Posted on 08/02/2005 5:04:34 PM PDT by sionnsar
“Six parishes in Connecticut, including one of the largest, Bishop Seabury in Groton, say Smith is no longer fit to be their leader.
They are not alone in their distress. Robinson’s elevation cracked open a fault line that had been developing for years over how literally to take the teachings of the Bible, and how liberally to adapt to changes in modern societies.
Within the worldwide Anglican Union, to which the U.S. and Canadian Episcopal Churches belong, the issue also pitted orthodox Anglicans, particularly in Africa and Asia, against their generally more liberal North American colleagues.
Last week nine U.S. bishops allied with the so-called “Connecticut Six” threatened to take Smith to ecclesiastical court and support civil lawsuits against him for removing one of the dissenters, the Rev. Mark Hansen of St. John’s Church in Bristol. Smith charges that Hansen took an unauthorized sabbatical and accepted another job in New York.
•••
As church crises go, says the 61-year-old Smith, this is by far the worst he has ever faced, but not the biggest crisis in church history.
Episcopalians fought and anguished over the abolition of slavery, he says, noting that an Episcopal bishop, Leonidas Polk, was a general in the Confederate Army.
Then there was the ordination of women, which some in the church still don’t fully embrace, says Smith.
Unlike Roman Catholics, Anglicans do not answer to a pope whose word is officially taken as infallible. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the titular head, but the church is governed by a consensus of its bishops….”
Read it all. After reading Bishop Smith’s incorrect statements about Episcopal history, say again with me Bishop Tom Wright’s words below:
The situation is indeed new. We have not been this way before.
Hartford — From his position at the center of a theological maelstrom, the Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith looks to Jesus for a way out.
These days it's hard to see how the diocesan bishop can reconcile with six priests who claim he has abandoned core teachings of their Episcopal Church by supporting the ordination of openly gay clergy.
Smith says he will not revoke his stand. Yet there's still some shared ground, he insists, “given to us by our common belief and trust in Jesus Christ as our savior.”
That relationship, Smith says, “is larger than the issue at hand. If the issue at hand is larger than our relationship to Jesus, then I think we have the procedure backward.”
As the state's highest ranking Episcopal clergyman, in 2003 Smith cast one of the “yes” votes allowing V. Gene Robinson, a divorced father who lives openly with his gay partner, to be consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire.
Six parishes in Connecticut, including one of the largest, Bishop Seabury in Groton, say Smith is no longer fit to be their leader.
They are not alone in their distress. Robinson's elevation cracked open a fault line that had been developing for years over how literally to take the teachings of the Bible, and how liberally to adapt to changes in modern societies.
Within the worldwide Anglican Union, to which the U.S. and Canadian Episcopal Churches belong, the issue also pitted orthodox Anglicans, particularly in Africa and Asia, against their generally more liberal North American colleagues.
Last week nine U.S. bishops allied with the so-called “Connecticut Six” threatened to take Smith to ecclesiastical court and support civil lawsuits against him for removing one of the dissenters, the Rev. Mark Hansen of St. John's Church in Bristol. Smith charges that Hansen took an unauthorized sabbatical and accepted another job in New York.
•••
As church crises go, says the 61-year-old Smith, this is by far the worst he has ever faced, but not the biggest crisis in church history.
Episcopalians fought and anguished over the abolition of slavery, he says, noting that an Episcopal bishop, Leonidas Polk, was a general in the Confederate Army.
Then there was the ordination of women, which some in the church still don't fully embrace, says Smith.
Unlike Roman Catholics, Anglicans do not answer to a pope whose word is officially taken as infallible. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the titular head, but the church is governed by a consensus of its bishops.
Jesus never addresses homosexuality in the Bible, but according to the Rev. Ronald Gauss, head of Groton's Bishop Seabury parish, he didn't have to.
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says, “Think not that I came to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”
To Gauss, that legitimizes the laws written down in the Old Testament Book of Leviticus. And in Leviticus 18:22, it's written that “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
Leviticus 20:13 elaborates on that, proscribing death for those who disobey.
Gauss has said he considers adultery a far bigger problem than homosexuality, calling himself “sin-ophobic,” not homophobic.
But while Gauss would try to lead a gay man or lesbian woman toward either chastity or heterosexual marriage, Smith accepts committed same-sex couples and looks for ways to fully integrate them into church life.
The bishop says he is just as concerned about adultery as Gauss. He also says he worries that sexuality is overshadowing issues such as poverty, racism and greed.
•••
The debate over accepting vs. interpreting biblical scripture seems to be almost as old as the scriptures themselves.
Smith likens the Anglican Communion to a rubber band that is always being stretched but still manages to hold everyone together. “We were stretched so far over the issue of slavery,” he says, “that it was almost intolerable.”
Although the Bible doesn't specifically condone slavery, the Old Testament Book of Exodus does liken slaves to “money,” often interpreted as “property,” and lays out how they must be treated, including the severity of beatings.
Through the time of the Civil War, defenders of slavery, including many churchmen, used the Book of Exodus to argue that the Bible sanctioned slavery.
Gauss and others have said that what the Bible called slaves were actually indentured servants, and that their servitude was about money, not race.
“It's interesting,” says Smith, “that therefore he's not taking the Bible literally. He's really interpreting it. That's why it's too simple to say that the Bible is literally true. Even people who say that interpret it.”
The bishop acknowledges that changes in our cultural life have made many people uneasy or upset and yearning for stability.
“People are saying, look here, this doesn't fit,” he says, “and we can't have a church where all kinds of novel ideas” are usurping tradition.
“I think there is a movement in every corner of the world, in fact, to become much more literalistic,” says Smith.
“The world is less diverse today because of the power of Western culture that seems to want to dominate the world,” he says.
•••
People on both sides of the rift between Smith and the six priests, including Gauss, have likened it to a power struggle to control the core values of the church.
Money plays a role, as Bishop Seabury and the five other dissenting parishes stopped paying dues to the diocese over Smith's support for Robinson and, prior to that, his support for blessing gay unions.
Both sides view the other's actions as out of communion with the Episcopal Church, a designation imposed on Gauss and the five other priests in April after a review by Smith and the diocese's Standing Committee.
All six could face removal from the priesthood by Smith, who says he wants to avoid that. Meanwhile, the Connecticut Six have become mascots for a network of disaffected Anglicans who could eventually split from the Episcopal Church.
This spring close to 1,000 people, including nine bishops and supporters from many states, attended a service of solidarity at Bishop Seabury. A few other Episcopal priests from southeastern Connecticut had their own reasons for being there.
The Rev. Michel Belt, minister at St. James Episcopal Church in New London, was one. Belt supports Smith and Robinson, but said he went to show that they are still all one body, united in their love for Jesus Christ.
Gauss said he did not orchestrate the service, which had the backing of the Atlanta-based American Anglican Council (ACC), an alliance of Episcopalians unhappy with the direction of the church and working to redirect it.
One ACC official at the service, the Rev. Canon Ellis E. Brust, also went to Bristol on July 17 for a meeting called by Smith to explain his removal of Hansen and introduce his replacement, the Rev. Susan McCone.
In a report posted on the ACC web site, Brust said Smith “admitted” he acted against Hansen for his irregular sabbatical and for co-signing, with the five other priests, a letter calling for Smith to “recant his theology, understanding of Scripture, and certain votes at General Convention,” the latter a reference to Robinson.
He chastised Smith for appointing McCone, whom he called a “revisionist priest,” to lead a parish that stands for “historic, biblical Anglicanism.”
Brust said McCone “fought back tears as she spoke of not forcing her theology on any parish and asking for a chance,” but “lost the majority of listeners when she said, ‘I'm not even sure what ‘orthodox' is anymore.' ”
“Bishop Smith's cavalier approach to the canons may come from his cavalier approach to Holy Scripture,” said Brust in criticizing what he considers Smith's misuse of church law to deal with Hansen and the other priests.
Brust also ridiculed Smith for describing the Bible “as ‘a divine gift' not to be read as a ‘rule book,' but something which ‘along with the Spirit points us to the way to know that Jesus is love.' ”
While some have suggested a service of solidarity for Smith, the bishop says he has asked people to refrain from any kind of public rallying.
“It would force people to take sides,” he says.
Only in very restricted circumstances.
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