Posted on 01/14/2007 4:34:11 PM PST by sionnsar
Immediately, I asked “What did you mean when you told a Washington Post reporter in early November that the church would have to refrain from the election of gay bishops and the creation of rites of same-sex blessings ‘for a season?’ Just how long is a ‘season?’”
++Katharine admitted, “I don’t think anyone knows. What the convention [General Convention 2006] did was call for a pause in what we’re doing for now.” Then in what might be considered the understatement of the triennium, the Presiding Bishop continued, “We’re waiting to see if it was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do.” I reminded her that at General Convention in June she had said the issue of a moratorium on additional gay bishops “has to be revisited in the very near future.” I asked whether the evolution in her language from “the very near future” to “a season” reflected an evolution in her thinking?
“No, no. I don’t think anybody is saying — and I am certainly not encouraging people to say — we don’t need to continue to investigate and wrestle with this issue. It’s certainly not something that is going to go away for the rest of the Communion.” While the LGBT members of her flock wrestle with both the immediate future of their lives in the church today and building for the millennium, the Presiding Bishop takes the long view on LGBT inclusion, “Part of the charism of the church on this continent has always been to encourage the wider church to look at challenging issues. I think that’s part of who we are, part of our gift, even though it is a gift that’s not always welcome.” (If there was a tea leaf to be read among her statements, this understanding of “our gift” might be the most predictive.)
Looking around the office with its soothing green carpets and cushy furniture, this interviewer’s mind turned to Barbi Click. Barbi is an out lesbian who’s just been elected to the board of Integrity and who is struggling with the schismatic situation in her home diocese of Fort Worth. (Look for Barbi’s “Letter from Fort Worth” elsewhere in this issue of the Voice.) I described Barbi’s predicament and asked ++Katharine, “Do you have words of hope for the Barbi Clicks of the church?”
It turned out that the Presiding Bishop knows Barbi Click. “I have corresponded with her.” What about those words of hope? “The rest of the church is praying for people in dioceses where they are feeling burdened, oppressed by the decisions of their leadership, and I think that’s true on both ends of the issue.” If that response sounded rote, the next thing she said sounded anything but: “I think our gift as Episcopalians has always been to embrace that breadth, that diverse set of understandings and to say that we’re all welcome because it’s God’s table, not our table.”
Read it all (page nine and following). [PDF]
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. The new High Priestess makes herself known once again!
Yup.
This deserves a barf alert!
Jude 4For certain men whose condemnation was written about[b] long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
7In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
8In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings.
10Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them.
11Woe to them!
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