ECUS Evangelicals have lived happily with the divorce culture within the church, the ordination of women and the liturgy of 1979 (with its great weaknesses in terms of classic dogma) and now they protest vehemently about that which is merely a continuation of what they have approved or not opposed. Once you open the doors the Zeitgeist blows in and forces the windows open as well!
THE LIMITS OF CONSERVATISM: From Touchstone Magazine's Mere Comments
Conservative Episcopalians have reacted against the election of Canon Gene Robinson to be the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire because he is living with another man. They should howl and hoot, of course, but I must admit that a friendly outsider like me feels bemused when reading their reactions.
They long ago weakened their ability to protest the approval of homosexuality with any great coherence and effect, to the extent that they are now like a man trying to throw punches while sinking in quicksand. Just read through the following.
From the Rt. Rev’d James Stanton, the Episcopal bishop of Dallas and head of a group called the American Anglican Council:
Some will say the direction taken by New Hampshire is the leading of the Holy Spirit in a new age. But the apostles’ teaching is that the Spirit leads to unity with God and one another, not to greater division. And nowhere is the Holy Spirit seen in the New Testament to contradict God’s revelation in prior ages.
Some will say the growing conflict is about justice and compassion. But without faithfulness to the apostles’ teaching — the church’s charter — only disorder will be the result. And disorder never leads to either justice or compassion.
From the Very Rev’d Dr. Peter Moore, dean of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry (my former boss and a man I like and admire, let me make clear):
Only hubris can have motivated otherwise well-intentioned people to scorn the wisdom of the church that through its history has taught that sex belongs within the covenant of heterosexual marriage.
From the Rev’d Todd H. Wetzel, director of Episcopalians United:
[Canon Robinson’s] exemplary capabilities do not warrant an exception to 2000 years of the teaching of Scripture. The Old and New Testaments, are clear in defining a homosexual relationship as an abomination — clearly in violation of God’s will. Further, the New Testament declares that a man engaged in ministry must be the husband of one wife (not several; or of another man.) (1st Timothy 3:2).
. . . By Scripture and the world-wide Anglican Lambeth Conference of 1998 and by past resolutions of our General Convention, he can not be a bishop at all.
The election strongly highlights the low state to which the Authority of Scripture, theological discussion and submission to the wider Anglican Communion have fallen in Episcopal circles, and how sentiment has replaced reason in the voting of many Episcopalians.
From the Rt. Rev’d Edward Salmon and the Rt. Rev’d William Skilton, Episcopal bishop and suffragan bishop of South Carolina:
The Anglican Communion now faces one of its greatest crises ever over the question of whether or not same sex relationships are sinful or to be blessed by the church.
. . . The union in which Canon Robinson participates is not Holy Matrimony but an intimate relationship outside the bounds of marriage. This would be true whether he were cohabiting with a man or with a woman. For the church implicitly to sanction such a partnership will be a clear repudiation of the teaching of Holy Scripture and the tradition of the church; it also would signify a massive overhaul of the Christian theology of marriage by the Episcopal Church.
You may have noticed that everything these men say against approving homosexual living could be said against approving the ordination of women, which all these men approve, I think rather enthusiastically (I know almost all of them). They all appeal to a tradition they themselves do not obey. They appeal to a unity they themselves helped shatter. They appeal to a way of reading Scripture they have already disregarded.
Mr. Wetzel even asserts the requirement that the bishop be the husband of one wife, and therefor not the husband of one husband, without noticing that husbands are male. (I don’t think his organization has ever protested the ordination of anyone with two or more spouses living, though his use of St. Paul’s rule leads one to think they object to it as strongly as they do to the ordination of a homosexual man.)
Anyway, one does raise one’s eyebrows to hear men who believe in ordaining women speak out against the violation of 2000 years of tradition and call such an innovation hubris, and declare that “nowhere is the Holy Spirit seen in the New Testament to contradict God’s revelation in prior ages” while advancing an apparent contradiction. They helped push a boulder over the edge of the cliff and are now angry that it did not stop rolling halfway down the hill, and though they didn't mind it smashing the homes of people who lived near the top, are upset that it's now smashing into their homes.
They would argue that the two cases are different, and that there are biblical arguments to be made for ordaining women as well as men, arguments we have only in the last thirty or forty years seen and understood. But then that is exactly what Canon Robinson’s supporters say. And with as much reason. The conservatives don’t have any reason, beyond a belief in their own exegesis, to say that their innovation is Godly and the homosexualists’ ungodly. They cannot appeal to tradition as the authority for their reading of Scripture now, when they disregarded it then.
When faced with the election of Canon Robinson, the approval of which (certain to come) will be the Episcopal Church's official approval of homosexual coupling, their approval of the first innovation leaves them, as I said, like a man trying to throw punches while sinking in quicksand.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
By the way, all these quotes were taken from stories published by the Episcopal news service Virtuosity.
—David Mills
7:26 AM
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
