuality battle because the stakes are so low.

For African Anglicans--where the stakes are higher and the realities of war, famine, and AIDS are an everyday battle for survival--fighting the sexuality battles for white people in Northern Virginia and Orange County and Ft. Worth has much more dramatic consequences. Every moment fighting the homosexuality battles of Americans conservatives is a moment they aren't caring for their desparate flock. It's a scandal.

Well, Daniel, that doesn't really answer my question. Are you saying that the Africans shouldn't care what's happening elsewhere in their communion, that they should just take TEC's money and sit quiet tending their own flock while TEC's doctrinal and moral innovations spread throughout the communion? Do you really think that the Africans, if those nasty conservatives would just leave them alone, wouldn't give a fig about such innovations, that they would view these battles as having no effect on them? Do you think that their allegiances are on sale to the highest bidder? And, if so, do you have evidence to support the proposition that the money supposedly on offer from conservatives is larger than the money from 815 surrendered by some African churches that have severed their ties with TEC?

Even more to the point, what evidence do you have that "fighting the sexuality battles for white people" in the US is such a distraction to the churches in Africa? They issue the occasional statement; their bishops attend the occasional conference. If you're correct that the Americans are paying for all this, it's hard to see how these activities would have anything than a marginal effect on the ability of these churches to serve their own flocks. Unless what you're really upset about is the fact that some of the African churches no longer want 815's cash, but that sounds rather . . . colonialist, doesn't it?

But why doesn't your condemnation get turned around on the liberals in the church? Isn't is also the luxury of privileged white American liberals to dally in moral and theological innovations rather than focusing on solving the problems of hunger, AIDS, and violence? Isn't it the luxury of privileged white American liberals to innovate themselves right out of the Christian faith, as traditionally understood within the Communion and the broader church, while telling their African coreligionists that said innovations are none of their business and that they should shut up and figure out how best to spend 815's money? Isn't it the luxury of privileged white American liberals to ignore how their decisions on matters of faith and morals affect their coreligionists in parts of the world where folks still die for their faith? Isn't it the luxury of privileged white Episcopalian liberals to lecture President Bush on his disregard for the rest of the world while acting with impunity and alienating a significant portion of their own communion? Isn't it the luxury of white privileged liberals to consistently harp about white privileged conservatives, as if being white and privileged actually distinguished those conservatives from the liberals within their church?

It's quite funny, Daniel. I attend a breakaway congregation in one of the locales you mention above, and we almost never talk about sex; when we do, it's in the context of a call to chastity and traditional Christian morality. There is, however, a great deal of mission activity, of service to the poor, of the welcoming of immigrants and refugees, and of ministering to the broken. Now, you may not like it that we also unabashedly invite others to travel with us as followers of Christ because you think it exclusivist or that it detracts from the really important work, but we really aren't the ogres you think we are.

Is it not ironic that these most abject of colonials have attained the spiritual wisdom to teach their subjugators the true meaning of Christianity?

Is it not Divine Justice that this "church" of the fraudulent fidei defensor Mrs. Windsor, born of adulterous lust and dynastic edacity, bred of bastardy, formed in perfidy, matured in mutiny to the commandments of the Pelican, at long last succumbs to that most vile of vices, that cries out to Heaven for vengeance in the inalterable letters of the Covenants New and Old? God is not mocked.

May the Venerable Cardinal Newman beseech our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that these orphans of the True Church find their way to the Urbs aeterna, Roma.

Jillian,

I hate to burst your bubble, but Desmond Tutu has much more in common with Peter Akinola than he does with you.

Please take your broom and fly home. No one but me wants to play. And now I'm done.

Richard, also, isn't it interesting that the African bishops, in Daniel's view, aren't concerned about this issue of their own accord but are being bought off. You know those Africans, they don't have any true beliefs except for whoever is the highest bidder.

BTW, why is Daniel wasting his time here instead of working to stop war, AIDS, and famine? It's rather scandalous.

Do you really think that the Africans, if those nasty conservatives would just leave them alone, wouldn't give a fig about such innovations, that they would view these battles as having no effect on them?

I'd argue it would be a much lower priority were it not for the influence of the breakway U.S. congregations and their wealthy ideological backers. The Global South bishops obviously have an interest in the direction of the Communion, but the fight over homosexuality is one that was being fought by breakaway churches in comfortable U.S. suburbs long before the Global South got interested in the issue.

The fight over women priests and homosexuality has always been a First World battle of privileged conservatives; the Global South always had other priorities until the breakaways realized they were losing in the Communion and they went looking for reinforcements.

For ease of reading, I linked to the printable one-page version of the Spectator story above. I see that if you click it, the first thing that comes up is a print prompt. Just hit "cancel" and the article will appear.

Daniel likes to feign caring for the poor in Africa, he doesn't care to discuss the fact that his beloved Katherine Jefferts-Schori holds aid money over their heads as a bribe to force them to accept and allow homosexuality to be preached at the pulpit, by priests and bishops she hand picks.

AIDS funding, that is geared towards homosexual indoctrination to and sexualization of their young. To bribes to corrupt government officials to allow the people to be used as guinea pigs in AIDS vaccine testing.

Daniel likes to ignore that it is Muslims in Africa who are killing African homosexuals, and how TECUSA is held up as an example of Christians being infidels and justifiable targets by Islamacists.

No offense, Daniel, but you'r something of an ignoramus. Fighting in defense of what one believes to be orthodoxy/orthopraxy is hardly a luxury of privileged, white American conservatives. Many of the most bitter battles over doctrine and practice--this little squabble's got nothing on some of the patristic and Reformation conflicts--have taken place in times and places that were anything but free, peaceful, and prosperous. Christians have debated doctrine and practice in times of great poverty, in times when Christianity was illegal, in the face of Muslim invasions--you name the problem, and Christians have been arguing through them. Heck, there were plenty of ecclesiastical conflicts over the proper character of the Orthodox Church at the height of the Soviet regime.

I get tired of all this liberal garbage about certain things being the "luxury" of rich, white Americans. Orthodoxy isn't a luxury, and most Christians in history haven't treated it as such, even when times were bad.

Having said that, the African churches do seem to turn a blind eye to sex-related issues that would be unacceptable in the West, such as polygyny, clitoridectomy, and male adultery. I can't help feeling that the Africans, to some extent, are offering to take the specks out of the eyes of the Americans, and there is perhaps an element of pride there, in them feeling themselves to be poor but more moral. There is also the liberal unwillingness to criticise anyone black, no matter how privileged.

However, I'm talking off the top of my head here, and would be happy to stand corrected.

Thanks for your comments. Please sign with your name, though. Heck, it's a nuisance names not appearing automatically!

The fact that you see nothing but abortion, gays, and contraception in what I write says more about you than it does about me, Daniel.

You are sounding like Pee Wee Herman now when he says, "I know you are, but what am I?"

War raged, famine spread, temperatures and sea levels rose today as combox pundit Daniel continued to divert his humanitarian concern from those and other threats to the human race toward the even greater threat posed by African bishops in the Anglican Church. Details to come.

Ok, well then. I've been reading this very lively discussion, and I do think the idea that "we should get back to humanitarian concerns" that Daniel expresses so well above is a deflection.

I attend a very liberal Episcopal congregation. We have many gay and lesbian couples, we had a gay woman associate rector, our priest does commitment ceremonies, etc., etc.

Would it surprise people here that I thought the ordination of Gene Robinson was a mistake? I sympathize greatly with Rowan Williams's attempt to mediate between conservatives and liberals in the Anglican Communion, but I think the ECUSA was wrong, not only to get so far ahead of the worldwide Anglican Communion, but to attempt to 'nationalize' what was working on a local level.

Part of the beauty of the Anglican Communion has been its ability to tolerate a high degree of political and theological differences on a parish by parish basis. This wasn't good enough for many of the liberals in the Episcopal church. Instead, they needed, IMO, to force their own vision of what was good on the ECUSA as a whole.

Whether you agree with their vision of what the church should be or not, it is still possible to believe they have gone about attempting to realize that vision in the wrong way, indeed, in an undemocratic (in spirit if not defacto) way.

quote: "But why doesn't your condemnation get turned around on the liberals in the church? Isn't is also the luxury of privileged white American liberals to dally in moral and theological innovations rather than focusing on solving the problems of hunger, AIDS, and violence? Isn't it the luxury of privileged white American liberals to innovate themselves right out of the Christian faith, as traditionally understood within the Communion and the broader church, while telling their African coreligionists that said innovations are none of their business and that they should shut up and figure out how best to spend 815's money?"

These are excellent questions. And it's no surprise that Daniel has ignored them. Liberals in the ECUSA and other mainline Protestant denominations have spent the last 30-40 years importing the values of the sexual revolution and the secular left into their churches. They are the ones who want to change things and have spent so much time and effort trying to do so. The ordination of "bishop" Robinson was a prime example of all this.
Yet Daniel has the gall to accuse conservative Anglicans of focusing too much attention on sexuality while people are dying of hunger and AIDS? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! How about this Daniel. Since the liberals started all this (and were instrumental in the divisions that have come with it), why don't they stop pushing for the ordination of women bishops and the acceptance of homosexuality and put all of their energies towards towards feeding the hungry and helping those with AIDS?
That would be nice. But the reality is that Western liberals, whether they be religious or secular like to express a lot of concern about the poor. But that's mostly talk to make themselves feel good. Because when it comes down to it, what really matters to them is defending and pushing the values of the sexual revolution at all costs. They're less interested in filling bellies and more interested in satisfying the various cravings that come from body parts just below the belly.

rr

Well, that's the thing, rr. Social justice Christians largely ignore the teachings of Jesus about his life, death and resurrection. When he said "the poor we would always have with us, but you won't always have me" he certainly didn't mean that we shouldn't do all we can to alleviate their poverty, etc., but the Gospels are not about social perfection. They are about making Christ the center of our lives. All acts of charity/justice flow from that and nowhere does the New Testament teach that Utopia will come in this life.

The fullness of the Kingdom will not come until the Last Day when Christ returns as judge (another unpopular concept with many).

If only the proper balance were maintained so many of these theological wars could be avoided.

As usual, Alicia, is correct.

The problem here has less to do with the recalcitrance of conservative African bishops than with the recalcitrance of (some) liberal American ones.

Their assumption is that what is best for American liberals, especially urban, upper-class, and/or coastal American liberals, must of course be what is best for everyone else, that every moral question must be nationalized and where possible globalized as well.

And it goes without saying that the only right answer to those nationalized and globalized questions is their own.

A thought experiment: Which does one hear about more often -- "activists" from (say) Massachusetts "descending" on (say) Montana to impose their view on some moral question, or the other way round?

Or in this particular case "activists" from (say) New Hampshire "descending" on (say) Nigeria to impose their own moral view.

Far from the "simple country parson" that he paints himself to be, Gene Robinson is an entirely doctrinaire left-liberal political hack who has shown much more interest in promoting the interests of Planned Parenthood and the gay community than he ever has shown in promoting the interests of the ECUSA let alone the broader Anglican Church.

He has likewise made it perfectly clear that one thing that recommended the ECUSA was the assurance he received early on that he would not be expected to really adhere to any of the Creeds or Articles professed in the Book of Common Prayer that might contradict his political views.

If the man were a doctor he would have been denounced as a quack and sued for malpractice long ago.

That said, a solution is clearly at hand: Robinsonistas in the ECUSA should simply leave the Anglican Communion and allow those within the ECUSA who wish to remain ... to simply remain.

The money they would save by no longer having any obligation to African troglodytes could be used to defray the shortfall they would suffer from the loss of income and property ceded those who wish to stay within the fold.

And over time they could redirect their income toward whatever far worthier endeavors Sister Kate and Parson Gene might then decree.

Works for me.

Max is always a class act. Never bothers with substance when bitchiness will do.

Let's see...

Women being told to take their brooms and fly away...

People being called "chickenhawks"...

People called an ignoramus...

This place is a sewer. No one cleans it up.

"We will know they are Christians by their love". Snort. Thank you Jesus that I'm not one of your followers.

Me,

"Women" weren't told to take their brooms and fly away. *Jillian* was -- Jillian who has shown herself quite able to throw jocular elbows in her postings on this blog, Jillian who needs no chivalry to save her from the vapors. For the record, I don't believe that Jillian is actually a witch any more than Jillian thinks I'm actually a "sweetheart" -- though I have been known to be from time to time. : )

Me,

Your point is well taken, though I can't speak for anyone's language but my own.

That said, I think it ought to recognized that "civility" in comboxes on blogs is a set of social contracts between different posters at different times with regard to different stances on different concerns.

I haven't given any worse to Jillian than I and others have gotten from her in the history of her postings on this blog.

I also have only ever weighed in against Jillian in defense of someone else who I feel she has wronged.

That someone else in this case as in others has been some traditionalist Christian.

Jillian is something of a bully on this blog or someone at least who comes here picking fights, since she clearly is extremely hostile toward most Christians -- "95%" percent of whom she thinks of as beneath her contempt (and the figure is a quote from another discussion).

I plead guilty to egging Jillian on and acknowledge that perhaps the two of us have reached diminishing returns so far as how much light instead of heat our exchanges can bring.

What a disappointing discussion. Until you all can learn to behave, you should be sent to bed without dessert! ; ) And I was going to serve peach cobbler with ice cream.

Post failed:

Can't call method "text" on unblessed reference at lib/MT/App/Comments.pm line 1585.

Unblessed references are what you get when you cast Perls before swine!

Erin is only taking the position taken by Scripture itself:

Matthew 19:

[4] He answered, "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female,

[5] and said, `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?

For those who no longer accept Scripture as the Word of God, this obviously will not have any significance.

For those who no longer accept Scripture as the Word of God, this obviously will not have any significance.

And if you are merely proof-texting--as Christine is--you don't understand the full meaning of Scriptures. Further in Matthew 19's condemnation of divorce is a discussion of eunuchs--including eunuchs who are "born that way"--which suggests an understanding that some men will not marry women because they have no sexual attraction to women and that such a state is natural.

It doesn't mean no sexual attraction to just women and it doesn't mean a homosexual.

And you know this how? Since homosexuality as we know it did not exist at the time Matthew was writing his gospel and the only understanding that did exist involved heterosexual men raping or doing other bad things to men, it's not at all clear whether our understanding of "eunuch" is the same as Matthew's. He may have used the term "eunuch" to refer to what we now consider a gay man, who has romantic and sexual interest in other men but not sexual interest in women.

Is it not ironic that these most abject of colonials have attained the spiritual wisdom to teach their subjugators the true meaning of Christianity?

Is it not Divine Justice that this "church" of the fraudulent fidei defensor Mrs. Windsor, born of adulterous lust and dynastic edacity, bred of bastardy, formed in perfidy, matured in mutiny to the commandments of the Pelican, at long last succumbs to that most vile of vices, that cries out to Heaven for vengeance in the inalterable letters of the Covenants New and Old? God is not mocked.

May the Venerable Cardinal Newman beseech our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that these orphans of the True Church find their way to the Urbs aeterna, Roma.
--Roland de Chanson | July 22, 2008 10:45 PM

Roland, old boy, you need to start your own blog. That's the best and briefest (best because its the briefest) skewering of Anglican history and identity I've ever seen.

It looks like Newman and Jesus will be answering your prayer soon, as--having been royally shafted at the last General Synod--the English Anglo-Catholics de-camp en masse to Rome and the whole cobbled together mess continues to fall apart.

All traveling the via media gets you is being run over by a truck.

Lancelot: "Roland, old boy, you need to start your own blog. That's the best and briefest (best because its the briefest) skewering of Anglican history and identity I've ever seen. "

Except, I don't think that Roland is actually Catholic. I get the impression that his Catholicism is as tongue-in-cheek as his Frenchness. He's far and away the best writer among this blog's commenters, though.

BTW, what is the Pelican?

And if you are merely proof-texting--as Christine is--you don't understand the full meaning of Scriptures.

Gee, Daniel, I'm sure glad I have the Catechism of the Catholic Church to correct me. To wit:

1605 Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone."92 The woman, "flesh of his flesh," his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help.93 "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."94 (emphasis mine) The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh."95

And your credentials, Daniel, in Biblical scholarship are . . . ??