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2006-06-29 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by Fred 2006-06-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 "God's light and God's life ooze
over me like warm butter."
-- Gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson

EWWWWWWWWW.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-06-29 09:18|| 2006-06-29 09:18|| Front Page Top

#2 Hmmm...

On Tuesday, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, said the divisions have become so deep that member churches who support ordaining gays may have to accept a lesser role in the fellowship to prevent a schism.

Duncan is the head of the Anglican Communion Network, which represents 10 conservative U.S. dioceses and more than 900 parishes within the Episcopal Church who are deciding whether to break from the denomination. On Wednesday, Pittsburgh leaders said they would seek permission from the top Episcopal legislative body for a new division within the church that would bring together dioceses with traditional biblical views.

I'm not sure I understand what is going on here. 900 churches divided by 50 states = approx 18 churhes per state. Not sure what the total number of Episcopalian Churches is.

This article does a poor job in explaining what's going on - which may be a good sign.

Posted by 2b 2006-06-29 09:34|| 2006-06-29 09:34|| Front Page Top

#3 There has been a pending schism in the Episcopal church for nearly 30 years. This has been building a long time and won't be resolved with any hanlf-way measures, I suspect.

Posted by lotp 2006-06-29 09:37|| 2006-06-29 09:37|| Front Page Top

#4 I really haven't followed this controversy (despite have been baptised/raised Episcopalian). But I suspect that in the end, this is about the money and the property. I'm sure the church and surrounding properties(rectory etc) in my home town is worth mega-millions and multiply that times all the others located in prime property in Boston, DC, NYC, etc. I suspect they don't split because of the squabbles over the divorce settlement. Sad.

Posted by 2b 2006-06-29 10:00|| 2006-06-29 10:00|| Front Page Top

#5 So, the honorary druid finally begins to see what he's been promoting will split the church?

Loss of money and power has a tendency to focus the brain.

Posted by anonymous2u 2006-06-29 10:43|| 2006-06-29 10:43|| Front Page Top

#6 I suspect they don't split because of the squabbles over the divorce settlement. Sad.

This has been building a long time and won't be resolved with any hanlf-way measures, I suspect.

Both points are spot-on. The Church leaders are desperate to avoid a full schism. They have their lawyers working overtime to make sure no "foreign" org can get the assets if local dioceses split and affiliate with another Anglican group. And all their talk of "compromise" and "consensus" and "restraint" smacks of a political party contorting itself to avoid alienating constituent groups. No principle involved beyond self preservation.

It's obvious that the Church as a whole doesn't even have the courage to stand by its convictions. On the one hand they pass a resolution stating that gays and lesbians are full members in good standing, clearly implying no sin in such lifestyles - later confirmed by the new PB's explicit remarks. But another resolution calls for dioceses to show "restraint" by not nominating gay clergy as bishops as a way to avoid contention. The two resolutions cannot be reconciled: if there is no sin involved there is no reason whatsoever to practice such restraint.

But to me, the gay clergy issue is just a facet or mosaic tile of a larger problem. The Church has unmoored itself from its foundation and is completely at the mercy of the politics of its members, which is getting increasingly "progressive" as the conservatives leave in droves.

In my view the problem with going to another Anglican org is that the Anglican Church is even worse on many points. They are openly anti-semitic and anti-American - much moreso that the ECUSA. The only reason they are conservative on the gay issues is the majority of Anglicans worldwide are African and Asian and Canterbury can't afford (literally) to have them split.

I apologize for the long rant, but I'm an Episcopalian (not for long, though) who's on my local parish Vestry and has finally had too much of the idiocy.

Posted by Xbalanke 2006-06-29 13:26|| 2006-06-29 13:26|| Front Page Top

#7 I hope you have better luck finding another protestant church than we have had. I know they are out there .... The last Methodist Church I went to had potential - full church, active, multiple services, active school - but they were in the middle of a very slick NPR type drive to raise money for remodel. First clue that things were amiss was when he announced they were going to put your name/picture on a wall in the lobby broken into categories depending on size of gift. It all went downhill from there. The guy gave a pretty good sermon which at the very end came to the point of why you should donate more.

After church, we actually went to see the board expecting to find the biggest givers enclosed in halo circles nearest to little fluffy clouds at top.

We went back one more time (not many to choose from these days) to see if it was just a one time thing. Same thing - guy gives sermon which closes with a moral as to the importance of giving to The Remodel for the glory and success of their church.

Bleah.

Posted by 2b 2006-06-29 14:08|| 2006-06-29 14:08|| Front Page Top

#8 If there is a gay divorce of the Episcopalian church, who gets custody of the dogma?

Posted by BrerRabbit 2006-06-29 14:10|| 2006-06-29 14:10|| Front Page Top

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