The Big Lie

For the one or two of you who might be eagerly anticipating chapter 3 of “Tales from Diocesan Convention”, you’ll have to sit tight for the time being. For those who missed chapters 1 and 2, they are here and here, respectively. But I will give you a teaser and tell you chapter 3 will focus on Bishop Suffragan Mark Andrus’ address. I am hoping Bishop Andrus will first take some time to clarify his remarks about hearing the voices of all creation by drinking the blood of dragons, joining Olympia Dukakis in praising a feminine deity, and proclaiming that “God does not care if someone goes to bed with someone of the same gender”. I must have misinterpreted these comments, especially since they were said by a bishop in a diocese where the teachings on sexuality “have not changed”. Perhaps Bishop Andrus became intoxicated by the language and mood of “inclusivity” that was prevalent at the Civic Center in Birmingham. To date his address is curiously absent from the diocesan convention web site. (Both Bishop Parsley’s address and the Very Rev. Harry Pritchett’s keynote address are there.)

Meanwhile, I thought I would share with you this article from Rev. Canon Bradley T. Page, Canon for College Ministries in the Apalachee Region and Chaplain to Florida State University. This article was first published in the newsletter of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Tallahassee, FL shortly after the 2003 General Convention. Canon Page granted me permission to use this as I would, and I have chosen to publish it on our site because it is as relevant today as it was then.

I would add three updates and comments. First, the Primates Communiqué can be added to the Windsor Report as presenting an “opportunity to stand up and tell the truth about who we really are and to be honest about our intentions to continue, or not, as a catholic and apostolic church in communion with the See of Canterbury and the vast majority of world Anglicanism”.

Second, I wonder which bishop of Alabama Canon Page refers to who reminded him on two separate occasions that the Christian teachings of Lambeth have “moral authority, not legislative authority”.

Third, there are now 66 Episcopal congregations or campus ministries listed on the directory of churches and organizations on the Center for Progressive Christianity web site, two more than when this article was written. But even though this organization denies the Incarnation of Christ and any idea of objective Christian truth, there is no need for concern. After all, to borrow a phrase from Bishop Parsley, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, Washington D.C. and Wisconsin are all a long way from Alabama.

Canon Page’s article follows.

I have heard much being made of the claim by Gene Robinson that he is simply being “honest.” That much I have read in the newspapers, ad nauseam. I have also heard, on many occasions over many years, that when it comes to questions, doubts, and muddled thinking about theology or moral teaching, the same is true of The Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA): “We are simply being honest”.

Here is something I am sure all of those who were at the 2003 General Convention will appreciate:

When I was in seminary over ten years ago, at Sewanee, one of my professors was asked, in class, about what he thought of the resurrection. He was honest: “Jesus is a bag of bones rotting outside of Jerusalem.” He still teaches at that seminary.

Over a decade later, such views are now becoming institutionalized, as evidenced by the number of ECUSA congregations that are affiliated with The Center for Progressive Christianity. Founded by an Episcopal priest (who currently serves as the Center’s president), this organization rejects (among other things) the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the Sacramental nature of the Eucharist. These “progressive” Christians also deny the Incarnation and any idea of objective Christian truth, seeing in the life and teaching of the historical man, Jesus, “an approach to God” but recognizing “the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.”

Of the 215 ministries listed on their website, 64 are Episcopal congregations and Episcopal clergy make up a substantial number of their individual membership.

Are we honest about the very basics of Christian Faith?

And what of our relationship with our own world-wide church? After the 1998 Lambeth Conference, when many American dioceses were repudiating the Lambeth teaching on human sexuality, the bishop of my “conservative” Diocese of Alabama went to great pains to remind me, on two separate occasions, that
the Christian teachings of Lambeth have “moral authority, not legislative authority.” Truth is trumped by legislative process… and we in ECUSA can do as we please.

Now, seven years after Lambeth, our Presiding Bishop and a number of our diocesan bishops are doing just that! They have made it clear that they will continue to violate the practice and teaching of the Communion, whenever it suits them. The most flagrant violations occur in the ordination of partnered gay, lesbian, bisexual, & transgendered activists to all three orders of ordained ministry (deacon, priest, and bishop) and by the firm commitment of a number of ECUSA bishops and priests to bless same-sex unions and other unions outside of marriage.

Are we honest about our unity of Christian Faith and Practice with the rest of the Anglican Communion?

If you follow the news or are involved at any level of leadership within the Episcopal Church, you know that there are many, MANY, such examples of apostasy and moral cowardice within ECUSA. During my ten years as a priest, I have tried desperately to ignore or rationalize the breakdown of Christian Faith within ECUSA. I am, in fact, a reluctant and recent convert to the rank of “orthodox activists” within our church. For years, I was nothing but critical of conservative groups like Episcopalians United and totally dismissive of “break-away churches,” such as the Anglican Mission in America. I have always appreciated the large house that is the Episcopal Church USA.

But maybe it is time to be honest about what has happened to that large house?

Gene Robinson is out of the closet and is happy to tell us the truth about who he has sex with. Good for him! Yet, surely a little honesty is not enough. I wonder if our Presiding Bishop, and indeed all of our bishops, will ever be honest and acknowledge that what is really hiding in the closet of the Episcopal Church is not merely pansexuality, but something other than Christianity? Will they ever be honest with us about the fact that what is emerging from the closet is actually a new religion?

Priests and bishops have said to me, in a sad defense of ECUSA’s repeated unfaithfulness, “At least we’re honest.” That is a big lie. We have not been honest. However, now is our chance. The Windsor Report gives us an opportunity to stand up and tell the truth about who we really are and to be honest about our intentions to continue, or not, as a catholic and apostolic church in communion with the See of Canterbury and the vast majority of world Anglicanism.

The Windsor Report is asking us to be absolutely honest. And if we do not tell the truth about who we are, and turn away from the new religion we are fast becoming, then we will soon discover that the closet is all that remains of the large house of ECUSA.

[This brings in an item from RatherNotBlog: --sionnsar]

An “older and greater” God . . .

The cardinal feature of Gnostic thought is the radical dualism that governs the relation of God and world, and correspondingly that of man and world. The deity is absolutely transmundane, its nature alien to that of the universe, which it neither created nor governs and to which it is the complete antithesis: the divine realm of light, self-contained and remote, the cosmos is opposed as the realm of darkness. The world is the work of lowly powers which though they may mediately be descended from Him do not know the true God and obstruct the knowledge of Him in the cosmos over which they rule . . .

It is significant that these are now often called by Old Testament names for God (Iao, Sabaoth, Adonai, Elohim, El Shaddai), which from being synonyms for the one and supreme God are by this transposition turned into proper names of inferior demonic beings—and example of the pejorative revaluation to which Gnosticism subjected ancient traditions in general and Jewish tradition in particular . . .

–Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion

The positive pole of Gnostic dualism, to which Plotinus refers in the last citation, is a higher world which, portrayed in very varied and differing fashion, culminates in the assumption of a new otherworldly and unknown God, who dwells beyond all visible creation and is the real lord of the universe. The world is not his work, but that of a subordinate being . . .

–Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis

After all, it has been a dozen years since he (C. Fitzsimmons Allison, retired Episcopal Bishop of South Carolina) decided he could no longer, with a clear conscience, receive communion during meetings of the U.S. House of Bishops. During a Bible study, several bishops had said that they believed they worshipped a god that is “older and greater” than the God of the Bible. Others said they could not affirm this belief, but would not condemn it.

“Eucharistic table became symbol of division,” By Terry Mattingly (Scripps Howard News Service 09-MAR-05)

Mr Gene Robinson's proclivity to sodomy by any other name would likely neither get a mention nor raise an eyebrow among the Bishop, Dean, Clergy and Congregation at my wife's and my [Saint Andrews Cathedral, Singapore] church.

Divorced men and women may not be married in the Cathedral -- let alone officiate.

Nineteen-twenty-eight is alive and well and there are no polls taken to discover The Word 'for the day' -- or that might permit the confusing of the practice of our Anglican Faith with any kind of popularity contest!

The Word and the History and the Theology have not been varied at Saint Andrews these past one-hundred and fifty years or so -- nor anywhere these past several thousand -- the last 2005 particularly -- and the shofar sounds often to call us all to battle -- and in our high religious observances.

Everyone who loves Anglicanism should come and visit.

We will all welcome you to our Bishop John Chew's diocese in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Ours is a traditional Anglican diocese of Christ's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Blessings -- B A

"When I was in seminary over ten years ago, at Sewanee, one of my professors was asked, in class, about what he thought of the resurrection. He was honest: “Jesus is a bag of bones rotting outside of Jerusalem.” He still teaches at that seminary."

Let's think about this for a moment.
If he really believes that is true, if anyone does, then why does he bother with Christianity at all?
If Jesus is really a bag of bones rotting outside of Jerusalem, and the Resurrection did not literally, really happen, then Christianity is a steaming pile of dung, a lie, and anyone teaching in a seminary, the seminary itself, and the Church that it is attached too is just a paid entertainer in a bad Disney theme park for ugly people who can't act.

If there was no Resurrection - no actual, real Resurrection - Christianity is a personality cult and, actually, Jesus was just a suicidal idiot who got himself and a bunch of his ignorant followers killed following him down the spider-hole into messianic dementia.

If the Resurrection didn't happen, Jesus was David Koresh.
If it did happen, Jesus was God.

There is no form of Christianity that can survive without belief in a literal Resurrection.

"There is no form of Christianity that can survive without belief in a literal Resurrection."

"Bingo!"

And of course, without Christianity, there is no reason to pay any attention to the Jewish Old Testament at all.
The whole Bible, both Testaments, and everything else about Christian religion, reposes on the literal truth of the Resurrection.

If I didn't believe the Resurrection actually happened in real time in real history (something I don't, incidentally, happened literally in the case of, say, Jonah and the whale), then I'd say we ought to chuck the whole Judaeo-Christian religious business as a repressive and restrictive set of rules. If we've gotta have religion, the cults of Venus, Mars and Jupiter Capitolinus were a whole lot more FUN. Then we could get back to "fertility rites", temple practices that would make the author of the Kama Sutra blush, and everybody...or every male in the country anyway, would go to church every damned day.

If there is no truth in religion, it ought to be fun. Roman pagan religion was a hell of a lot of fun.
The Romans chucked it because they were convinced of the actual TRUTH of the Resurrection, but if Jesus is just a rotting bag of bones outside of Jerusalem, per a professor in a Christian divinity school, well then Hell's Bells! let's get back to that good real old time religion, replete with lots of orgies and vomitoria. If the Resurrection didn't happen, maybe Venus is a goddess and we can fornicate our way into heaven.

If the Resurrection did happen, then maybe we ought to just do what Jesus said. Like be unified as Christians, for instance.

A search at The Cathedral's website using the word "marriage," turned up 19 documents including this one at:

http://www.livingstreams.org.sg/sac/info/admin/weddings.html

QUOTE:

The following are some basic guidelines regarding weddings at the Cathedral:

The couple must both be baptized, "born again" Christians. One of them must be a member of the Cathedral for at least one year, regularly attending any of the Cathedral Sunday services, or any of the Extension Centres, and who has submitted to the Diocese of Singapore Membership Registration (DSMR). The non-member party will be asked to transfer membership to the Cathedral.

The couple must both be single. No solemnization or blessing in the Cathedral if either party is a divorcee. However, a private family service of blessing may be arranged.

Members of other Anglican churches in the Diocese may use the Cathedral for their weddings if their own church building is being renovated, or they have no church building. In either case, the Vicar of the Parish where the couple belong shall write to the Dean for the use of the Cathedral.

The Cathedral is not open for use of non-Anglican churches.

The couple may ask any of the priests in the Cathedral to officiate. The deacons and deaconesses may also be asked to officiate in the Blessing of Marriage but not to solemnize.

Weddings may be held any day of the week, normally on Saturdays at 10:00 am, 12:00 noon, 2:00 and 4:00 pm, except on Sundays. Weddings will not be conducted during Lent and after the 2nd Saturday of December till after Christmas.

The couple must attend the Marriage Preparatory Course which is conducted in the Cathedral twice a year. Cathedral Extension Centres may do their own Marriage Preparatory Course.

Application forms are available upon request at the Information Centre on weekdays and Information Desks at the Sunday services. Please submit completed forms to Mrs Monica Lee. [Tel: 6337 6104 ext 115]

Notice of marriage must be given before the intended date of wedding. The couple will be interviewed by the pastoral staff in-charge of coordinating weddings in the Cathedral and the application will be vetted, discussed, and approved by the Dean and/or pastoral staff before the wedding is confirmed and arrangements with caterers finalized.

END QUOTE.

Doesn't mention exceptions to or dispensations from the "must be single" qualification -- and nor have I ever heard of one.

Blessings -- Brian

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