Anglican schism time

What many seem to miss is that this is not about homosexuality, it's about the scope of the gospel. Either all human behavior is subject to the power of the gospel or it isn't. To insist that faith in Christ cannot change sexual behavior is to insist that nothing the Bible asserts about the gospel is true. In that case, why bother with it at all?

When I was single, I was celibate. I wanted to act out sexually, and my faith did not change that. But it gave me the ability to not to actually do it, and to focus instead on serving God. I came to a place that allowed me to accept that were I to remain single until death, I would find my fulfillment in obedience to God until death.

There is nothing about homosexual desire that makes it any harder to resist.

That wider tradition always was counter-cultural as well as counter-intuitive. Our supposedly selfish genes crave a variety of sexual possibilities. But Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual intercourse. This is not (as is frequently suggested) an arbitrary rule, dualistic in overtone and killjoy in intention. It is a deep structural reflection of the belief in a creator God who has entered into covenant both with his creation and with his people (who carry forward his purposes for that creation).

Boy, that sentence in italics sets my deceit-o-meter off. It reminds me of President Clinton's heartfelt and ultimately technically honest, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

I never understand why learned men use the words "always" or "never" in reference to the history of human experience. Just stick in a "should be" instead of an "is". Moves it from obviously wrong to plausibly correct.

BobN,

That a rather obvious generalization (even proponents of blessing same-sex unions acknowledge the irregularity their proposals) by an recognized theological voice sets off your deceit-o-meter suggests, to me, you need to get your meter checked. Or are you simply categorially suspicious of and opposed to categorical statements?

Wright's "Times" statement is, to my mind, both clear and direct; a refreshing quality in an argument that so easily jumps the tracks of reason or respect.

Dear BobN,

Not a word in anything you said about the Gospel. No mention of the Holy Spirit.

THAT is the issue.

"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God."

Or are you simply categorially suspicious of and opposed to categorical statements?

I'm suspicious of the specification of "sexual intercourse" rather than the general "sex". That's the parallel to Clinton's statement.

But Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual intercourse.

Or, in the Muslim case, man-plus-woman-plus-woman-plus-woman-plus-woman.

The first Episcopalian bishop to ordain a non-celibate homosexual to the priesthood was John Shelby Spong, the notorious atheist bishop who repudiated every jot and tittle of Christian orthodoxy one could possibly name in his "Twelve Theses," which are easily available through Google and ought to be read by anyone who deigns to weigh in on this thread.

And, in keeping with the close and indeed all-but-inextricable relationship within the Episcopal Church between gay-rights advocacy and wholesale abandonment of orthodox theology, witness the fact that the same General Convention that just voted to lift a moratorium on gay (and transexual) ordinations and consecrations held to by upwards of 99% of Anglicans worldwide, the same General Convention that voted, once again against the same 99% of Anglicans worldwide, to authorize liturgical blessings of homosexual intercourse, that same General Convention and those same bishops within that General Convention who cast those votes voted likewise to reject a measure affirming Jesus Christ as the only Son of God and the unique and exclusive Savior of humanity.

On another thread I mentioned how altar boys and alter girls at the General Convention were seen marching in procession with both the Cross and the gay-rights Rainbow Flag. I quipped that by the next General Convention in 2012, the procession would likely include the Rainbow Flag alone. Well, it turns out, it didn't take that long. The same Episcopal blogger who reported the first procession has just reported a second one, with the same children marching with the Rainbow Flag alone and no Cross in sight. That's what the Episcopal Church has come to. And that's why the Episcopal Church as we know it will die before those children are adults. Cancerous bodies consume themselves and the time has come for the Anglican Communion to remove the Episcopalian tumor from itself before it spreads any further than it already has. Too many souls are at stake to do anything less. Including those children's.

LooselyCult,

Thanks for a basically honest response. However, the opposition of Christians to homosexuals has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with animus. There is no exemption for those homosexuals who are celibate; Christians still persecute them just as vigorously.

Now Christians in Nigeria are persecuting those who would support basic civil rights, even the right to life, for Nigeria's homosexual citizens. Thanks to the support of Archbishop Akinola, it's now illegal for Nigerians to read any defense of the civil rights of homosexual Nigerians.

The only appropriate response left is violence. Let the Archbishop fear for his life as gay Nigerians fear for theirs.

I've done some interesting reading about the Nigerian church and Archbishop Akinola in particular. Back in 2003 and up until 2007, he was generally seen as the schismatic, especially considering his willingness to "poach" in this country.

Just asking the question here: did Rod et al. lament the Nigerian church's decisions then as provoking schism (e.g. in the lead up to the Lambeth Conference)? Honest question here, I don't know what the position of this blog was.

I suspect that they thought that schism on behalf of conservative values was just fine, but this potential schism is terribly lamentable.

Hmm. Still hard to say. Seems to be rather in favor of some kind of Raelian thing. Never would have guessed.

The Bishop of Durham's reference to modern paganism is interesting, considering the etymology of the word. Culturally, in this country at least, conservative Christians are the real "pagans", at least in the classical sense of the term.

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

H.L. Mencken.

Looselycult, here's an example cited by the US State Department:

On September 12, [2008] local newspapers Nation, Vanguard, PM News and the Sunday Sun published photos, names, and addresses of members of the House of Rainbow Metropolitan Community Church, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered-friendly church in Lagos. Following publication, persons started harassing the 12 members. One woman was attacked by 11 men, while others were threatened, stoned, and beaten. No investigation was initiated by year's end.

Violence,
My bad. Destroy!! Destroy!!! Destroy!!! Out of the ruins, we'll walk hand in hand....er...maybe not.

Loosleycult,

The February 1994 issue of _Vanity Fair_ contained a story called "Lone Start Hate." It was about 8 anti-gay murders in Texas committed by teenagers. A film maker interviewed the perpetrators asking them why they killed; the most common response was "God said it's ok to kill these people (gays)." Christian judges prosecuted the victims reading Leviticus from the bench and fabricating offenses by the victims to justify giving the perpetrators short sentences.

There was also an anti-lesbian rape in Richmond California shortly before the vote on Proposition 8. Christian supporters of Proposition 8 accused gays of "recruiting children" to incite hatred (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrwj7SVWBMA ), As a result tensions ran very high here in California. A gang of Central Americans raped this lesbian because she had a political sticker on her car identifying her as a lesbian. The perpetrators also beat and kidnapped her.

Geoff G.,

Rescuing dioceses and parishes from subjugation to a schismatic church led by heretics -- the ECUSA -- and back into the Anglican Communion is counter-schismatic and therefore not "poaching" at all.

In any case, incidentally, it occurs to me that a more appropriate task for you than trolling on Christian blogs would be to evangelize Episcopalians -- or at least the gay and/or the heretical ones -- to abandon Christianity as you yourself seem to have done.

You clearly seem to think that, given a choice between God's grace and homosex, one ought to opt for homosex over God's grace.

I can't say I'd wish you any luck at all in urging other people to make that choice.

But doing so would make more sense -- given your priorities -- than hanging round here.

Of course what would make most sense of all for you -- as for everyone else -- would be to repent and to accept God's grace.

"...sinners are immoral."

Obviously everyone doesn't know any such thing, because I think you are full of it. Sinners commit sin, they are not immoral. Some might be, but that is an entirely different thing.

Really, you both sound more like small town fundamentalists than openminded, intelligent folks. I don't care to discuss much with them, any reason I should with you?

I agree with Ms. Gledhill. As for the crap about the Africans allowing polygamy,hence they are hypocrites on the gay thing, I would say get your facts straight. The reason polygamy has been tolerated is that many Animist and some Muslims who practice it have become Anglicans, some Anglican jurisdictions choose to leave polygamist families intact and not make them split up,this choice was arrived after, earlier attempts to make them conform, resulted in disaster for the extra wives and kids. It was out of compassion. No Anglican Bishop any where allows Anglicans to take new wives. Again the status quo is acknowledged and tolerated with pre-existing situations. African Anglican leaders such as Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi has forcefully spoken out against polygamy as being un-christian and oppressive.

If this does lead to schism, good! TEC has pleased nobody with this half-hearted waffling. Whether I agree with their position or not, I have little respect for people who impose a moratorium on what they think they should be doing just in order to keep their organizational structure intact.

It won't matter anyway. I think the culture war is over and christianity has lost a generation who, thinking 'christian' is just a subset of 'republican' and having seen people they care about forced to 'marry' outside the church and doing just fine, will be hard to convince that they need the church themselves. TEC is too quiet and too late to make any impact on people whose idea of 'christian' is based on the religious right.

Old Violet Eyes: I am aware that these persecutions that you posted do occur in the U.S. and they are tragic and wrong, however I was actually asking for specific examples in regards to the influence of Bishop Akinola. But with that said to construe all of these horrid violent acts that you cited as being directly related to Anglican Bishops following their beliefs based on specific commands in scripture is a very wide and reductionistic leap. Yes I know that many homosexuals have been tortured and murdered but I do not accept that fact that the majority of people who perpetrated these acts were in fact actual Christians. Knowing that the Bible condemns homosexuality, as a sin doesn't make someone anymore a Christian than putting feathers up your butt makes you a chicken.

Ultimately this will not make any difference to the world. Lots of sturm und drang and such, but the world will go on with a broken Anglican communion, with very few people noticing any change.

November, 1997
A Partial Catalog of Hate Crimes Committed
Against the Ministers, Members and Property of the
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches

Metropolitan Community Church of Los Angeles, 1973
Los Angeles, California
An "intentional fire of suspicious origin" was the official conclusion for the fire which destroyed the UFMCC "Mother Church" located at 22nd and Union. Though the fire proved to be arson, no charges were ever filed. The worship facility sustained $90,000 in damages.

Metropolitan Community Church of Nashville, 1973
Nashville, Tennessee
Police evidenced little concern over this fire which totally destroyed the worship facility of this new congregation, even though other establishments serving the gay community had been destroyed in recent months. The church lost all of its possessions, including altar vessels, vestments and organ.

Metropolitan Community Church of New Orleans, 1973
New Orleans, Louisiana
This deliberate fire caused the deaths of the church pastor, associate pastor and ten members of the congregation. The fire started on a Sunday evening, claiming the lives of one-third of the church's membership. No one was ever charged with this crime.

Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, 1973
San Francisco, California
This worship facility was totally destroyed by arson. The arson followed death threats against the church's pastor, the Rev. James Sandmire. The threats had been scrawled on the church doors. The loss was valued at over $100,000.

West Bay Metropolitan Community Church, 1974
Santa Monica, California
This chapel was gutted by fire, only four days before a scheduled same-sex wedding was to take place. Telephone threats to the church were received prior to the fire. The building sustained $20,000 in damages.

Trinity Metropolitan Community Church, 1974
Riverside, California
Only three weeks after being burglarized and vandalized, the church was destroyed by an early Sunday fire which caused $32,000 in damages.

King of Peace Metropolitan Community Church, 1976
St. Petersburg, Florida
An early morning fire totally destroyed the church and all of its contents. The church was insured for $34,000.

Casa de Cristo MCC, 1977
Phoenix, Arizona
Forty-five minutes before the evening worship service, the worship facility was fire-bombed. Damages were estimated at more than $30,000. In the months preceding the arson, the church was subject to a wave of hate crimes, including threatening letters and phone calls, theft, damage to cars during worship services – culminating in the October arson.

Metropolitan Community Church of Tampa, 1977
Tampa, Florida
This church was victimized by hate crimes, including vandalism and desecration which resulted in $8000 in damages and loss. The Rev. John Hose arrived at the church to find the cross had been torn from the cupola, stained glass windows had been shattered, walls were splattered with eggs, the air conditioning unit has been destroyed, and the church sign torn down.

MCC of the Twin Cities, 1977
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Worship services led by Pastor Joan Johnson were interrupted by vandals who spray-painted obscenities on the church walls.

MCC of the Resurrection, 1978
Houston, Texas
The Ku Klux Klan initiated a campaign of harassment against this congregation which included threats (including death threats) by phone and letter against the pastor, the Rev. Jeri Ann Harvey, and the church. A Ku Klux Klan cross was burned on the church property.

Christ Chapel Metropolitan Community Church, 1979
Santa Ana, California
This church facility was totally destroyed by a fire which was ruled to be arson. The fire occurred at 1 AM, just two hours after a threat on Pastor Roger Harrison's life was recorded on the church's answering machine. The building was an historic site: the home of the first Jewish synagogue ever constructed in Orange County.

"Our House" Ministry of MCC Baltimore, 1980
Baltimore, Maryland
This facility which housed Cuban refugees, the majority of whom were gay or lesbian, was burned to the ground. This facility was a ministry of MCC Baltimore.

Metropolitan Community Church of Baltimore, 1982
Baltimore, Maryland
This fire resulted in $1.25 million in damages to this worship facility, and the loss of all property and supplies owned by this MCC congregation. This congregation had experienced on-going harassment from local juveniles, including threats on the day of the fire.

MCC of the New Reformation, 1982
Columbia, Missouri
This church was victimized by an on-going campaign of community hostility, threats and hate crimes. On two occasions, people entered the church facility during worship services and desecrated the building by pouring coffee through the building and breaking raw eggs. Raw eggs were also thrown at the cars of worshipers. The pastor's son was subject to taunts and verbal abuse by local adults. Threatening phone calls were made to the church office. And a church board member's home was broken into and vandalized.

Metropolitan Community Church of Atlanta, 1982
Atlanta, Georgia
The church's worship facility was set ablaze by an arsonist. In the month's preceding this arson, the facility had repeatedly been vandalized and desecrated. Firefighters brought the blaze under control, and the fire did not affect any of the adjacent buildings.

St. Luke's Metropolitan Community Church, 1982 and 1983
Jacksonville, Florida
This congregation holds the dubious distinction of being the only UFMCC congregation to twice be fire-bombed, once in 1982 and again in 1983. The 1982 fire nearly destroyed the building and it's contents, including the pews, pulpit, heating and air conditioning system, and altar. The 1983 attack was more confined, resulting in smoke damage and the destruction of the church's carpeting as well as vandalized windows.

Metropolitan Community Church of Joplin, 1983
Joplin, Missouri
The worship facility of this congregation was destroyed by fire – part of a campaign of community harassment against the church's worshipers. Gay-owned or gay-friendly facilities were picketed by locals who hurled anti-gay slogans and threats in public. The escalating level of harassment resulted in the resignation of the church pastor, who feared for his life.

Metropolitan Community Church of Dallas, 1985
Dallas, Texas
Damage was done to this church facility by vandals who desecrated the worship facility.

The Rev. Virgil Scott, 1986
Pastor, MCC of Stockton, California
After more than a year of threats against the Rev. Virgil Scott and his predominantly gay and lesbian congregation, Pastor Scott was brutally murdered. Evidence indicates that Rev. Scott was interrupted while engaged in church-related work. His body was severely beaten and he was stabbed seven to ten times. Prior to his death, shots had been fired at his car, and death threats left on his answering machine.

Metropolitan Community Church of Silverlake, 1991
Los Angeles, California
The church was broken into and vandalized and desecrated. Paint was splashed in the sanctuary, the social hall and the pastor's office.

Ke Anuenue O Ke Aloha Metropolitan Community Church, 1993
Honolulu, Hawaii
After publicly announcing the church's support for legalized gay marriage, both the church's pastor, the Rev. Justin Tanis, and the congregation, received telephone death threats. Threats against the pastor and congregation were also posted on the church doors.

Metropolitan Community Church of Richmond, 1994
Richmond, VA
Stained glass windows in the church's sanctuary were destroyed by vandals. On the same evening, two Jewish synagogues in the vicinity were similarly desecrated.

Good Samaritan Metropolitan Community Church, 1994
Whittier, California
The church was vandalized and windows were broken shortly after this congregation moved into their new worship facility. During this time, telephone threats were received and workers entering and departing from worship services were picketed and heckled.

MCC Shepherd of the Plains, 1996
Great Falls, Montana
Following Pastor Gina L. Hartung's appearance in the local media, this church was vandalized and desecrated. An inverted cross was spray painted on the church's front door, and other graffiti included spray-painted swastikas, the number "666," and Satanic symbols.

Church of the Trinity MCC, 1996-97
Bradenton, Florida
In February of 1996, two worshipers were assaulted by a youth gang as they left a church function. Between March and May of 1996, the church was subjected to ten incidents of petty vandalism, including destruction of porch enclosures, breaking of church benches, and the uprooting of shrubbery. In May of 1996, youths yelled anti-gay slogans at people entering for worship service. In September of 1997, the church was vandalized, the offices burglarized, and a fire was set in the church office. The incident resulted in $6000 in damages to the facility. In February of 1997, the church's public sign was defaced with anti-gay slogans.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — On the first day of July, Satender Singh was gay-bashed to death. The 26-year-old Fijian of Indian descent was enjoying a holiday weekend outing at Lake Natoma with three married Indian couples around his age. Singh was delicate and dateless — two facts that did not go unnoticed by a party of Russian-speaking immigrants two picnic tables away.

According to multiple witnesses, the men began loudly harassing Singh and his friends, calling them "7-Eleven workers" and "Sodomites." The Slavic men bragged about belonging to a Russian evangelical church and told Singh that he should go to a "good church" like theirs. According to Singh's friends, the harassers sent their wives and children home, then used their cell phones to summon several more Slavic men. The members of Singh's party, which included a woman six months pregnant, became afraid and tried to leave. But the Russian-speaking men blocked them with their bodies.
Singh
Satender Singh

The pregnant woman said she didn't want to fight them.

"We don't want to fight you either," one of them replied in English. "We just want your faggot friend."

One of the Slavic men then sucker-punched Singh in the head. He fell to the ground, unconscious and bleeding. The assailants drove off in a green sedan and red sports car, hurling bottles at Singh's friends to prevent them from jotting down the license plate. Singh suffered a brain hemorrhage. By the next day, hospital tests confirmed that he was clinically brain dead. His family agreed to remove him from artificial life support July 5.

My tuppen'orth on the whole sorry mess.

CBA,

I strongly disagree with your calling Geoff G.'s posts here "trolling." He's intelligent, well-written, well-read, and he also often takes the time to back up his assertions with links to appropriate references. I have been reading this blog almost daily since January, and, in that time, I haven't seen him be disrespectful of others (perhaps a bit understandably agitated at times, yes, but not disrespectful), nor have I seen him suggest that anyone leave this blog, even those of opinions that likely hurt him as a gay man. I'd be disappointed if he felt unwelcome here and chose not to hang around any longer.

P.S. If this post shows up twice, it's because of CAPTCHA issues.

Old Violet Eyes: Your statement "Death To Akinola" pretty much illustrates the point of my very first post, which is hatred persecution, and death threats are possible on both sides. Because for you it is not about Universal non-partial justice handed down by a universal absolute God, but for you it's about "What comes around goes around" or "when I get the power I am going to do the same thing to you that you did to me." Which fuels the same kind of vitriol that is behind the various hate crimes you have posted all over this blog. When you say "Death To Ankinola" how does that make you any better than Akinola? All that does is continue to perpetuate the cycle of hatred and violence that you are protesting against. And it was this same kind of hate and "animus" that motivated the Romans and Pagan cultures that practiced inappropriate sexual behaviors including homosexuality to persecute torture and murder Christians who believed that these practices were wrong for 300 years. But after 300 years of loving there enemies and returning evil for good many many people over time converted to Christianity despite what their sexual practices were prior to their conversions. And many people change and much of the culture changed because of it.

This won't lead to schism, it IS schism. A subset of a group voting to overthrow orthodoxy is a schismatic act. Saying "sorry you decided to leave the fold, we'll just keep doing what we've been doing" isn't schism.

Sicilian Woman,

I call Geoff G. a troll because there isn't enough common ground between his position and any position contiguous to Rod's "crunchy con" position for there to be any fruitful conversation among Geoff and those who come here for conversation with others whose positions are compatible with Rod's and their own.

Geoff is not a Christian and he is not a moral or a cultural traditionalist of any other sort.

Rather, he is an absolutely conventional left-liberal bourgeois, who's point of view everyone here understands very well already without any further explication.

Geoff places his sexual "liberty" above all else, and his "right" to follow his heart and to chase his bliss, etc., etc.

Yawn.

We get it, already ...

We. Get. It.

All of us have seen Geoff's movie before, time and again (and again) (and again).

Now granted, Geoff is a much more articulator reiterator of bourgeois idees fixes and idees recues than most of those who bog down these threads.

But I'd still hold that there's something fundamentally trollish in repeating shopworn and redundant platitudes all day long to those who don't need to hear them, to those who've come here seeking something else, having heard enough of those platitudes already to last them a lifetime.

robroy is wholly correct. Contrary to what the Robinsons and the Jefferts-Schoris of the world would like to believe, there *is* no heretofore untapped demographic of left-liberal bourgeois who have been holding off on embracing Christianity until such time as some (nominally) Christian denomination or other revises the moral law not abolished but rather fulfilled by Jesus Christ in order to bring it more in line with their sentimental whims, and especially their sentimental whims as regarding their current sacrament of choice -- the gay lifestyle. The Robinson and Jefferts-Schori leadership caste in the Episcopal Church is made up almost entirely of left-liberal bourgeois who merely too timid to abandon Christianity wholesale along with most of their peers during or in the aftermath of the 1960's. The Episcopal Church has been for them a via media between a largely metaphoric Christianity on the one hand and atheism proper or at best deism on the other hand. The logical trajectory for the children of the Robinsons and the Jefferts-Schoris of the world to take in the coming generations will be to finish the circuit that their parents have begun by going "forward" beyond the half-way house of the Episcopal Church into atheism proper or a non-denominational deism expressed through contemplation of sunsets and meadows just after spring rain, etc, etc. -- or perhaps expressed most fully of all through sporadic contributions to GLAAD or to Planned Parenthood or, perhaps, among the truly devout, to the Sierra Club.

Geoff G. is not a troll. Don't call him one. I think he's coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs on the subject of religion (more seriously, he and we small-o orthodox Christians have wholly different sources for religious authority, which means we really don't have a base for reaching agreement), but he is an all-around thoughtful and intelligent poster, and I'm glad to have him here. I'm glad to have you here too, CBA. There's no need to turn this into an ad hominem pissing match.