Episcopalians Falling Out of Love

Episcopalians, like our body politic, have worked themselves into positions from which there is no retreat and, therefore, no possibility of compromise. Leviticus tells me that homosexulality is an abomination; so is eating a shrimp cocktail. What are we to believe? The die-hards, on both sides, are in control. All they can achieve is to destroy the Church I love.

this was the news after this week. see You next week end. Washington Post, Eleventh Fullfilled, Bursa.

"Barack Obama shall be murdered before sworn and Russia shall attack with nuclear missiles to USA" declared by Mormon Professor, as far as i translate, are St Nicholas and St Andreas shall be popular USA wide this year.

the chest bones of the journalist were broken, those bones are Bones of Adam that HAnnah has been produced by. HAnnah, as far as i know, is Peace HAppiness and Compassion of MAn. i worry whether the "foot" or right part of the brain of the journalist functions.

i talked about the shoes as Williams Bush has a baseball team and he had not his bat by. merry christmas. my friends moved to Ephesus Sirince for mass this week and i stayed in Bursa. hoh hoh hoh.

in unity but in branch. the photos of Barack Obama in a local newspaper reminded me Ernest Hemingway. the papers for heaven during crusaders by given by Vatican and Church were "craziness" at school history, but today with this maturity of mine, the papers for CAnaan and Anadolu East of Mediterranean Sea or HEaven and GArden of Eden, from Land Register MAn the Katastrophe, are really encouraging and mindful leading.

Manderson -- "It is simply incredible to watch liberal Episcopalians ignore and evade these obvious facts."

What? the fact that majority rules? that what the majority thinks is inherently right? This would apply then, to a lot of things that the majority now considers wrong - discrimination against women and blacks, for instance.

I'd say the majority wised up - and will wise up eventually about homosexuals, too.

Until then, resistant people will point to holy scripture, majority votes or whatever is necessary to root them in their discriminatory practices as long as possible.

"Once upon a time, the Episcopal Church had some very wide variations in practice and tone -- and certainly of theology -- and we somehow agreed to look the other way."

This is sad but true. As in so many other aspects of American life, the ability to 'agree to disagree' and get on with life has been lost. When that happens, the only viable option many people find is to bail out.

Of course, 'agreeing to disagree' usually only works when the things we disagree on are left unspoken. There have always been gay people in every denomination, and everyone knew who there were, even if they weren't named openly. They were the 'free-spirited aunts' and the 'confirmed bachelors' in each congregation.

The silence worked for both sides. It allowed gay people to live in society while reducing, (at least a bit) the very real physical and social risk they faced by coming out. It also allowed those who found homosexuality reprehensible (whether for religious reasons or otherwise) to politely carry on as though it did not exist. It may sound hypocritical, but we all do it to some degree in many areas of our lives, and it is what allows us to live shoulder to shoulder reasonably peaceably instead of constantly being at each other's throats.

What has changed in recent years is that gay people are no longer are willing to stay in the shadows and exist behind a wall of language. A majority of Episcopalians has decided that it is their right to live their lives openly, and without sanction from the church.

This puts conservatives in the church in an untenable position, by making it impossible to keep up the attitude that 'if I don't acknowledge them openly it's like they don't exist'. It makes agreeing to disagree impossible, and the result is schism.

It is depressing for me to read the views of liberal Episcopalians on everything that has transpired. At the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Bishops, a conference that occurs every 10 years where basically all the Anglican bishops of the world gather to consult, an OVERWHELMING majority of bishops voted that homosexual relations could not be sanctioned by the Anglican Communion. In this they were, of course, only keeping with the OVERWHELMING consensus of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches throughout history. Then, in 2003, the Episcopal Church of the US went ahead with consecrating Gene Robinson, in defiance of the universal practice of the church and the recent decision by the 1998 Lambeth Conference. It is simply incredible to watch liberal Episcopalians ignore and evade these obvious facts.

According to the US Biblical scholar, Morton Smith, of Columbia University, a fragment of manuscript he found at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem in 1958, showed that the full text of St. Mark chapter 10 (between verses 34 and 35 in the standard version of the Bible) includes the passage:

"And the youth, looking upon him (Jesus), loved him and beseeched that he might remain with him. And going out of the tomb, they went into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus instructed him and, at evening, the youth came to him wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God".

I guess, maybe to just kind of stick more of a conclusion on what I wrote below, is it possible that maybe the Episcopal and Anglican churches are so suddenly shocked to find this radical right wing element claiming disproportional influence *because* there's sort of been an attitude of 'looking the other way' while this stuff developed?

For people claiming to represent ultimate cosmic authority, it seems to my experience that, regardless of sect, there's a lot of claiming by definition to be the nicest people in the world, and 'looking the other way' when this doesn't bear out in practice for, say, queer people.

"Some in families say "we love you the way you are and for who you are" and others say "we're sorry but you are no longer welcome here."

Heh. Is *that* how you bracket what religious homophobia does to families?

The right end of that bracket goes all the way through abuse, harrassment, assault, active sabotage and ongoing attacks on one's life to keep one in permanent poverty, to murder.

Naive of you to frame it that way, Reverend.

People say homophobia is 'defending the traditional family,' ...in fact, it tears families *apart,* and not just in the metaphorical sense.

"Somewhere in between are those who are deeply embarrassed and can't work it through. I've read just enough of the leavers' rhetoric to have heard that cry in and just under the surface of the words."

Frankly, I think religious leaders are in a position to be the ones to say, "The people you try to hurt shouldn't have to wait for *you* to resolve your artificially-induced and religiously-reinforced 'discomfort.' "

If I can offer an outside view: I see a lot of Catholics and Fundies who feel the need to magnify every little disagreement into doom, hellfire, and Apocalypse.... I see a lot of kind of mainstream Protestants who get pretty *vicious* with each other about what seem like trivial, even frivolous, differences from the outside.

I dunno what that is. I hear a lot about this story. Looks like a lot of Fundie-oriented Episcopalians get sent off to Africa and Fundie America, to make converts, they Fundie-ize them, and then come back to claim authority of numbers for policies of frothing about gay people and 'witches' at the more-mature-sounding establishment.

To be a little Wiccan at you, careful what you send out. It comes back snowballed.

"Honest to God, voluntary religious association and sectarian division are, with apple pie, etc., one of America's contributions to the world." And the Lord's people said, "Amen."