Posted on 03/14/2005 8:08:50 AM PST by sionnsar
Well, the Diocese of California (read, San Francisco) is electing a new Bishop. Coupled with the Diocese’s apparent statement that they will not discriminate against candidates because of their sexual orientation, how likely is it that a gay or lesbian nominee would be celibate? Is anyone celibate in San Francisco?
I pray I am wrong, but I think this will be VGR all over again, and they timed it so the consents would come before General Convention again, according to the timeline. Could this be any more unbelievable?
Look out realignment, here we come. As my Dad has been saying, he just wishes someone would tell him where he is supposed to go to church. At least I can say I was there to see history made, for the second time, where the Episcopal Church gave a giant middle finger to the Primates of the Anglican Communion.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. "As my Dad has been saying, he just wishes someone would tell him where he is supposed to go to church."
He should go to the nearest Catholic parish.
If cannot stomach that thought, then he should go to the nearest Eastern Orthodox church.
Because the religion he grew up in does not exist anymore in this country. It's faithful remain, but the church itself in America has moved on to "more important" things, which does not include those beliefs and things that it used to have and do when he was growing up, and that they still have and do at the Latin and Eastern versions of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Compromise with Rome or Constantinople or Moscow before you compromise with the Devil.
There is his answer.
Painful as it is.
Dear sionnsar,
So it appears that another homosexual bishop may get the nod at the General Convention in 2006?
If the General Convention next year were a repeat of the 2003 Convention, I guess that might sufficiently inflame the rest of the Communion to finally through ECUSA out in 2008.
However, if the 2006 General Convention went ahead with another homosexual and the Communion didn't finally throw ECUSA out by the end of the 2008 Lambeth Conference, I think that this would unofficially, but pretty much permanently, ratify open and active homosexual bishops in the Anglican Communion.
What's your take?
Do you think California is going to put up a homosexual bishop?
If they do, will the General Convention buy off on him or her?
If that occurs, will that be the final straw, leading to expulsion from the Anglican Communion of ECUSA at Lambeth 2008?
Thanks for all your posts and pings.
sitetest
Are you discounting the Network and Continuing churches that are working to become the third province?
The Diocese of California is pretty liberal. I think there is a fair chance of it. I wonder if they'd choose an openly practicing lesbian?
If they do, will the General Convention buy off on him or her?
That's a harder call, based on what's happened since GC 2003. I can't really say. It would probably be close. I would hate to be a delegate from a liberal diocese; the pressure to vote for will be intense, and ugly.
If that occurs, will that be the final straw, leading to expulsion from the Anglican Communion of ECUSA at Lambeth 2008?
My guess is that ECUSA is already on course to expulsion at Lambeth 2008, with no clear sign yet of changing its ways.
The scenario above, consecrating an openly practicing homosexual, would likely trigger a crisis in which Williams would have to immediately expel ECUSA, or face the fact that the worldwide Anglican Communion would henceforth meet in Abuja. Lambeth would become very lonely.
Dear sionnsar,
"The scenario above, consecrating an openly practicing homosexual, would likely trigger a crisis in which Williams would have to immediately expel ECUSA, or face the fact that the worldwide Anglican Communion would henceforth meet in Abuja. Lambeth would become very lonely."
With this, I disagree. I look at how long the fall-out to the 2003 General Convention took - two full years or more - and I think that the Archbishop of Canterbury could persuade folks throughout the Communion that the issue would rightfully be resolved at the 2008 Lambeth Conference. The precedent for acting at that speed is already set.
I imagine that Archbishop Williams would say something like this, "If you expel ECUSA now, before Lambeth, you will dilute the effect of your action. Lambeth is an instrument of unity. If you just go through the process through which we went with Vicky Gene, you'll arrive at the date of Lambeth quite naturally, and then you will be able to use the full force of this instrument of unity when you chuck them out."
Of course, that will give Archbishop Williams two more years to blunt the effect of ECUSA's actions in 2006. However, I think the chances are high that it wouldn't matter.
I can believe that it is quite possible that the Global South Primates would move to expel ECUSA almost as a first order of business at Lambeth.
But that's just the view from the Catholic section of the peanut gallery.
sitetest
TN is also picking a new bishop, and I understand the odds are good we will get an orthodox candidate.
The 2006 GC may confirm the CA candidate and reject the TN candidate. This may be a good result as it may push other dioceses into the network and the network out of ECUSA.
First, let me apologize if I gave you the impression on that other thread that I thought you were the one who got all aghast if someone chose to stay in the EC.
I just addressed the comment to you because you started the thread, and I knew if I said I was staying I would be jumped on by someone.
Maybe because I was raised in the Baptist church... as you may or may not know, there is no "Baptist Church." The churches are all independent. They may belong to a convention, ie Southern Baptist Convention, but basically, each church does as it pleases.
It never occurred to me to even be concerned about what the "national church" did until a few years ago.
I do what I can. I speak up. But I'm not gonna go schlepping around to some Catholic church or start over at some distant Anglican parish when I have a small, holy church I love a half mile away.
I pray every day for the national church, that it will come to its senses, but they seem determined to drive the conservatives out. I actually think that is what they want...there is no other explanation.
Thanx for all your posts.
I didn't get that impression. There are those who have made such comments before, and I didn't want them jumping on those who've remained.
or at least that's what memory says of the other thread...
California has set up a very interesting schedule. Maybe even intended to deliberately provoke a repeat of 2003.
May 6
Diocesan convention to elect Diocesan Bishop
June 13-23
General Convention
The reason it could be a deliberate provocation is that, IIRC, the only bishops that have to be confirmed at GC are those that were elected by their diocese within 120 days of the GC.
If they moved their own decision up by a couple of months, they would avoid having the General Convention act on it. Not that that means a peaceful convention by any means.
Only if he is high church. Otherwise, a reformed body might be a better fit.
"He should go to the nearest Catholic parish."
"Only if he is high church. Otherwise, a reformed body might be a better fit."
The Orthodox, then, would be the next option.
If he cannot abide the ritual, he would be better off going and sitting with the Baptists than be ministered to by a priest of Molech and Sodom!
"Are you discounting the Network and Continuing churches that are working to become the third province?"
Not intentionally.
The problem is that the time to talk, or submit to, or obey, even in ecclesial law, these Bishops of Molech and of Sodom is long, long past. They are like gangrenous tissue. They cannot be saved, they must be cut off!
Molechites immolated their children: that is what episcopal support for abortion is.
Sodomites - we know what they did: that is what the bishops say the "church" must now tolerate.
That is the Devil speaking in a miter!
The fact of being a priest of Molech and Sodom itself effects an excommunication. These men must not be obeyed!
They have not authority in the church. They only wear the rags of authority. They must be defied.
To cooperate with them is to cooperate with Molech.
It is clear.
Now, the Network and Continuing Churches are trying to pull away. They are to be commended. But there is too little. Gangrenous tissue has to be cut out. If you try to save the gangrenous limb, you die. Gangrene is not reversible. The Bishop who gives himself to Molech and Sodom is not only no longer a Christian, but he should not be treated any longer as a BISHOP. He should be picked up, gently, and physically pushed out the door, and his personal effects on the street. Molechite priests do not have the right to SET FOOT in the sanctuary of God.
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