BREAKING NEWS From The Living Church on Bishop Orama UPI Report

well…there, +++Rowan is growing coj_nes…? A trend I hope!

seraph

In a statement released by the Anglican Consultative Council’s press office on Sept. 7, Archbishop Williams expressed “deep shock” at remarks made by the Bishop of Uyo, the Rt. Rev. Isaac Orama.

Did +++Rowan register and express “deep shock” over Bishop Spong’s recent letter to him too?

Note that the original NAN report mentioned nothing of the Diocesan Synod, nor of anything else that would normally be included by a reporter to provide context, a giveaway of its amateurish origin.

Another point is that the NAN report, other than its probably automatic echo on UPI, got no real distribution whatever—no major media, even in Nigeria, picked it up.  It wasn’t easy to find the original report; my prediction is that it will be even harder to find the NAN retraction.

... but we make mistakes like everyone else and when that happens, we apologize with as much humility as possible.

Thanks Jackie.  Here’s how I’m processing things at the moment and I’m requesting your kind assistance about Matt. 7:1-5 and how it applies in this instance.  Hypothetical dialogue:

Traditionalist:  “Liberal revisionist leaders and their blogs need to apologize for their condemnations of Bishop Orama and his statements.”

Revisionist:  “Why?  You haven’t apologized for your condemnations of Bishop Orama and his statements either.  You used the same faulty assumption and reliance on that reporter as we did.  We used the same qualifier as you:  ‘If accurately reported…. ‘  So if you don’t issue an apology, why should we?  You want to take out your plank so you can help us with the speck in our eye?

But you know what, we’ll issue an apology.  What about you with your “Condemn without reservation”?

Also, are you just going to say that you issued a qualifier so that that clears you from having to issue an apology?  Ya know, I’m not really impressed.”

Traditionalist:  “Ummmmmmm, well….”

So Jackie, could you please point me to where I can see that there is indeed an apology with as much humility as possible?

Peace and blessings.

Uh…TUD, There were no “qualifiers” in Jake’s posts:

Bp. Orama: “Insane, Satanic Gays Not Fit to Live”
From the UPI:

The Anglican Bishop of Uyo, Rt. Rev. Isaac Orama, has condemned the activities of homosexuals and lesbians…

...“Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman. Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God’s purpose for man,” the Bishop said. He noted that the Anglican Church in Nigeria had continued to lead the fight against the practice especially in the US where it led the opposition to same sex marriages…
“Not fit to live…” Harsh.

So, is this just an isolated rant from an obviously disturbed man who happens to be a bishop of the Church of Nigeria? Perhaps.

Or perhaps this bishop is taking the lead from the Archbishop of All Nigeria (before he started using an editor), who set the example for him:

Peter Akinola, leader of the 17.5 million-strong church in Nigeria, hit out at the recent election in America of the first openly gay bishop.

“This is an attack on the Church of God - a Satanic attack on God’s church,” he told the Lagos-based Guardian newspaper.

“I cannot think of how a man in his senses would be having a sexual relationship with another man. Even in the world of animals, dogs, cows, lions, we don’t hear of such things.

When we sit down globally as a communion, I am going to sit in a meeting with a man who is marrying a fellow man,’ he added. ‘I mean it’s just not possible. I cannot see myself doing it.”
Unfortunately, this is not the only time that Abp. Akinola has made derogatory statements about a particular minority group in the Church:

...To opine that, unknown to humans, God had hitherto created some people to be homosexuals and lesbians (i.e., sexual orientations) is tantamount to creating God in our own image and introducing a cancerous element into the fabric of the African understanding of marriage and family.

Homosexuality and lesbianism, like divorce, breed a society of single parents which gives rise to a generation of bastards. And in the context of much poverty and lack of education, this further produces an ill-bred generation of hooligans, portending much terror to the peace and stability of the society…
The Abp. did not claim that gays were “unfit to live,” as his bishop did. But it seems to me that he shares in the responsibility for such an ugly statement being made by one under his authority. By his example, he has given his bishops the green light to engage in rhetorical violence.

Will the Archbishop discipline Bp. Orama for such hate speech? We’ll have to wait and see.

And while we’re waiting, it will be interesting to note the reactions of Bishops Minns and Bena of CANA, Abp. Akinola’s beachhead in North America which now includes congregations in Virginia as well as Colorado.

I hear crickets.

Goodness Gracious!  What happened?  I made a reply to a post I saw on this thread from Jackie, but now it’s not here.

Oh dear, I’m sorry everyone.  I’m hallucinating.  I shall take my meds and lie down quietly and meditate on libel law.  That should help me fall asleep. 

I have often told employees, friends and associates that the true sign of a good leader is that one listens. When a leader becomes aware of a situation where, for example, an employee stands accused of wrong doing, a good leader will call in all parties, listen to all sides, ask questions when needed, weigh what has been heard and then make a judgment.

When opinions are offered on the various blogs they are, for the most part, just opinions. The better opinions are those that are offered after one does a bit of research and comes to an informed conclusion.

Here we have the ABC, a leader, denouncing alleged unsubstantiated statements offering that they are “unacceptable and profoundly shocking on the lips of any Christian”. Is this good leadership? I think the ABC would better serve the Anglican Communion by first researching the facts of the matter and then draw conclusions.

Since all the ‘facts’ are not in, just the ramblings of one ‘reporter’ it seems the wise thing for our ‘leaders’ to do is keep quiet until informed and reasoned conclusions can be reached.

“If you love to listen you will gain knowledge, and if you incline your ear you will become wise.”

Fr. Jake, aren’t you ashamed you didn’t post a brief 2-word qualifier (“If accurate”) to your post so that you wouldn’t have to hear calls for you to apologize?  If you had simply done that, then you coulda done the same thing as reasserters, and said, “Nope, no need to apologize.  I got my qualifier in place and I will exercise the same out as you folks.”

FIRE, READY, AIM!!!

Fr. Jake, aren’t you ashamed…

Wait, you think Fr. Jake might be ashamed of his accusations if false?  No he’ll say that the sound true, that they “feel” true, that they are in fact the good Bishop true thoughts.  Being on the Left means you never have to say you’re sorry.

RSB

TUD,

Simple logic. If someone were to report that Matt Kennedy said: All cheesmakers are evil deserve death.

It would be perfectly legitimate for someone to say: “If Matt really said this, he is wrong and, what is more, he is unfit to be a minister to cheesemakers.”

But it would not be legitimate for someone to say: “Matt Kennedy has called for the murder of cheesemakers. Unless his bishop steps in we can assume that he also is complicit in the desire to destroy all makers of cheese. See I told you that conservatives are bent on the murder of cheesemakers. Their false denials represent mere cheap covering for their seething hatred toward all makers of dairy products. Make no mistake, this is precisely where fundementalism takes you, straight to the gallows with cheesemakers and their partners in the manufacture of dairy produce. “

See the difference?

But ... but ... but ... I’ve seen <u>Life of Brian</u> and it’s “Blessed are the cheesemakers” ...

I can’t believe we’re still talking about this.

No Hosea, don’t be such a literalist…he means to include all makers of dairy products. And, besides, this statement is qualified in Luke chapter 12 where he says: Do not think that I have come to bring cheese to the earth…

See the difference?

I’m kewl with dat. 

This example by SFIF and T19 may engender more use of qualifiers by everyone so as to anticipate and forestall any call to apologize for a statement, and doing so is “simple logic” as you say. 

If that’s what is to be modeled, I shall endeavor to follow it.

TU&D;,

For the last time, there is nothing to apologize for. Now please be quiet.

No, TU, there is nothing for Greg or me to apologize for. The statement itself is reprehensible. That is absolutely true. We were certianly in agreement with Jake et al in that regard. If it was said it is inexcusable.

The fact that it was not said does not change that fact.

That is not what they need to apologize for. They need to apologise because they assumed it was true and then went on to make grand claims about the inner thoughts of those who hold to biblical authority.

On behalf of everybody, I apologize to everybody, especially all the cheesemakers who have been abused and treated as despised social outcasts all these years.  Especially Limburger.  Well, maybe not Limburger.  Or Roquefort.  Besides being smelly and crumbly, it’s French, too.  So I apologize to everybody unless they make Limburger or Roquefort.  I think.  Can we have a policy statement on that?

Some threads deserve to die…  Ooops, sorry, I apologize to everyone for that.  Again.  Except Roquefort…

Over at the ACC website, there is posted a recent story from a Boston Globe reporter that also ALLEGES some rather extreme statements from two ushers among the thousand people who attended the Saint Stevens Anglican Church event. This story, I believe, came out about the same time as the Nigeria story, and the alleged statements seem rather improbable and oddly dissonant with what orthodox Anglicans actually believe.

Could there be a bit of an organized campaign here, just before the September 30 deadline, to make orthodox Anglicans falsely look like troglodytes, or am I getting too cynical? Whatever is actually going on in these stories, it is not good reporting.

But I like Roquefort.

+Matt:  “It appears that a Nigerian bishop may have (if the report is accurate) said some reprehensible things about those who engage in homosexual behavior:

Greg:  “If the quote is not accurate…”

“But if the quote is accurate”

“Bishop Orama deserves our prayers that he might come to understand this, but - if his remarks were accurately reported - he does not deserve to be a bishop in the Christian church.”

Canon Harmon:  “I was very disgusted, upset and saddened to read the statement of Bishop Isaac Orama as quoted by the News Agency of Nigeria in a UPI story who, (if he is quoted accurately, and I am assuming that he is) said that persons involved in same sex behavior “are insane, satanic and are not fit to live.”

My last post.  Yes Matt, I see the difference for what the liberal revisionists have to apologize for.  I fully concur with you.  I also posted the qualifiers that you all issued.  (One of them seems a bit more presumptuous than the others)  Given your explanations, I think I can understand where y’all are coming from as far as a non-apology.  Fine with that.  However, I do commend Scruff’s comment on the other thread as something to ponder.

Peace and Blessings.  Have a wonderful weekend.

Your Partner for His Truth and Love

To repudiate, or not the repudiate - THAt is the question. 
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind for crickets to suffer
The slings and arrows of Pace Jake,
Or to take arms against a sea of hearsay,
And by opposing it end it? To suffer again
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

Fr Jake et all were correct, y’all are intolerant….
Lactose intolerant….
Can we all just get along and have some (well aged) cheese?
Don’t most recipes for fudge already call for dairy products???

Moot is making more sense than anybody today!

Oh, <a >very well.</a>

[Mumbling, eyes downcast, shuffling feet]
S-sorry, Roquefort. Even if you are ... [yells] French!
[runs from the room]

to make orthodox Anglicans falsely look like troglodytes,

What’s wrong with troglodytes?  I’ve known a lot of troglydytes and know that inside they are very loving, carring, and beautiful monsters. We need to be open to what they can tell us and not be so negative.  I hope the Trog Truth Totalitarians acts quickly on this slander and demands that certain blogs be shut down and those internets police launch an investigation, and antitroglyditephobe leaders be sacked from office.  This only serves to divert us from our true mission of the MDG ministry.  Repent and apologise or….

Wow, Prophet Micaiah, that was funny. I repent. I now love those cute troglodytes more than anything. Except Mil.Dev. goals. Those I love even more.

I’m not quite sure, though, how to blame those pesky orthodox African primates for my own shortcomings. But give me time. I’ll make up some stories.

Has anyone noticed in the recent developments in this affair—when anyone expressed any doubts about the accuracy of the original report, our friends at Jake’s and Susan’s would fall all over themselves with paeans to the accuracy and professionalism of UPI.  Now that UPI has withdrawn the story, all we hear is how inadequate and suspect the denial was—although the denial was clearly enough to convince UPI, even to the point of altering its website logic.

Another important point for your notebook on the Sociology of the Left…