With all due respect to Bishop Parsley, he is in the business of splitting hairs with his desire to restrict this to states where same-sex unions are legal.

What difference would that make?  The Episcopal Church would still be overthrowing 2000+ years of tradition with respect to the sacrament of marriage. It does not matter in the least that it is restricted to certain geographical areas. The upshot is that the church has declared that same-sex unions are worthy of the blessing of the church.

As I say this is hair-splitting of the first order.

#1, Allen, it is hair splitting but it’s also moot. When I was an undergrad at Sewanee there was a seminarian who did a miracle of healing on a hopeless case. John Throop healed the organ over at the seminary when everyone thought it was terminally ill. I have no idea whatever became of him, but maybe we could get him back to try to heal the Episcopal Church? It’s a long shot, but it might just work.

Check out that 5th resolved clause:

Resolved, that the Anglican Consultative Council be invited to conversation regarding this resolution and the work that proceeds from it, together with other churches in the Anglican Communion engaged in similar processes.

THEY ONLY WANT TO HEAR FROM PEOPLE WHO AGREE WITH THEM.  NOT THE ABC, NOT THE PRIMATES, NOT CHURCHES WHO FORBID SSBs.  SO MUCH FOR LISTENING

This whole resolution is meaningless.  This is going on across ECUSA already.  What does this change?  Is it supposed to be some kind of improvement that the fox voted properly to plunder the henhouse?

What gets missed after years upon years of this stuff, even by “theological conservatives,” is that what ECUSA is doing already is so contrary to the Christian Tradition that it should have been ejected first, with talking second.  Instead, we wait for ACC meetings, and Primates Meetings, etc., to watch this be debated as though the question were why Episcopalians are wearing yellow cassocks and is that appropriate, all while Canterbury is more than happy to watch some of the most productive parts of its flock walk away, probably forever.  Acceptable losses, I guess.

This state of affairs ought to tell us which side of the debate is going to win Anglicanism at the end of the day.  It ain’t pretty.

#1
+Henry is an institutionalist.  He personally is in favor of SSBs and believes that once this issue of “full inclusion” is resolved, all the current unpleasantness will go away in time.  However, he is also acutely aware that TEC actions beginning in 2003 have been rushed through too soon, too fast, and are guaranteeing a “train wreck.”  His term at the time, and now.  I suspect that the Reappraisers will have reason to look back and wish they had listened to him, and in fact selected him PB.

Since all six bishops on this committee unanimously endorsed this unambiguous resolution in support of immediately allowing SSB’s and SSM’s (as a “pastoral” response to the needs of gay couples) as well as crafting normative future rites for that purpose, that certainly suggests that resistance within the HoB may not be sufficient to defeat this resolution.  This is thus different from the case of B012, where the five bishops on the pertinent committe in that case (World Mission) split 3-2, voting narrowly against it.

My point is that a unanimous recommendation from the bishops on the PLM committee does create a certain apriori presumption that it will take determined, organized opposition to resist that recommendation and defeat this fateful resolution.  It’s passage by the HoD is taken for granted.  But I have real doubts that the HoB will be able to hold the line.

And yes, so much for either Alabama or Virginia (+Shannon Johnston’s on the committee) being “Windsor compliant.”  The Windsor bishops (now reduced probably to the CP bishops) just folded without even putting up a fight in New Orleans in 2007.  Sadly, I don’t expect anything more out of them in 2009.

We’ll soon see.

David Handy+

I think the folks in Anaheim may be deciding whether or not my parish will continue to exist.

Number 5—who is more dangerous? An institutionalist who encourages heresy—or worse—to creep in under the radar, while denying that it is happening, or the radical liberal who announces it for all to hear?

I use to think the latter. Now I realize the former is much more dangerous.

07-13-2009 at 04:58 PM
And they say the day would never come when . . .

Fr. Handy could complete his thought in three paragraphs.
(smiley here)

Peace & no ill will intended,
-ms

miserable sinner (#9),

No ill will taken, ms.  I freely concede that I’m often verbose; maybe it’s an occupational hazard of preachers.  And maybe even more so with professorial types, since college or seminary profs are allowed to lecture for an hour, whereas sermons are generally shorter (wink).

I regret to note that my prediction of a liberal landslide came true.  The CP bishops didn’t fold (like the “Windsor bishops” in New Orleans).  They bore courageous witness, but the other institutionalist bishops just rolled over and played dead.  But I think it’s just as well, since now we have unmistakable clarity.

David Handy+
(And note: only two, yes, count ‘em, 2, paragraphs)

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the heretic is far more dangerous You know the other is planning to do..the second lies, and smiles and slips it in