Episcopalians: "The orthodox are finished"

Game over. Now what?

The Piskies merge with the U/U's and build something beautiful for gods?

What happens now is that TEO begins its long, slow senescence on artificial life-support provided by wealth expropriated from benighted ex-Episcopalians past and present, who succumbed to the homophobic pretense of a certain rednecked first-century Jew in a certain provincial backwater of the Roman Empire -- the Roman Empire which really was much more enlightened with regard to man-man, man-boy, and boy-boy love -- dahling, don't you know?

Richard is spot on. It's now up to Canterbury, which is probably closer theologically to the ECUSA than it is Akinola and the dissidents. I'd expect another grand compromise allowing the Global South to do its own thing, the Westerners to do their own thing, and the well-funded Western dissidents to move back and forth, from camp to camp, depending on the issue.

I say the piskies last about ten years till they merge with u/u, ucc and other liberal protestant brothers & sisters who are caught in what RR Reno dubbed "the liberal protestant death-spiral." Sad day for all...

Game over. Now what?

Show tunes?

The local very large Episcopal diocese in my area wants to be a conservative group within the liberal TEC. They are part of a group called the Common Cause Partners. I understand people not wanting to leave their beautiful church buildings, friends, etc., but I don't see how they can sit on the theological fence much longer.

Richard, that was an excellent post. And, the vast sums of money in the Episcopal Church, with a few exceptions, are now almost totally in the hands of the liberal faction, and the liberal faction controlled a working majority of the massive sums at least far back as when John Hines was Presiding Bishop in the 1960s.

"show tunes" - mean, but hilarious.

I want to hear what anyone else thinks about this. Will the traditional Anglicans both in the US and across the globe create their own communion, look to Rome, or reach out to the Eastern Orthodox? Perhaps time will tell.

Game over. Now what?

Now the Episcopalians can finally dedicate their time to doing acts that Jesus actually talked about. You know, helping the poor and other minor things like that...

It was over when Episcopalians did nothing about Spong. This is just more fruit from having thrown out Biblical innerrancy years ago.

More like doing nothing about Pike in the 60's.

Matthew -
I think you'll see all of the above.

m. e. graves,

Having once been in Communion with Anglicans in numerous African countries, The Episcopal Church has had ample opportunity to "do the things that Jesus talked about" like "helping the poor." But rather than doing those things, it has instead labelled those Africans "monkeys" for actually believing what Jesus taught -- as opposed to what Episcopalian liberals teach -- and it has threatened again and again to withhold financial support from them if they do not assent to the heretical elevation of the gay lifestyle to all-but-sacramental status within the Episcopal Church. It's also worth noting that the same Episcopal General Convention that just approved more gay ordinations and consecrations also voted down a measure to affirm Jesus Christ as the exclusive Lord and Savior of humanity. So pardon me if I think you're being rather over-optimistic about how likely Episcopalian liberals are going to be to "get back" to "what Jesus talked about" -- given that they downgrade His status more and more with each General Convention that goes by. At this year's General Convention, the Cross on which Jesus died of our sins was accompanied in procession by the Rainbow Flag by which Vicky Gene Superstar sanctifies his sexual deviancy and his defiance of Christian morality. By the next General Convention in 2012, I expect that only one of those standards -- the Cross and the Rainbow Flag -- will be in evidence. I'll leave it to you to decide which one is more likely to be absent the next go-round.

One more comment and I'll be done, many TEC parishes are hanging on by a thread,earlier this year TEC released a state of the church report and it was beyond grim,hopeless is a good way to sum it up. At the very least many families and individuals will leave, this time is very different, and people are done, with waiting,hoping and struggling,we finally have clarity and schism is inevitable.

Anyways in many of these struggling parishes, the loss of just a few people are will do them in as viable parish,TEC this week assured the death of hundreds of struggling parishes this week.. We are also one of the fastest aging churches,and frankly many families don't want anything to do with the pansexual,heretical freak show that is TEC. Many moderates are also bothered by the direction of TEC and have had a hear no evil,see no evil policy, I think the fence sitters are finally going to forced off the fence and TEC may to its horror,much too late,be shocked find itself losing many of these people in the coming months and years. TEC is dead.

Beth and others above have mentioned the COmmunion Partners. Beth is correct about the Communion Partners. I hope I will not misrepresent Communion Partners by using so many of my own words. If others catch a mistatement I might make, I hope they will correct me.

Communion Partners is, indeed, a group of orthodox Anglican bishops and rectors in United States who intend not so much as retain property, inasmuch as remain in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury in a manner that is not schismatic and in keeping with the Instruments of Unity in the Anglican Communion (there are four such instruments, including the Archbishop of Canterbury). Communion Partners point out a longstanding catholic principle called "subsidiarity" which places all ecclesial authority in the Ordinary, or the bishop of a diocese that is in communnion with the See of Canterbury.

The Communion Partners note that the Epsicopal Church is NOT a national denomination and never has been. From it's inception after the American Revolution, TEC has been a voluntary association of equal dioceses in communion with the See of Canterbury and that see's historic ties to the Universal Church and the Faith once handed down by the saints. In my own words, I say Mrs Jefferts-Schori is nothing more than the chairman of a 501c3 coporation. For example, if she wishes to visit and preach in a diocese, she must first receive the permission of that Ordinary.

That said, the Communion Partners have hoped to stand witness within TEC. After what has taken place at General Convention this week, that is looking more and more untenable.

I would commend a letter that +N.T. Wright, Lord Bishop of Durham (England) wrote the Times of London yesterday (Google it) in response to the resolution to include non-celibate gays in the Holy Orders of the Church. In that letter he says, "The question then presses: who, in the US, is now in communion with the great majority of the Anglican world? It would be too hasty to answer, the newly formed “province” of the “Anglican Church in North America”. One can sympathise with some of the motivations of these breakaway Episcopalians. But we should not forget the Episcopal bishops, who, doggedly loyal to their own Church, and to the expressed mind of the wider Communion, voted against the current resolution. Nor should we forget the many parishes and worshippers who take the same stance."

Rod's post and this thread asks "now what?". I cannot speak authoritatively on this, but I can say that my bishop is a Communion Partners bishop (+Stanton of Dallas), as is his Suffragan (+Lambert). My rector is a Communion Partners Rector, (+Burton of the Incarnation and formerly Bishop of Saskatchewan, Canada). I expect that my children and I will remain constituent members of this great and historic instance of God's One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, through the ensuing processes shepherded by and evolving out of the Communion Partners.

My community of faith at the Incarnation is not congregationalist. It is catholic in the context of the Anglican Communion and its historic ties to the greater Church. And it is STRONG and FAITHFUL.

The Anglican Communion Institute is a group of othodox theologians in the US who are associated with the Communion Partners. The ACI's president, Christopher Seitz+, is a priest on our clergy staff at the Incarnation. The ACI issued a statement yesterday, saying "The Episcopal Church is already out of communion with the majority of the world’s Anglicans. It is our expectation that many dioceses will not follow The Episcopal Church out of the Anglican Communion and the mainstream of apostolic Christianity. Instead, they will take immediate action to assure the Communion and the Archbishop of Canterbury of their continued commitment both to observe the Communion’s moratoria and to preserve and restore their structural bonds to the Communion."

I hope that explains the Communion Partners and my opinion about "now what?"

You may Google "Communion Partners" and "Anglican Communion Institute" and learn much more about all this.

There's an interesting statistical study done on the Canadian equivalent of the TEC (Anglican Church of Canada):

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=56ed5dae-a830-4c5b-9cac-34be8b082cef&k=77563

It shows that if present trends continue the church will be extinct by mid-century. I suspect that the same trends exist in the U.S. and other First World Anglican churches.

So now that the traditionalists have been dealt with, the TEC can focus on putting its affairs in order - primarily dealing with the one thing it still has, real estate. This should make things easier for the executors of its estate after it passes on. I guess the interesting question is: Who will be the heirs?

Regarding the disappearance of the Episcopal church, it does seem to be happening.

And apart from the massive influx of Hispanics, so is the Roman Catholic Church - as it has largely in Europe

And the Southern Baptists have been acknowledging for some time that their 15 million figure is and has been largely fictious.

The Assembley of God expelled from their convention some years ago church demographers who pointed out that the back door of their congregations is as large as the front door.

Do any of you want more and more recent statistics. It really is not a pretty picture regardless of how you look at it

John E.,

What Paul taught is what Jesus taught those who taught Paul -- which is why none of the hundreds of people still alive in Paul's time who were taught by Jesus ever took the same issue with what Paul taught that you yourself take. Not -- of course -- that anyone taught by Jesus knew half as much about what Jesus taught as you or Gene Robinson or John Shelby Spong or Frank Lombard or Katherine Jefferts Schori.

Connie Connie in Wisconsin,

Episcopalian liberals have also received money of the sort that you describe -- from a Ford Foundation outfit called the Satcher Institute, which seeks to liberalize sexual morality within religious institutions, in order to accommodate not only homosexuality, but also polyamory, pederasty, and even bestiality.

A great deal of effort is expended within the Episcopal Church on the part of parishes and dioceses who do not want to see their wealth expropriated by heretics in the EC leadership caste to fund those sorts of efforts, which clearly helped provide aid and comfort -- if perhaps unintended -- to the child-rapist, child-pander and Gene Robinson "fan" Frank Lombard.

"Following the money" more thoroughly than you have will lead you to some very ugly places where you may not want to go, but where you *need* to go, in order for you to overcome your sentimentality about the left of the Episcopal Church and where it actually stands.

What evidence supports that assertion?

What evidence do have that doesn't support that assertion?

Howard Ahmanson and Scaife have almost single-handedly funded the Episcopal dissident movement for more than a decade, spending millions to undermine the ECUSA, provide funding to the African bishops doing the dirty work with Canterbury, and backing the lawsuits over property.

It sounds like they did the right thing, considering ECUSA's behavior over the past thirty years.

So long as there are ex-catholics (divorced/gay/just one too many years of grad school), ex-fundies (gay/one or more years of college) and Anglos too polite to be openly atheist and just a little too mainstream to become Unitarians, the Episcopal church will endure.
Since its membership's median age is 55, and the birthrate low and it has many (but not all)of the membership retention issues of the Unitarians and liberal Quakers, its future is hardly sunny. Naturally, there will be 'happy smiley face' stories about their nonwhite churches (and with their nonwhite clergy/denominational officials-the professional people of color on the boards of all mainline denominations), in both denomination media and in the mainstream media willing (in some cases, eager)to boost this church's "growing diversity", but although their numbers will grow (since, mathematically, it would be virtually impossible for their numbers to decline), but they will not really matter that much.
Look also for the US senate, CEOs of major corporations and heads of major Nongovernmental social service agencies to be only slightly less Episcopal in the past.
Anybody sane saw this happening a long time ago. The clergy has always been a grossly disproportionately gay profession. The high church wing of Anglicanism has been as gay as the Jesuits for over a century. The base of this church in the 'white' world has been increasingly indifferent towards sexual morality issues for over a hundred years and increasingly proud of its divergence from lower class and (even more)lower middle class/working class sexual values for a long time; its part of the old aristocratic/libertarian outlook. It defies belief that gays weren't eventually going to come out of the closet and parade with a rainbow flag as some point in this church. Look for other mainline churches to do the same, as they certainly would have earlier, except for their demographic profiles being somewhat less favorable to this change.
Robinson will continue, along with others, to mince around in a chasuble for years to come. They will continue to call for social justice-they will also continue to live in the suburbs, go to private schools and be heavily white, middle/upper middle class.
The mountain shook and a small mouse wearing a pink triangle squeeked and scampered away.

Cultural Conservative,

CBA has made the specific assertion that Jesus taught about the evils of homosexuality.

However, the Scriptures nowhere records any such statements made by Jesus, but they do record such statements made by Paul.

but to suggest that St Paul's theology was fundamentally of his own creation and can be in some sense separated from "real" Christianity based on the recorded teachings of Jesus, is a radical departure from centuries of Christian thought.

I am not claiming that the teachings of Paul regarding homosexuality can be separated from "real" Christianity.

I am claiming that the recorded teachings Jesus can be separated from the recorded teachings of Paul. I hope you see the distinction I am making.

In CBA's original post, he was conflating the two.

Sorry, that was inelegantly phrased. Of course there is good reason to distinguish between Paul and Jesus' teachings. I meant I wondered why anyone would want to labour the difference and draw attention to the lack of overlap in places, unless...

Come on guys, jeez.

Sorry, Rod.

And CBA, my apologies.

Quite, John E.

John E.,

Jesus reiterated in general terms, in blanket terms the same Jewish moral law -- as opposed to dietary custom -- that Paul explicated specifically to the Gentiles he evangelized to later on.

It went without saying to an audience of fellow Jews that the Jewish moral law that Jesus came to fulfill continued to include a prohibition on homosexual intercourse.

That did not go without saying to the audience of Gentiles that Paul evangelized to -- which is why he said so.

And the same is true of a number of other aspects of Jewish moral law that Jesus reiterated in general terms, in blanket terms that Paul then explicated specifically to Gentiles later on.

Again, I'm wondering how you explain the absence of objection to Paul's teaching -- assuming as you seem to do that Paul's teaching is a wholesale travesty of what Christ taught -- given the fact that there were hundreds of people taught by Christ who were still alive at the time when Paul evangelized and at the time when his epistles began to circulate.

I'm also wondering how you explain the fact that neither of the two of the original twelve apostles whom Paul met -- James and Simon Peter -- objected to either Paul's testimony to having been visited by the risen Christ or to Paul's subsequent teaching as an evangelist.

In closing, I continue to be amazed by how much more insight you and Gene Robinson and John Shelby Spong and Frank Lombard and Katherine Jefferts Schori have into early Christianity and into Jesus's teaching in His life and times than those who were actually there and taught by Jesus Himself.

This is especially striking in your case, since you don't even *claim* to be Christian, like the others do.

Are you perhaps simply a "stoic" and "agnostic" scholar of early Christianity?

Perhaps Beliefnet could host a dialogue between you and, say, N. T. Wright.

They could call it the New Perspective on Paul versus the New Perspective of John E.

Sorry, posted this on the earlier Episcopal thread but then thought it would go better here. On that thread, CBA noted:

Nor was it any coincidence at all that the same Episcopal Church General Convention that just opened the sluice gates to more non-celibate homosexuals bishops and priest -- not to mention transgendered ones -- also voted down a resolution affirming Jesus Christ as the exclusive savior of humankind.

Actually the resolution was killed in committee, but regardless, I had not heard about this before so I googled it. It's really interesting, more so (to me) than the gay issue, important though that is.

The defeated resolution would have read, in part:

"Resolved, That the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church declares its unchanging commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the only name by which any person may be saved (Article XVIII [Note--Articles of Religion—back of BCP]); and be it further

"Resolved, That we acknowledge the solemn responsibility placed upon us to share Christ with all persons when we hear His words, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No-one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6); and be it further …

Resolved, That we renew our dedication to be faithful witnesses to all persons of the saving love of God perfectly and uniquely revealed in Jesus and upheld by the full testimony of Holy Scripture......"

Among reasons given for not approving this language was "insensitivity to other faiths."

Here's the nub of the issue, people. As I've been pointing out here and on other recent threads, if you're going to claim to be following the Bible, it makes little sense to lament a Christian group's embrace of gay bishops while ignoring what should be a much bigger issue for you: the fact that many other groups -- Jewish communities, for starters -- have rejected Christ altogether. As the resolution above says, the Bible is quite clear on this: Jesus is THE Way, Truth, and Life, you are not saved outside of faith in him, and it is therefore incumbent on Christians to try actively to convert everyone in the world.

Modern Christians, conservatives and liberals alike, don’t really believe any of that. They think it’s great that some people are Jewish or hold to other faiths, particularly if that leads them to build good communities and families on the basis of good, solid values. Rod Dreher himself joined in celebrating just such a Jewish community on this blog just a couple of days ago.

So it appears that a group of conservative Episcopalians basically tried to call the church's bluff and get TEC to state plainly that it accepts the Bible’s clear teachings on this matter of absolutely central importance -- whether faith in Christ is or is not essential for every human being, and whether Jews and others should therefore be actively evangelized. One could say (and conservatives are saying) that TEC was expressing typical liberal hypocrisy in voting this down, that they’re expressing the same faithlessness to Scripture on this point that they’re expressing when they vote to accept gay bishops.

But in fact, what’s apparently happening is that liberal Christians are at last struggling toward something like intellectual consistency: If you’re not actually going to make a serious, urgent effort to convert Jews, Muslims and Buddhists (and no significant Christian group will), then don’t claim to believe that Christ or Christianity is the only path to becoming right with God. The real inconsistency is on the side of (most) conservatives, who will go on making that very claim -- as part of a general claim to be following the Bible to the letter -- yet who have no intention at all of making asses of themselves by going around telling good, God-fearing Jews and others that they are lost souls who are damned for all eternity if they don’t convert.

And this, I believe, is the logical contradiction that is going to destroy conservative Christianity in the end. It’s not just that it’s fighting rearguard actions on gay rights, creationism and the other marquee issues. It’s that it has accepted the basic tenet of modern liberalism, i.e. that the world is big and diverse and multicultural, and that a particular religious faith that arose in the ancient Near East, and that held sway for a long time in the West, is not necessarily right or essential for every other culture or person on earth. There are many paths to God, or higher Truth, or spiritual wholeness, or whatever we want to call it, and it’s just arrogant for any one culture to claim an eclusive lock on those things, regardless of what it says in some sacred book.

The liberal Christians being criticized in TEC and elsewhere are engaged in a search for a new accommodation to these realities, one that preserves Christianity in some meaningful way within a diverse world whose diversity we now, finally, understand is not a problem but part of its greatness. Conservative Christians, meanwhile (other than the hardy band that offered that resolution), are in deep denial, imagining that they can somehow maintain the exclusivist Christianity of an older, much more provincial and unipolar world even in the face of the world’s diversity, which is not going to go away.

And that's what's next for orthodoxy: a big crack-up as this contradiction becomes ever more glaring.

The liberal Christians being criticized in TEC and elsewhere are engaged in a search for a new accommodation to these realities, one that preserves Christianity in some meaningful way within a diverse world whose diversity we now, finally, understand is not a problem but part of its greatness. Conservative Christians, meanwhile (other than the hardy band that offered that resolution), are in deep denial, imagining that they can somehow maintain the exclusivist Christianity of an older, much more provincial and unipolar world even in the face of the world’s diversity, which is not going to go away.

CFK, that was an astoundingly good post and dovetails very well with the idea of Morally Therapeutic Deism that has been posted on so frequently here by Rod.

CFK: The liberal Christians being criticized in TEC and elsewhere are engaged in a search for a new accommodation to these realities, one that preserves Christianity in some meaningful way within a diverse world whose diversity we now, finally, understand is not a problem but part of its greatness. Conservative Christians, meanwhile (other than the hardy band that offered that resolution), are in deep denial, imagining that they can somehow maintain the exclusivist Christianity of an older, much more provincial and unipolar world even in the face of the world’s diversity, which is not going to go away.

CFK, what world do you live in? Do you really think that outside the United States and Western Europe, the world is clamoring to embrace gay marriage, and that the vast majority of Christians believe sexually active gay men should be priests and bishops? Guy, aside from Desmond Tutu and that loony South African gay Catholic bishop from St. Sebastian's Angels, the only people who see "diversity" the way you do live in Western Europe and North America. You appear to have a bizarre idee fixe that "diversity" means everybody agrees to the Western culturally liberal agenda. There are tens of millions of black and brown Christians in the Global South and elsewhere who say, "Not no, but hell no." The people who are in denial about "the world's diversity" are precisely those white First-World liberals who devoutly wish the Third World Christians, who vastly outnumber them, would shut up and give in.

You appear to have a bizarre idee fixe that "diversity" means everybody agrees to the Western culturally liberal agenda.

Rod, that is a strange reading of what I wrote. Of course I'm aware that there is a great deal of cultural conservatism in the Third World, that Western-style liberalism is (shall we say) an acquired taste there, and also that the understanding of diversity I'm invoking originated in the West. But that's because the West was the first world culture to explore and colonize the whole earth, draw maps of it, catalog its many cultures and languages, etc., all in increasingly systematic ways, and therefore it was in the West that the simple fact of the matter -- that the world is very big and culturally diverse -- first impressed itself on the minds of educated people.

This of course posed a crisis for Christianity, which had historically made the kinds of exclusivist claims to ultimate truth articulated in the resolution that TEC just rejected. My point is that ALL major Christian denominations in the West have tacitly accepted the reality we now know -- that is, they all accept that Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and the rest are legitimate religious traditions in their own right and part of the world's diversity, not simply big mistakes or failures or forms of spiritual ignorance that we should be going in and trying to correct.

Right? Even you agree with that, don't you? Or are you prepared to say, here and now, that Judaism (let's take that one as the test case) is not a religion with its own legitimate understanding of God, praiseworthy modes of worship and ability to build strong characters and communities, but is actually just one form of the damnable error of rejecting Christ? You won't say that, I'm betting, because virtually no educated Westerner believes that anymore.

So TEC, as I said, with its concern for "sensitivity to other faiths," is trying to find its way through this reality. Conservative Christians, meanwhile, claim to be "Bible-believers" who take seriously what's in Scripture, and yet -- with the exception of Third World missions, as noted above -- they simply ignore the Great Commission ("teach allnations, not just the poor ones), as well as the claim out of Jesus' own mouth that He, and He alone, is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father but by Him. They just ignore this, because it's easier and more satisfying to treat socially conservative Jews and others as fellow culture warriors rather than as targets for conversion.

I just don't see how anyone can deny this obvious fact. Tell me, when did you, personally, last tell any of your own Jewish friends that they're in real trouble, not only in terms of their immortal souls but in their (in-)ability to fully experience life, love and a strong community, until they accept that the Messiah whom Jews pray to God for has already come, that his name is Jesus, and that's he's the living Son of God who will judge them along with everyone else? I'll bet it's been a while since you mentioned this to them, hasn't it?

Rod still seems to think that Christianity is a democracy, where theology should be put up for a popular vote.

CBA still seems to think that it's an abomination if a man happens to have sex with his wife around the time she's menstruating (that would be the one that's about two verses up from the one on homosexuality). Incidentally, if you're practicing the Rhythm Method, you're probably an abomination and definitely not a Christian, at least according to CBA. Or are we going to get selective again about the parts of the Law we like again?

And I'd love to see the citation where Jesus or Paul or anyone else said that Leviticus 17 doesn't count anymore but Leviticus 18 does. Leviticus 19 is partly out and partly in I suppose, depending on the verse (and CBA's disposition). So keep verse 4, toss verses 9 and 10, keep verses 11-16, toss verse 19 (or are we forbidding cotton-poly blends? That's not a dietary restriction, so I guess according to CBA, if you shop at Penney's you're going to hell...that must be why all REAL Christians shop at Wal-Mart and wear lurid 100% polyester prints).

I'm kind of confused about verse 20, which seems to say that sleeping with a slave girl is OK as long as she's not promised to someone else, so indentured Eastern European Prostitutes for all! Woo hoo!

Obviously Jesus was the one who went through and picked those parts of the Law to be observed and those which could be discarded. CBA says it, so it must be true.

I really love the conservative position here: when liberals pick and choose the parts of the Bible they like, why it's BLASPHEMY! They're NOT CHRISTIAN!! But when conservatives do the exact same thing (albeit with different parts) then it's Truth and the Word of GOD.

What hubris.

Actually, to clarify what Rod's position should be (in light of his very interesting article posted earlier on freedom and authority as well as previous posts on authority in general), I think I now have it straight.

All good Christians should submit to authority. Except when authority decides something other than what lots of Christians (especially me) believe. Then all good Christians should do what a majority of Christians say we should do. But the Church is still a hierarchy. So respect that. And follow its dictates. Unless they tell you something that violates your conscience. Or seems too cultish. Then do what you think is right. Or what lots of others think is right. Or what authority thinks is right.

Right?

Right.

People only try to convert those with little or no access to good legal representation.
Multiculturalism is itself a unicultural phenomenon; like new Volvos, Birkenstocks and using words like 'praxis' in daily speech.
Mainly Anglicans openly regret that the 'wrong' mission societies went to Africa, that they were not 'attentive' in noticing that the only high church missionaries went to South Africa; the rest were evangelicals. They didn't pay attention because they 1. didn't care that much about what Africans were being taught and 2. gays weren't that serious an (open)issue for them yet. Now, combine that with their much lower birthrates and membership and you have this problem of liberals in the west preaching to the third worlder churches feeling their oats and enjoying the irony of white liberals telling the people in the pews "We know more than these Africans-they're only a generation or two removed from animism." just like a Klansman.

For places where Baptist churches are dominant such as the South, Jews are very rare. Your average Baptist in America has little contact with one on a daily basis. ....many conservative Evangelicals in general and Baptists specifically don't come in contact with Jews and Buddhists that often. ....I'm not sure if sending Baptists missionaries door to door to Jews in LA would be very productive either.

rr, wow. That is a stunning answer. So the problem is, what, the bus fare? Missionaries can go off to Thailand, but can't manage to travel within the U.S.?

Oh right -- just checked my Pocket Testament, and I'd forgotten that what Jesus actually said was, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, unless of course they're some distance away, or you don't happen to come into contact with them much, or you think it might not be very productive." For some reason those last clauses always get left off.

Seriously, I figured you'd mention Jews for Jesus. That's why I asked for evidence of anything large-scale, that is, whether any of the major denominations are doing anything serious in this regard. If the Southern Baptists are seriously trying to evangelize Mormons, OK, I'll grant you that one. On the other hand, Mormonism's origins are still recent enough (and strange enough) that I can see where some Christians might see it as a still-correctable error. But isn't it pretty clear that, in general, they've given up on treating the great historic faiths that way? Of course they don't say that, but they practice it -- and haven't we been reliably told that "by their fruits ye shall know them"?

Anyway, your defense boils down to, "Well, they're lazy." I think a stronger explanation is that they're tacit liberals who have accepted that other faiths are also legitimate ways to God, but they just haven't bothered yet to square their professed beliefs with the tacit beliefs that are motivating their (in-)actions. That's what I'm calling their intellectual inconsistency.

As to your other point, I didn't say 19th century, did I? The great era of exploration and mapmaking that made clear how big and diverse the world is was underway by 1500, and the crisis of Christianity I said it provoked was in full swing no later than the 18th century, when Schleiermacher and others started working out what has come to be the "liberal" (but actually everyone's) response.

Why would anyone pay attention to Bishop Spong or any other "theologian" that rejects revelation? What is the basis of their knowledge and insight if the Bible and 2000 years of Tradition are not true? What is the source of their authority other than presuming that they are smarter, more informed (of what?) and more in touch with God (or the Star Wars-like Force)? Does anyone really accept that they are "holier than thou" or wiser? They're losing followers in droves as it is, all the while pretending to be good believing Christians when the money of 80 year olds is on the table. Why not stop the lie and be the good apostates that they really are. But then they'd had to give up getting paid for being bishops and theologians, getting to manage all that real estate and all the media and in-crowd attention.

CBA, I'll share one with you. You seem to need it too.

CFK: My point is that ALL major Christian denominations in the West have tacitly accepted the reality we now know -- that is, they all accept that Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and the rest are legitimate religious traditions in their own right and part of the world's diversity, not simply big mistakes or failures or forms of spiritual ignorance that we should be going in and trying to correct.

Right? Even you agree with that, don't you? Or are you prepared to say, here and now, that Judaism (let's take that one as the test case) is not a religion with its own legitimate understanding of God, praiseworthy modes of worship and ability to build strong characters and communities, but is actually just one form of the damnable error of rejecting Christ? You won't say that, I'm betting, because virtually no educated Westerner believes that anymore.

I can't help but notice that Rod did not answer you directly, CFK. Either he doesn't really believe that Jews are unsaved and therefore hellbound, just as you postulated, or he's afraid of declaring Christ's truth as he understands it because he doesn't want to give offense. On the horns of a dilemma, indeed.

By the way, I found your posts today to be very thoughtful and well-stated. Thank you for taking the time to compose and share them.

CFK, what world do you live in? Do you really think that outside the United States and Western Europe, the world is clamoring to embrace gay marriage, and that the vast majority of Christians believe sexually active gay men should be priests and bishops? Guy, aside from Desmond Tutu and that loony South African gay Catholic bishop from St. Sebastian's Angels, the only people who see "diversity" the way you do live in Western Europe and North America. You appear to have a bizarre idee fixe that "diversity" means everybody agrees to the Western culturally liberal agenda. There are tens of millions of black and brown Christians in the Global South and elsewhere who say, "Not no, but hell no." The people who are in denial about "the world's diversity" are precisely those white First-World liberals who devoutly wish the Third World Christians, who vastly outnumber them, would shut up and give in.

You've left out Australia, for one. And India decriminalized homosexuality a few days ago.

Latin America, where Third World Christians are moving in socially liberal directions, probably isn't a place you want to put money on staying where it is at present on gay rights.

And just how secure are you that African Christians won't be following Desmond Tutu in two generations rather than Peter Akinola?

public defender,

*Orthodox* Anglicans -- not "conservative" ones -- are finished in the Episcopal Church.

Which is to say that the two out of five or so Episcopalians who maintain Christian Orthodoxy in full Communion with 99% of Anglicans worldwide have been finished off politically within the Episcopal Church by the dissident 1% of the Anglican Communion that has opted for heresy and is in schism with the 99%.

And it is the heretics who have moved to force the orthodox out of the Episcopal Church and not the other way round.

No liberal of any sort has ever been "happy to coexist" with anyone who wasn't a liberal.

To suggest otherwise is perhaps as risible a statement as one could ever make -- though you've had a lot of competition from fellow liberals on this thread alone.

As for the notion that the finishing off of orthodox Episcopalians has "[no] effect" on their "daily life" (sic) -- well I would say that that might be an even more risible suggestion yet, if the suggestion were intended for laughs and not to hurt, and not to wound by its cruelty and meanness of spirit.

PS: It is the liberals in the Episcopal Church, as in every other context, who are truly conservative because truly in thrall to the status-quo or our fallen and sinful human state. And it is the orthodox Christians within the Episcopal Church who are, as in the every other context, the truly radical ones, because the ones in true rebellion against our fallen and sinful human state.

CFK, what world do you live in? Do you really think that outside the United States and Western Europe, the world is clamoring to embrace gay marriage, and that the vast majority of Christians believe sexually active gay men should be priests and bishops? Guy, aside from Desmond Tutu and that loony South African gay Catholic bishop from St. Sebastian's Angels, the only people who see "diversity" the way you do live in Western Europe and North America. You appear to have a bizarre idee fixe that "diversity" means everybody agrees to the Western culturally liberal agenda. There are tens of millions of black and brown Christians in the Global South and elsewhere who say, "Not no, but hell no." The people who are in denial about "the world's diversity" are precisely those white First-World liberals who devoutly wish the Third World Christians, who vastly outnumber them, would shut up and give in.

Rod, while I'd agree with you that Western-style social liberalism/libertarianism isn't as popular in the Global South as it is in the West, I wouldn't be so sure that this will always be the case or that it is even the general case now in many parts of the Global South. For example, gay civil unions have been legalized in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, two mega-cities that arguably are the culturally most important cities in Latin America. Other places in Latin America have followed suit, so perhaps there is a clamor for that sort of thing, at least in some major parts of the Global South.

If history is any guide, Western ideas tend to be adopted by non-Western populations quite readily, so gay rights and other Western social liberal causes may be quite successful, at least in the Latin parts of the Global South, which happen to be the most historically Christian parts of the Global South. (Actually, while such areas are part of the Global South, I'm not sure I'd exclude them from the West, given their heritage and history.) Plus, let's remember that a lot of these issues weren't even on the agenda in the US a decade or two ago, so the fact that other nations aren't moving as quickly as the US and Western Europe have on such issues may not say much. Last - while Desmond Tutu may be only one man, he is a pretty important opinion leader, so I wouldn't dismiss him.

CBK: Rod, your latest response doesn't address whether you accept the Great Commission or not. "I don't believe it is my place to decide their eternal fate" is either saying you don't or is evading the question, which was not who gets to "decide" their eternal fate but what Christians are obliged to do that might affect it. It sounds like you're basically shrugging and saying, well, I hope that maybe it's not really my problem because somehow they'll be saved anyway, despite rejecting Christ. Pretty weak tea.

I believe the Gospel should be preached to all the world. Do you want me to say that I believe it is my solemn duty to take all my non-Christian friends aside and tell them they'd better accept Jesus or prepare to burn? Because I'm not gonna. I am deeply uncomfortable with face-to-face evangelism -- not in principle, necessarily, but because I do not personally find it easy to talk to people in person about my faith when they didn't ask.

“I suppose my point, once you cut through my over-the-top bombast and verbal diarrhea is that all Christians decide which aspects of moral teachings are important and which are outdated or irrelevant.”

This is a convenient thing to assert for the purposes of furthering your ideology. Of course, your wrong. Not even the most radical protestants do this.

Where do you get this stuff? Do people ever buy it?

Rod: Is that good enough for you, or do you want more?

No, that's sufficient. You basically acceded to CFK's point that "what’s apparently happening is that liberal Christians are at last struggling toward something like intellectual consistency: If you’re not actually going to make a serious, urgent effort to convert Jews, Muslims and Buddhists (and no significant Christian group will), then don’t claim to believe that Christ or Christianity is the only path to becoming right with God." Although you do state that "insofar as any of us, Christian or non-Christian, are saved in this life and the next, it is through Jesus Christ," you don't make the declaration most people associate with conservative Christianity that you must accept Christ as Lord and Savior in order to be saved.

Therefore you aren't guilty of, as CFK put it, "[t]he real inconsistency ... of (most) conservatives, who will go on making that very claim -- as part of a general claim to be following the Bible to the letter -- yet who have no intention at all of making asses of themselves by going around telling good, God-fearing Jews and others that they are lost souls who are damned for all eternity if they don’t convert."

Jillian,

If you have something theologically illiterate to say to "Hugh Henry" you should say it to him and not me.

Or better yet not say it at all.

This is a convenient thing to assert for the purposes of furthering your ideology. Of course, your wrong. Not even the most radical protestants do this.

So "even the most radical protestants" still think that divorce is a sin on a par with, say, murder?

"Liberals like yourself wouldn't be here bleating like you do all day every day if didn't truly believe that gay sex or abortion of whatever are truly good things....."

Well, the way I would bleat it is, I think freedom and equal rights are good things. Absolutely! No, I'm not a relativist, don't claim to be, and for that matter was not claiming that conservative Christians are relativists in general or about everything. I'm saying that their behavior strongly suggests that they are relativists on the specific question of whether Christianity is the exclusively right way to God, absent which people are in serious spiritual trouble.

And look, I don't care if they're relativists about that -- I think it's probably good that they are. It's just that they're not honest with themselves about it. They claim to accept Matt. 28:19-20 and John 14:6 (among others) literally, then don’t act on their plain meaning, but beg off in the various ways that Rod Dreher and others here have been trying to rationalize. It is less inconsistent to just say, look, Jews and Buddhists and Muslims and others have their own legitimate paths to God, so leave them to go their own way. That’s where liberals like TEC seem to be heading if not they’re already, and I think it’s good that they’re trying to bring their professions of faith in line with their practices. Conservatives should try that too.

I am aware that conservative religions preach strict sexual morality, I just don't believe that they practice it. Anywhere in the world, any time, any particular religion. People (fallen) seem to be people no matter where or when you go (went). Conservatives PRETEND that we should follow the old standards. Where is any evidence that they actually did? My argument with Rod is that it may be time to get over denial, and adapt a sexual morality that is in agreement over how people really have believed the last 10,000 years, AND that avoids allowing the powerful and elect from hurting other people. It was not conservatives that brought the abuse of women and children to the forefront. It was liberals. (which does not mean that other liberals may not have been abusers).

That’s where liberals like TEC seem to be heading if not they’re already.....

I meant, that's where they're heading if they're not THERE already. Tired, going to bed now. It's been interesting, though.

Dreher: Conservatives are finished in the Episcopal Church. Had liberals lost so decisively, I would write that the liberal cause is done for in TEC. But there has been a decades-long drama in which conservatives have steadily lost ground, but have kept up the fight because they've either thought they might turn this thing around, or at least gain some ground for themselves. They've steadily lost, and now, they've lost good and hard. What's wrong with speaking the truth?

Losing an argument is a lot different than being "finished." What did the liberals do that forced the conservatives to change the way they worshiped or led their lives?

CBA: No liberal of any sort has ever been "happy to coexist" with anyone who wasn't a liberal.

Again, the conservatives could have stayed. Conservatives have been pushing for schism, not liberals. How many liberals leaders called for the thug Akinola and his American followers to be excluded from the communion? (Remember, many of the American conservatives chose Akinola as their leader because of his anti-gay views, which include imprisoning gay people merely for speaking publicly.)

As for 2000 years of error, it happens. In the more general threads about homosexuality, they conservative arguments come down to 1) appeals to non-universally accepted authority; 2) gay sex is icky; 3) comparing gay people to pedophiles; 4) studies that show that when lots of people discriminate against gay people, gay people are less happy than straight people; 5) studies that show that marriage makes families stronger and that assume that since unmarried gay people create less stable families than married heterosexuals, gay marriage would weaken the family.

The arguments other than appeal-to-authority are nonsensical. I remember Oliver Wendell Holmes saying, "It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV (or, I guess he could have said by Paul). It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past."

Blind imitation of past can hurt hurt families. I guess Akinola had a point. Unless you are willing to brutally suppress gay people and gay rights, banning gay marriage will encourage promiscuity, discourage monogamy, and denying the children of gay people the protections of marriage. It hurts the weak and benefits no one. Without gay marriage, gay people can still have sex. Gay people can still have families. We will effectively encourage promiscuity and non-devotion to family.

If faced with the choice that exists today, do you think Paul or Jesus would say that it's better to encourage gay promiscuity or gay monogamy? Do you think either of them would say it is better to deny the kids of gay parents the protections of marriage or give them the protections of marriage? Or would Jesus and Paul take the Akinola choice of sending gay people to prison?

Conservatives lost an argument and a vote. In every faith, people sometimes lose arguments. Your side doesn't always get to win. But conservative Episcopalians can still preach. They can still lead their lives. They are still free to marry people of the opposite sex. They are still free to have children only after marriage. If that's "finished," the sky must fall a lot around them.

Some conservatives are choosing schism. This is their decision and their right. They need to take responsibility for their choice.

@ public defender

Jesus is alive today. He continues to guide His followers, and He teaches those who are humble and listen to Him that sexual acts are not be engaged in between men and men, but only between men and women who are married before God.

This is the difference between the conservatives and the liberals. The liberals have imagined up for themselves a God who does not condemn them for their sins, but instead blesses whatever sin it is they desire to do. They refuse to recognize a God who demands anything of them that they are not already happy to give him.

The conservative kneel before God, and recognize their our frailty and unworthiness. They accept with gratitude Christ's grace and pledge themselves to repent of their sins, no matter how difficult that may be, or how tempting the sin is to them. They will sacrifice all that they have to know Him. They accept that God is wiser than us, and that His word cannot be opposed by such feeble methods as flawed human reason.

This is the difference. Conservatives worship God, and struggle to obey his word. Liberals think they've progressed so much that they can figure out God's will on their own, without consulting Him or His counsel- and somehow this always seems to be in alignment with their own inclinations.

By the way, I'm curious: do any of those condemning homosexuality here have money in the stock market? The prohibition on usury was rooted in scripture, tradition, and (to a large extent) natural law. Other than the fact that the Catholic Church decided to liberalize the rules about usury in the 18th century (recognizing the fact that we no longer lived in a steady state agrarian economy) and has not yet done so about homosexuality, I'm not sure that the grounds for condemning one are any less strong than the other. Now I certainly believe that individuals and society should uphold the _spirit_ of the old usury laws, and I think we've gone much too far (under capitalism) in the other direction. My economic views are more or less socialist, and I'd be happier, for example, if banks were owned by the state. That said, I think that trying to follow the spirit of the law rather than the letter is the right approach concerning monetary interest, and also about homosexuality. "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life". Say no to promiscuity, to pansexualism, and to the idea that we can reshape our natures to whatever we see fit, but I'm not sure that requires we tell gay people to say no to sexual relationships period.

Hector, your points are well-taken, and I have tried to remain open to ways to reconcile myself to greater toleration within the church of homosexual conduct with an otherwise orthodox theology. My inability to do so - or, rather, my inability to see that any significant proportion of the leadership in the Episcopal Church or of mainline theologians more generally were either capable of or interested in doing so - is what has led me into an ACNA congregation. If more folks in the national church leadership had taken the position you seem to be leaning toward - openness to certain types of homosexual relationships with a vigorously orthodox soteriology, christology, and so on, I might still be an Episcopalian. Indeed, although the 2003 General Convention caused me deep concern, it was that summer's Trinity Sunday sermon at my parish in Seattle - by a priest who should've known better - that convinced me I could no longer remain: It was an eloquent explanation of why Christians shouldn't allow their idea of God to be boxed into the narrow confines of the Trinity, with references to Native American religious thought suggested as a possible alternative.

It was at that point that I realized that in many (most?) instances, deviation from Christian teaching on sexuality was inextricably linked to deviation on other, more foundational matters. Once you've given up on or diluted the Trinity, how can you plausibly call yourself Christian in the historical sense? It was this realization - that I could not separate innovation in the church's sexual teaching from a deeper heterodoxy - that led me out of the church. If somebody could show me a body (i.e., not isolated priests/pastors/congregations) that was able to unashamedly propound a energetic orthodoxy and articulate from that theology a basis for recognizing (religiously) gay relationships, I would be open to persuasion...

Religion is the only thing that makes gay WRONG. Religion is also going out of business. Interest that the gays are the ones leading that cause.

As Christians continue to "revise" their beliefs (marketing) to attract gays, they are undermining the very idea of Christianity as "truth."

The gays are winning this one. Soon the Episcopals and others will formally change their doctrine and Homosexuality will no longer be wrong. Once that happens religion is finished. Hurry up Episcopals.

Geoff G.

"Matthew 7:1-2 Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

Meaning clearly and obviously not that we should take leave of our ability to judge a situation, but that the judgement we use on others will be applied to us by God. Thus elsewhere:

"Judge not according to the appearance, but judge just judgement" (St. John 7.24)

Could we have a break from non-Christians telling Christian's what their faith says? Please?

“Religion is the only thing that makes gay WRONG. Religion is also going out of business. Interest that the gays are the ones leading that cause.
As Christians continue to "revise" their beliefs (marketing) to attract gays, they are undermining the very idea of Christianity as "truth."
The gays are winning this one. Soon the Episcopals and others will formally change their doctrine and Homosexuality will no longer be wrong. Once that happens religion is finished. Hurry up Episcopals.”

Huh?

Brian, now listen... I want you to slowly...carefully set down that 12 pack...grab the sofa for balance... and walk away....

Hurry up Episcopals!!!!

The only proof you have offered is that they don't evangelize non-Christians to whatever degree you would deem sufficient to demonstrate their fervor for fulling the great commission. And that is no proof at all.

rr, that's a novel and interesting definition of "proof." If more widely adopted, it would shut down most our court system, since both civil and criminal trials are very, very often about using people's behavior as evidence of what they were thinking. Granted, it would be simpler if every defendant just up and declared, "Yeah, hey, I intended to kill the guy," but they usually don't, so there's a limit to what we can prove using people's direct statements. Hence the need to look at what people actually do, not just what they say.

Oh, and by the way, if one follows your logic then liberals don't believe in preserving the environment, preventing global warming and fighting poverty.

Yes, the same logic applies to liberal, I agree. Those that don't act in ways consistent with a professed interest in the environment probably do not really care as much about the environment as they claim to. And conservatives who claim to believe that fertilized eggs are people, yet who sit around passively while IVF clinics toss out fertilized eggs by the hundreds, may not be entirely serious in their alleged belief. And so on. (Your serve).

quote: "Yes, the same logic applies to liberal, I agree. Those that don't act in ways consistent with a professed interest in the environment probably do not really care as much about the environment as they claim to."

Wow, I'm surprised that you are consistent here. But I disagree with you, even with respect to liberals and the environment. I think you are holding Christians, and human beings in general to a standard that is simply too high. I bet if you really, really looked at your own life that you would find that you also don't live up to your own beliefs/ideals at times. So does that mean that deep down you don't really believe them? Seriously, think about it. I fear that if you applied your way of thinking on this across the board that it would lead to the renouncing of all beliefs/ideals for some form of cynicism or nihilism.

rr

quote: "No, they're not rejecting Christ out of "malice," but neither are they acting in ignorance -- they've got the Christian option right in front of their noses, and they're saying no. rr would have us believe, apparently, that this means that Christians should just give up on them and head out to far corners of the earth where ignorance might still be the problem."

I never said that Christians should give up on Jews. In terms of priorities, however, it does make more sense to spend ones efforts throwing life lines to drowning people that don't have access to one than to spend ones time constantly imploring those who have said life line in front of their face and won't grab hold of it. If you read the NT you will notice that if a group of people rejected Christ, the missionaries such as Paul often moved on to someone else who hadn't heard about him yet. The point of the great commission is to tell everyone in the world, not tell some people in the world multiple times and ignore the rest who haven't heard.

CFK,

Perhaps I should leave you with a concrete example about what I said about ideals/beliefs above. Do you believe in helping poor starving people in Third World countries as well as the poor in this country? Do you also make more money than you really need to provide for your basic needs? Since you are an American (who evidently owns a computer, a clear sign of your class), you probably do. Then why aren't you giving all the excess money you have and goods you own to the poor? Don't you know that they are starving and living in horrible conditions? Your actions speak louder than words. Clearly you don't care about the poor, right?

rr

Any church that can't tell a bishop from a queen is doomed to imminenet failure.

Indeed that's what I think (to get back to the point of the thread) we're seeing in TEC right now: On gay issues, the liberal position is winning because it's ultimately where all of Christianity is going to go.

CFK,

Thanks for a thoughtful response in your last post. The thread seems to be winding down. I'd like to close by saying that nothing is inevitable on this. Yes, the liberal position is winning in TEC and in other mainline/liberal Protestant bodies. But the demographics don't bode well for the future of these bodies. Moreover, the gay issue is just another one that further estranges them from conservative churches, who currently see churches such as TEC as a crazy or even apostate. Also, conservative churches are generally healthier demographically.

Currently the liberal position on homosexuality is the minority report in Christianity only accepted by church bodies that are predominately wealthier, older and shrinking. For all of Christianity to change its position on homosexuality, the conservatives will absolutely have to change. I don't see any indication of this yet. And since we don't know the future, there is no guarantee it will ever occur. It's possible that conservatives will change. It's also possible, and in my view more likely, that they won't and that TEC will to some degree go the way of the Shakers.

rr

Rod was taken to task (a bit unfairly, I think) about evangelism in this thread. The recurrent question was "do you tell your Jewish friends that they're damned?"

I think it's worthwhile to point out here that cross-religious views are not symmetrical. Jews do believe in an afterlife. Everybody gets in. According to Jewish belief, you're in. Congratulations.

There is also a Jewish belief in hell. If you're really bad, after you die you will go to hell and you will stay there for eleven months.

A whole year would be cruel and we know that God has infinite mercy, and wouldn't be cruel, right?

There is a Jewish belief that the World to Come is an eternal study session lead by God. We all get to discuss the important things and see them with clarity.

rr, maybe so. My own guess is that opposition to gay rights and gay equality is going the way of opposition to racial equality, and that all churches that hope to remain viable in the future will eventually get with the new program, just as they eventually climbed down from former positions justifying racial discrimination. There may be some fancy arguments involved, but that's where they'll end up, I think. (The Mormons, of course, have the simplest method -- their president just gets a new "revelation" that, oh, OK, it's wrong to exclude blacks after all, or whatever.)

But we'll see! Meanwhile, on to other threads.