TLC: Chicago Convention Seeks Repeal of Resolution B033

Social justice?

Nope. See me after class.

Anyone notice anything missing from Persell’s list of goals? Anyone? Bueller?

Let me guess…

...it’s something about that Jesus guy…. right?

He questioned whether the diocese might have been more effective in achieving those goals if it had not spent so much time debating sexuality.

Oh my…. If those are the goals…I find myself tempted to be happy that this whole mess started? Nah!

What about the MDG’s!

Liturgies for the loss of pets?
Jane, edwin’s wife
(sorry, just couldn’t help it…)

Oh, come on, class, let’s not always see the same hands…

Spreading the Gospel?  (Noooo, the real one.)

“a just peace for Palestinians”

Saw this heartwarming story about how the Israeli’s videotaped Hamas firing mortars from a UN school into Israel. I am sure that Hamas is disappointed that Israel didn’t shoot first and ask seconds. The sight of mangled bodies of school kids makes for such great publicity.

Greg….Teaching & Spreading the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ and His sacrafice for sins through repentance to be transformed from sin into His likeness! That is what is mssing! The Gospel and Jesus Christ!
Church is not to be of the world and its views and problems but to be about the world of Heaven and the Gospel and Jesus Christ and the changing and transforming of us sinners.
I need some old time religion….and so does the rest of the world!

Greg, love your translations of the Bishop’s “goals”!

When you politicize like this, I think you just make SF look extremist and wild-eyed.  What right-thinking person would not wish for at least some of the goals mentioned by the bishop?  I don’t see how this had anything to do with the rejection of BO33 or the deplorable advocacy of the non-celibate lesbian bishop candidate.  Why not focus on the discrepancy with the New Orleans statement instead of deflecting comments into these other highly partisan channels?

Greg,

Have you been drinking Christopher Johnson’s scotch again?

Paula: Because Persell himself is the one who made these goals the centerpiece of his episcopacy and the mission of his diocese. He brought them up, not Greg.  I believe an appropriate word for Greg’s presentation of the bishop’s speech is IRONY!

Father Walker, Bp. Persell may have brought up the goals, but it is this thread’s original presentation that demonizes them.  I do not agree that all are to be ridiculed. (Who would have been against “preventing the war in Iraq,” for instance, if they could have prevented it?)

This is the first thread I’ve noticed where the one who posted the thread took the thread off topic.

...on leave from the Briar Patch,

Father Walker, Bp. Persell may have brought up the goals, but it is this thread’s original presentation that demonizes them

Sorry Paula… but no. They “demonize” themselves by standing in stark contrast to the actual “goals” of a true church. That Greg’s politics (and mine… and likely most here) do not allign with +Persell’s merely provides a convenient vehicle for a humorous presentation of the fact that this bishop’s mission is political, not scriptural.

You would have grounds for objection if Greg similarly ignored the great commission and had said that the “goals” should include invading Iraq and pushing Palestinians into the sea.

He didn’t. He used humor to draw attention. That’s reasonable.

Who would have been against “preventing the war in Iraq,” for instance, if they could have prevented it?) 

Of course nobody would oppose that. Just nobody oppses a “just peace” anywhere in the world… and few want the world to warm up too much…

... but the statements don’t exist in a vacuum. Anyone who follows politics can decode what they meant - and Greg’s cracker jack decoder ring appears to work just fine.

He forgot to mention lawsuits?

I guess everyone knows that 10 a.m. (Central) is the first ballot for Bishop of Chicago. Will SF follow it closely?

Lent & Beyond has prayers for the Chicago bishop election.

Wow, thank God for the debate on sexuality.  At least it distracted TEC and the Bishop of Chicago from causing greater harm to the other 99% of non-TEC Americans.  Anybody got an idea for a big distration to consume the DNC.

The hubris of these people.  The only thing keeping them from single-handedly stopping the war in Iraq, bringing peace to the Middle East, opening the borders to all people, and changing the earth’s temperature was the debate on sexuality.  Oh, the things they could have accomplished but for those horrid orthodox folks.  Now at least we know whom to blame if the war continues, Israelis and Arabs don’t love each other, folks are deported, and the world’s temperature doesn’t move down straightaway.  The sense of self-importance here is staggering, as it the utter lack of self-awareness.  God save us from the baby boomers.

Are we missing the first part of the post and (perhaps) the more important development?

What happens if they elect a lesbian bishop BEFORE the 2008/9 GC? They may very well do that, given how bold they have become (a boldness born from the foolishness and depravity which fills those “given over” to their own desires and will - See Romans 1.  I think of a planet with no gravity! Man, would it MOVE!  Christ holds all things together, like gravity…)  Strangely, I hope they do elect the lesbian.

If the PB does nothing and follows through with consecration (a likely response), then OTHER bold moves which conflict with the canons and standing decisions by GC or HOB (or any other decision making body) are also acceptable (ie, succession from TEC). TEC cannot allow the one and not the other, or at least outside forces (like courts) will not accept that dichotomy.

An interesting pickle, or a I looking at this too simplistically?
Carrie in MD

PS - I’m changing my screen name here- I have been “light on a hill” because I have felt so all alone in “seeing” what appeared to me to be obvious about TEC since about 1999.  I am no longer alone, so I can really be “city on a hill” as it should be. 
Thanks!

Gold stars for Cindy T. and ODC.

Maybe we should get back to helping people deal spiritually with the things that cause news instead of actually CAUSING news! Sheesh!

When you politicize like this, I think you just make SF look extremist and wild-eyed.  What right-thinking person would not wish for at least some of the goals mentioned by the bishop?  I don’t see how this had anything to do with the rejection of BO33 or the deplorable advocacy of the non-celibate lesbian bishop candidate.  Why not focus on the discrepancy with the New Orleans statement instead of deflecting comments into these other highly partisan channels?

That’s a fair question, Paula. Here’s my answer:

+Persell speaks in code. My strikethroughs in the main post are translations of his code. He doesn’t really want to “prevent the war in Iraq.” He can’t. It’s already begun. Besides, it began before Gene Robinson was consecrated. What he means is “admit defeat, pull out the troops now, and surrender.”

Neither is he interested in “a just peace for the Palestinian people.” All he wants is for Israel to pull out and leave “the Palestinian people” to the tender mercies of Hamas and Hizb’Allah. I’d bet my house that if you asked him, he’d also favor forcing Israel to tear down the wall that has kept Palestinians from bombing women and children on buses and in pizzerias; and favor some rather radical re-drawing of Israel’s borders.

“Immigration reform,” to the reasonable person, I submit ranges from “deport all illegals, close the southern border, and effect a more controlled flow of immigrants in the country” at the harshest, to “deport no one, grant amnesty to all current illegals, but close the southern border and effect a more controlled flow of immigrants in the country” at the most lenient. The essence of “reform,” as it applies to anything, and certainly to immigration, is that it does not resemble the status quo, but involves change; but it’s an extremely safe bet that what Persell wants is simply for us to grant amnesty to all illegals, and change nothing about the way they are allowed into the country in the first place. Aside from doing nothing, that’s about the least change one could propose, and thus it hardly qualifies as “reform.” Another key element to successful reform is that it improves things, and I submit that the plan I just outlined doesn’t improve things in the least.

As to global warming… good grief. Junk science, pure and simple.

Finally, let’s be candid about what Persell is doing here: It’s an old trick of the Episcopal left, which is, when confronted with opposition to an agenda you have trouble defending, go to the well of Awful Things About Which Enough Can Never Be Done, return to your soapbox, climb up high, and wail and moan about how we could have been doing thus-and-such about the Awful Things About Which Enough Can Never Be Done, if only those evil conservatives hadn’t insisted on talking about sex the whole time. Oh and excuse me, I have to get back to my diocesan convention, where we liberals are trying to overturn a resolution about sex that we can’t abide, and which, by the way, was proposed and passed by liberals at a gathering of the most liberal legislative body of the most liberal church in America.

Glancing through the candidates for Bishop of Chicago, and their answers to questions, The Rev. Canon Robert K. Koomson’s answers really struck me.  In regards to the critical issues facing the church, the second part of his answer is:

What has brought our church into crisis is the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson as Bishop of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire. The consecration caused immediate outrage in much of the Anglican Communion worldwide, mainly in the evangelical circles, including Africa. Their argument was that the Episcopal Church had yielded wholly to the popular culture and abandoned the faith, an act which was considered by many as evidence of heresy and apostasy.

My suggestions for addressing these are first, the leadership of the church to appeal passionately to both conservatives and liberals to exercise a great deal of restraint in this matter. The second is to persuade and encourage more Bible study in the congregations, as a way of reasoning together. Discussions very often produce understanding, respect, love, and an effort to practice what has been learned, with the help and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Third, fasting and abstinence is to be instituted and encouraged.

DoW

What, if anything, do most here think will come of the vote if Chicago votes in the partnered lesbian as Bishop? Will it be another slap in the Anglican Communions face as TEC basically says “we will do what we want regardless of what the Anglican Communion says or thinks.”  Will this further the chasm of an already eminant split?

Koomson it is!

(Sounds most like ++RW)

When asked that question at a clergy conference in the Diocese of Louisiana (subsequent to the New Orleans HoB) the bishop said that if a non-celebate candidate not in a marriage between a man and a woman were elected the bishops had agreed to withhold consent.

We shall see.

No, won’t be the lesbian.

It’s enough for now, to make sure that a non-celibate gay is ON every slate.

They’ll wait “awhile” before pushing another one through.  I think they are still surprised at the hue & cry over VGR, and don’t want to appear too eager (at least most of them) for schism.

Why….Thank you Greg and congratulations to you Cindy T. But most of all thank you Lord Jesus! The master and pilot of all my days I am your humble servant.
ODC

I have to agree with Paula.  You’re polarizing the debate along political lines.  It makes me, for one, feel very alienated from the conversation.  I’m theologically and socially conservative but I don’t at all agree with your characterization of the war in Iraq (or a liberal position on ending it) or, well, most of the rest of what you said.  In the post or in your comment.

I get that you’re decoding what the bishop really means.  And you may be right about what he means.  Unfortunately, it’s still a problematic way to speak, as far as representing what conservative minded christians think, which is genuinely diverse.  I’m fairly certain we don’t agree.  In fact, if I wanted to be inflammatory, I suppose I’d tell you I think you’ve got christianity confused with being a republican.  or maybe a libertarian.  But actually, I don’t really think that.  We just disagree.  And that’s alright. 

I do, on the other hand, think there are ways to be reasonably against the (unjust) war in Iraq (which we appear to be losing by the way) and still be a right-leaning Christian. 

I don’t think Christianity is coterminous with being ardently pro-Israel.  There is appalling behavior on both sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict and many, many innocent people dying because of it.  On both sides.  In fact, I can’t much see taking one side over the other because they are both totally out of hand.  Not that TEC is going to sweep in and fix it and I do think taking Palestine’s part has become fashionable.  I just don’t think the answer is to swing back to unflagging support for whatever Israel does.

I don’t think immigration reform is a simple issue by any means.  But I do know that we, the American people, have benefited from the blood and sweat of an underprotected minority, which we have allowed to develop into an underclass.  We complain about their use of our services and yet, the government has looked the other way because the benefit has outweighed the cost.  You like your cheap produce?  You like the price of your house?  You can thank illegal workers and you can thank capitalism for encouraging enterprising businessmen and women to cut costs by using them for cheap labor.  I’m not saying they should all be given amnesty.  I do think they should be treated humanely, no matter what and whatever response we make, it ought to acknowledge our complicity in their oppression.  Yes sir, I am very much a right-leaning Christian.

As for global warming, I think it’s a little more than junk science at this point.  I don’t think there’s as much reason to think human beings are responsible for the current climate change as Al Gore says there is but there does seem to be evidence for a warming trend,  which amounts to climate change.  I think a right-leaning Christian can reasonably accept that climate change is a real phenomenon without compromising anything.  Except maybe a commitment to free enterprise, which is not in the bible the last time I checked.

I think all this and I am a conservative christian.  Maybe the fact that I am anglo-catholic explains why i embrace both traditionalist theology, a (straight) male priesthood, oppose unjust war, the death penalty AND embrace social justice.  But that’s a legitimate conservative position and it’s very rarely reflected here.  That bothers me.  I agree with much of what you all have to say but when the debate is so politicized, like I said I end up feeling alienated from the entire discussion.

So.  There’s my two cents.  I do think the bishop’s position is ridiculous.  He did not lose out on stopping the war in iraq because of the debate on sexuality.  That is a bald attempt to trivialize the objections of his opponents, marginalize their concerns—which are about far more than sex, as we all know.  He’s using it as a rhetorical ploy, one that dismisses our concerns without really addressing them.  Plus it plays well in the media.  Reprehensible but sadly typical.

Hmmmm…....After careful perusal, I could find no mention whatsoever of the Blessed Millennium Developement Goals. This is in direct violation of the TECusaCorp Implied Canon mandating mention of the Blessed Millennium Developement Goals at least once in every public utterance.
Stand by. Presentments will be forthcoming.

snarkimus maximus

I agree with much of what AnnieV posts above. It is regrettable that Greg had to bring his personal political views into play while trying to expose the bishop’s duplicity. If he had done that at an AA meeting, he would have been thrown out of the room.

...on leave from the Briar Patch,

AnnieV has posted what I would want to say if I were a lot better writer than I am.

AnnieV,

I don’t think any reasonable person, whatever their politics, can conclude that both sides in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are equally to blame. Appalling behavior is the exception for the Israelis; it’s the norm for the Palestinians. Before the wall was built, barely a week went by without a Palestinian blowing up himself and innocent Israelis. During all those years, the number of similarly atrocious attacks by Israelis against Palestinians could be counted on one hand.

As far as Iraq goes, the facts simply don’t support your claim that we’re losing - from a sharp drop in IED attacks, to a sharp drop in troop deaths (which have been falling ever since the surge began), to widespread and growing optimism among Iraqi citizens (see Michael Yon’s copious reporting from Baghdad on that issue the last several months). Have we always been “winning”? Hard to say. Were we “always winning” in the Revolution, or World War II? Certainly not. things looked grim from time to time. War goes in waves. Whether the Iraq war as a whole was unjust is not something I want to veer off into on this thread, but suffice it to say that, on the facts of the original cease-fire and the subsequent UN resolutions, the U.S. was well within its rights to invade Iraq. Whether or not that was a good idea is something else entirely, but to call it an unjust war is a real stretch.

At any rate, my decoding point is two-fold: One, that Bishop Persells evidently feels that the only thing stopping him from pursuing his wacked-out lefty political agenda is the distraction caused by the debate on sexuality, on which he has staked out an equally wacked-out position; and two, that he blames conservatives for obsessing over it, when it has been his camp that has done so since the early 70’s. It’s like the skid-row bum who complains that he would have been out looking for work all these years, if only the folks at Gallo hadn’t insisted on producing all that Night Train the whole time.

AnnieV,

To this:

Whether or not that was a good idea is something else entirely, but to call it an unjust war is a real stretch.

... I should add:

I’m not saying the war was a good idea. All in all, I don’t think it was, but some of my opinion is based on hindsight. Let’s not forget that virtually all leading Democrats agreed that Iraq possessed WMD’s and was determined to use them if it got half a chance. To the extent that I think the war was a bad idea, it’s not because I think Hussein shouldn’t have been disarmed, but because I don’t agree that we needed to occupy the entire country on the grounds that we owe the Iraqi people a stable, democratic country. Presumably you’d prefer a stable democracy to all other forms of government, but whether it was worth 4,000 American lives, I’m not so sure.

Br’er Rabbit,

We were posting at the same time. Does this make my comments re Night Train more, or less, helpful?

Heh. One free pass to the Laffin’ Place for Greg.

...on leave from the Briar Patch,

I happen to agree with Greg’s political views. I disagree vehemently with Bishop Persell’s political views. The fundamental problem, is that Bishop Persell is totally unqualified to promote his political views as a bishop.

He is entirely within his rights as a private citizen of the United States to believe what he wants and say what he wants. As a Bishop, speaking as a representative of the Church, he is beyond his job description.

The practical difficulty is that we are already divided by differences in theology. When the Church layers in its left wing secular, temporal political preferences, the Church is even further divided.

I would like to believe that I could attend Church united in our believe in Jesus as the Son of God and the Bible, and that some of us might support the war as necessary for the protection of the US, and others might oppose the war. This difference in political views should occur in our actions as individuals. The role of the Church should be to help us find and follow Christ in our lives, regardless of our individual political persuasion.

The irony is that TEC has a very muddled position theologically where they are suppose to have expertise. Yet, in the political/social/economic arena, where they have no training or expertise, they express great certainty that global warming is occuring and is bad, Israel is wrong, we should not drill in Anwar, taxes should be raised, minimum wage should be raised, stock options are bad (incredible that the church even has a position on stock options), we are racists (despite some of us finding refuge in provinces headed by black Africans, and Louisiana electing a non white Governor) and on and on in the secular realm. The one area where TEC could legitimately claim a Biblically based moral position, abortion, they are on the wrong side of the morality.

As a result, TEC is no longer a Biblically based religion, it is a platform for left wing secular politics. Greg is exactly right for pointing this out.

We don’t know from the phrasing if this list of objectives is the selective choice of the Living Church correspondent. Let’s see how the bishops’ objectives matched up with

The Five Marks of Mission of the Worldwide Anglican Communion:
  * To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
  * To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
  * To respond to human need by loving service
  * To seek to transform unjust structures of society
  * To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

In my analysis, the bishop’s objectives, as listed, are taken entirely from the fourth and fifth marks, with a political progressive spin on interpretation.

VaAnglican wrote:

God save us from the baby boomers.

How about giving the boomer-bashing a rest? I didn’t chose the year I was born any more than I chose my sex or the color of my skin. Stereotyping people based on the former characteristic is just as inaccurate and offensive as stereotyping them based on either of the latter two.

I think that many traditionalist Christians who are politically liberal fail to see the massive overlap between the TEC’s secular politics and the changes and impending changes to TEC’s theology.  It is the leftwing politics that is driving the change - ie women’s rights/equality have trumped Christian tradition on WO; and it has trumped thou shalt not kill re abortion; equality for homosexuals is now ushering in an abandonment of traditional morality on sexuality.  The left is unwilling to see the Bible and Christian tradition as a check on their march towards utopia - where in conflict the Bible must give ground.  Thus the Bishop’s hard left diatribe should be fair game (because understanding it is key to understanding where we are today with TEC).  What we are seeing now is the left’s overreach is pushing non-political or left leaning traditonalist Christians into what I call the Colonel Nicholson (Bridge Over the River Kwai) moment “What have I done”.  The sad reality is that it is the loony left secular positions taken by the Church that pushed out the Rock Ribed Republican Scotch and Soda Episcopalians onto the golf course or into the Methodist (myself included), Catholic or Presbyterian Churches between 1970 and 2000 (with of course an assist from the grave). Hence absent a secular right bulwark within the church the secular left of TEC can run rampant and do crazy theological things like elect gay Bishops and bless homosexual unions.

“I would like to believe that I could attend Church united in our believe in Jesus as the Son of God and the Bible, and that some of us might support the war as necessary for the protection of the US, and others might oppose the war. This difference in political views should occur in our actions as individuals. The role of the Church should be to help us find and follow Christ in our lives, regardless of our individual political persuasion.”

I agree with this completely: so let it be.  But this is exactly why I have opposed Greg’s equally shrill advocacy from the opposite side.  Of course, it is Greg’s blog, and we are always guests who are greatly in his debt for the information provided here.  I appreciate the blog deeply.  But perhaps he bears the burden of his own success: it is a blog with an international following and many eyes always trained upon it.  I think more heed should be paid to the voices that deplore the politicizing.  Since we know this is not the popular view here, it is likely that others (who agree with de-politicizing) are simply silent.  We’re not talking here about policies on abortion and gay marriage (we’re as strongly opposed to these as others) but foreign policies on which orthodox Christian people may not agree.

Paula,
Do you not see that it is the Bishop who is politicizing the Chruch - this blog is merely pointing it out.

With respect, chips, anybody who reads the original post (for instance, Greg’s translating “preventing the war in Iraq” into “capitulating to Al-Qaeda and Iran”) can seriously believe that it contains NO political bias of its own.  I don’t think people should have to have any political extreme foisted upon them when they are trying to read about religion.  I admit that some issues (abortion is one) have significant cross-over, but I hope this matter of war and peace is not one of those issues where we set a “litmus test” like this.

Exactly Paula.  But iits is the Bishop (and TEC at large) who has extremist views and he (and the Church) is foisting them upon people attending a religious convention (I think it was the ‘04 GC relosution calling for the ending of maximum security prisons that was the final straw for my Dad).  Greg is merely poking fun at his extremism (I think Greg is spot on in his characterization of the Bishop’s views).  It is quite appropriate to attack TEC for its loony left extremism because it ran off a lot of good people.  If TEC would stay out of secular politics then this Blog would not have to shine light on it.

It “is the Bishop (and TEC at large) who has extremist views and he (and the Church) is foisting them upon people attending a religious convention” —chips

Of course—I’ve always said this.  But that doesn’t justify the implication (in the original post) that prevention of war in Iraq would have equated with “capitulation to Al Qaeda.”  Several arguments are raised by this original line.  For one: we DID capitulate to Al Qaeda when we left Afghanistan for Iraq.  But I wouldn’t want to argue about it here, so I don’t see why the opposite claim was ever raised.

Ok Paula - but that is a particluar substantive disagreement that you have with Greg regarding the war (The American and NATO forces fighting today in Afganistan would dispute the characterization that we left Afganistan).  One might accuse Greg of being flippant in his criticism of the Bishop’s views or that Greg is incorrect - but pointing out that the Bishop is likely a pacifist and likely one to blame America first is fair comment/criticism.

He listed a number of other objectives, such as
preventing the war in Iraq,
a just peace for the Palestinian people,
immigration reform and
global warming.

Notice that the phrase “a just peace for the Palestinian people,” does not include a a just peace for all sides in the conflict.
More peculiar is the objective of “global warming”. Probably he does not mean to suggest the encouragement of global warming.
Clearly, this is a list of political code words.

I know, chips: and you know what I mean about “leaving” Afghanistan (concentrating elsewhere).  But this is exactly the kind of argument I did not want to make here, and that is why I do not think the original post should have invited such argumentation.  In any case, I have said all I wanted to say.