There's the Door

Midwest Conservative Journal ^ | 3/05/2005 | Christopher Johnson

[sionnsar]

In Britain, Affirming Catholicism is all cross with Rowan Williams for caving in to the Neanderthals:

We are disappointed that the North American Anglican Churches have been asked to repent of their actions in ordaining a gay man as a bishop and in authorising blessings for same-sex couples.

Since 1978, successive Lambeth Conferences have committed themselves to study the issue of homosexuality. While a few provinces have independently begun such work, the central co-ordinating body of the communion, the Anglican Consultative Council, has not. It supports permanent work on issues such as the environment, other faiths and the family, but it has not engaged in the issue of sexuality, the issue which threatens to divide us. This failure is one of the chief causes of our current difficulties. The commitment was repeated by the Primates’ meeting recently in Newry but we remain sceptical about the willingness of all 45 provinces of the Anglican Communion to hold this dialogue.

We call on the co-ordinating body of the Anglican Communion to publish a clear plan showing how the Communion will engage with lesbian and gay people. If we are to move beyond the current situation, the plan and the ensuing process must win their confidence.

Let's review, shall we?  There are two parties in the Anglican world today.  Since they can read and thus reject the circumlocutions of the higher critics, one believes that homosexual activity is a sin and should not be engaged in.  Does that mean that this party hates homosexuals?  No.  It simply means that homosexual activity is a sin just like any other sin, including those sins regularly committed by the members of this party.  The other party believes that homosexual activity is not a sin and that practicing homosexuals should be admitted to all levels of the church, up to and including the office of bishop.

"Study" and "dialogue" might resolve this question but for one uncomfortable fact.  For "study" and "dialogue" to have any efficacy, both sides must be willing to admit that they might be wrong.  If I am in error about this, please correct me in the comments(with links) but I have yet to see any indication whatsoever that the Anglican left is in any way willing to admit that homosexual activity might be sinful.  In modern Anglicanism then, "study" and "dialogue" means only that we keep yammering until conservatives admit what bigots they are.

One other thing.  So the Anglican Consultative Council must "publish a clear plan showing how the Communion will engage with lesbian and gay people" since "the plan and the ensuing process must win their confidence?"  Rather full of ourselves, aren't we. Affirming Catholicism?  Like it or not, homosexuals are a minority in the Anglican Communion.  The idea that worldwide Anglicanism requires gay and lesbian approval for anything is the height of arrogance since nothing whatsoever is preventing homosexual Anglicans from shaking the Anglican dust from their feet.

[torqemada]

"The idea that worldwide Anglicanism requires gay and lesbian approval for anything is the height of arrogance since nothing whatsoever is preventing homosexual Anglicans from shaking the Anglican dust from their feet."

We've danced all the way 'round it. At long last, someone states the obvious.