Posted on 04/21/2006 8:30:47 PM PDT by sionnsar
Oppression has become the new mantra and buzzword for liberals and revisionists in their attacks on the orthodox in The Episcopal Church.
Whenever they want to blast orthodox Episcopalians for their "fundamentalism" or "homophobia" or their stance on women's ordination, the cries of anguish from liberals and revisionists nearly always concludes with the heartfelt whine that they are being oppressed.
Oppression has become the new ECUSA mantra.
This was aptly articulated recently by the Rev. Jayne Oasin, a social justice officer for the Episcopal Church, USA when she said that "to consider there to be only one truth is to me a form of oppression."
Presumably then that when Jesus said He was "THE way, THE truth and THE life," he himself would be charged with oppressive dogmatism, because Ms. Oasin says so.
Or the Apostle Paul, when he uttered such memorable lines: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!" The Great Apostle himself should be condemned for lacking a certain episcopal inclusivity. His words make him the oppressor of those who would choose to change or modify the message to suit the times in which we live.
Pluriform truths as they are articulated by Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, means that there are many roads to heaven, via whatever God you choose, many "truth" pathways, and we should never be so arrogant as to conclude that the "narrow way" of the Gospel should be proffered exclusively. Griswold does not believe in The Great Commission but in UN commissions to save humanity.
The Rev. Bonnie Perry a lesbian wannabee candidate for Bishop of California, ordained at one point by the arch heretic, Newark Bishop Jack Spong, opined recently that the anger of early women priests gave her entrée to being ordained. "Make no mistake it is their anger that has pushed back the waters of oppression so that you and I can walk through on dry land. I'm not angry. I'm profoundly grateful." Perry went on to exclaim "these women gave me hope that I could be a feminist...that I could be a lesbian...that I could be a priest."
Uplifting oppression becomes the liberator of the oppressed.
Then she went on to blast the orthodox rector of St. John's in Bristol Ct. for his blatant misrepresentation of canon law and disregard for impartial justice and common decency. Will the sufferings of the dispossessed people of St. John's, Bristol, be swept under an institutional rug, she cried?
The enemy then is a single orthodox "oppressive" rector Fr. Mark Hansen, who was thrown out of his parish by Bishop Drew Smith, his computer invaded, his parish surrounded by armed guards and much more. Rather than he being the oppressed one by a revisionist bishop, according to Perry, the orthodox folk of his parish are being oppressed because a woman priest is foisted on them against their will. The oppressor of the oppressed is apparently their friend.
When the orthodox got around to filing presentment charges against Smith for what he had done to Hansen, a number of biblically faithful clergy sought to redress the abuse of Power and thirteen bishops of the Episcopal Church, representing nearly 10 percent of all Episcopal diocesans, filed charges against Smith asserting that he had acted with "deceitfulness ... injustice ... bullying ... arrogance ... [and] oppression." They too used the word "oppression" to describe what Smith had done to Hansen.
Recently in a discussion on justice on the House of Bishops/Deputies listserv someone called Tom Woodward wryly noted, "Whenever we decide a limit has been destructive and loosen it, some will fear the coming of no limits: whenever we wrestle with a limit we have loosened, others will fear the re-imposition of oppression." He makes a good point.
"Claiming the Blessing" a term once part of the non-denominational Charismatic movement has been taken over as an intentional collaborative ministry of leading Episcopal pansexual "justice" organizations - Integrity, Oasis, Beyond Inclusion and the Episcopal Women's Caucus - in partnership with the Witness magazine, Every Voice Network and other individual leaders in the Episcopal Church. There focus, they say, is on promoting wholeness in human relationships, abolishing what they call prejudice and oppression, and healing the rift between sexuality and spirituality in the Church.
The British writer, Miles Douglas, a gay man writing on gay issues, noted in a recent issue of The Spectator that the public face of gay male life, noisily hedonistic and self-consciously triumphalist, glosses over the reality of personal unhappiness and collective callousness.
"As far as gay rights are concerned, the culture war is largely won, but we are still fleeing from our inner demons. It is this flight, more than residual prejudice that helps us to understand why levels of depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug dependency and suicide remain so high among gay men, young and old. We are faced with the paradox of a highly effective legislative lobby allied to a culture that is ever more narcissistic and heartless. This situation is compounded by a political movement based on outdated notions of blame and victimhood."
Then he said this: "Behind all these problems is the sense of stress involved in so many of our social interactions. They are not relaxed but self-conscious affairs, at which competition and jealousy, rivalry and sexual intrigue always bubble beneath the surface. Unlike the ethnic and religious minorities with which we compare ourselves, gay men have failed to create a community of shared values and mutual support. The word 'community' is trotted out for political purposes, but the stereotypes of bitchiness and backstabbing remain all too prominent features of gay men's lives."
"Today, the most striking feature of gay politics is its lack of nuance. Feminists increasingly acknowledge the complexity of women's (and men's) lives, the anti-racist movement passionately debates multiculturalism, but the gay movement remains remarkably unreconstructed. Our problems, it maintains, do not arise from within ourselves, or from the choices we make, but from OPPRESSION by heterosexual society and anything perceived as traditional values."
Douglas concludes by saying that at a time when the mainstream is more welcoming than ever before, the ethos underlying gay life still militates strongly against integration. While demanding equality, it stresses separateness, holding up the idea of the gay community as part ghetto, part laager, a defensive subculture demanding our loyalty on quasi-ethnic grounds."
"That simplistic narrative holds sway across the spectrum of gay organizations, from the most radical to the ostensibly conservative. It at once denies us our individuality and absolves us of personal responsibility," writes Douglas. This sentence brilliantly describes Episcopal organizations like Integrity, Oasis, Beyond Inclusion and the broader LGBT.
It is why VOL's website is regularly blasted by Episcopal homosexuals as a "hate website". The notion that a straight white male can and does maintain good relationships with a number of Episcopal homosexuals, while condemning the lifestyle, is simply unacceptable to many more pansexualists, and deemed oppressive.
Douglas rips the gay lifestyle saying that just as the ideology of victimhood is pervasive, so is the low-grade pornography, criticism of which is taboo. Any notion of self-restraint is condemned as oppressive.
"The result of all this is a male homosexual culture that is simultaneously turned in on itself and unable to address its own shortcomings. It confuses morality and conscience with moralistic repression. Through this confusion, we become afraid to question the casual acceptance of promiscuity and pornography, and the shallow materialistic values that underpin it, lest we be accused of hypocritical puritanism. When we criticize the gay lifestyle, we are accused by activists of self-oppression, but the true oppression comes from within that lifestyle rather than from hostile external forces. In an age of equal rights, we have become our own victims, devoured by the movement we created."
True liberation starts with the individual. Equality is worth little, ultimately, without compassion, responsibility and conscience.
In their book, After the Ball, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen pushed to portray gays as victims of circumstance and oppression, not as aggressive challengers...Gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection, so that straights will be inclined, by reflex, to assume the role of protector. Benjamin Bull of the Alliance Defense Fund said, "Suddenly those who choose homosexual behavior...sodomy...are victims. It's crazy!"
But have homosexuals won on getting themselves seen as a persecuted minority? Pretty much. In the Episcopal Church gays, and their pro-gay supporters, have taken over the reigns of ecclesiastical and financial power, they control all the committees and hold vast majorities in the House of Bishops and House of Deputies. GC2006 is a done deal for any gay legislation that might emerge in Columbus, Ohio, tempered only by the demands of the Windsor Report which has yet to be declared "oppressive". And if there is any hesitation about possible gay legislation, activist lesbitransgays will roll out V. Gene Robinson as the model of oppression and victimhood, with HOD president George Werner bleating for more "community" more "listening" and small group discussions where the orthodox can be bashed into submission.
The tidal wave of gays and gay themes in Hollywood films and television dramas only reinforces victimhood and oppression, and the constant nightly barrage has worn down middle class heterosexual opposition. To raise one's voice against a deadly behavior (no one wants to talk about the medical consequences of homosexual activity, marriage break-ups and more) invites nothing but screams and cries of victimhood and oppression.
But it was the German born American Physicist Albert Einstein who noted that the true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self. That's not a message Episcopal sodomites want to hear or follow.
"Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self..." writes C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. The thrust of much Holy Scripture is the call to die to the self; for in exalting and wallowing in one's self lies true oppression. If the Son shall set you free you shall be free indeed.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
A classic Episcopal moment is recounted with Vicky-Gene as a young student facing the dilemma of reciting the Nicene Creed:
"...To be expected to repeat these sentiments, Robinson decided, was an offense against conscience. He took his protest to one of the school’s chaplains, who listened to him and told him that he saw no problem at all. If joining in the Creed distressed him, why not just speak only those portions of it that didn’t offend? The chaplain’s counsel disarmed Robinson, but it also revealed to him that although the Anglican faith had cherished creeds, it had no absolute doctrine, a paradox rooted in its beginnings as the Church of England...."
Fast foreward one generation, and it's no surprise that Frank Griswold, can make the following statement with a straight face
"...from “the classical point of view” sexuality “is to be exercised only within heterosexual, monogamous marriages.” But Griswold notes that the church has, through time, come to an understanding of marriage and sexuality that is less rigid than that prescribed by the Bible and church tradition. “The Episcopal Church over the years has come to, let us say, an understanding of the human person that is more sophisticated, possibly, than the understanding on the part of the Biblical authors.”
There you have it... Truth is about being "sophisticated"
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