Dispatches from the Episcopal Communicators List: Heretics? Who, Us??? [Diocese voting to leave]

Stand Firm ^ | 10/03/2008 | Greg Griffith

[sionnsar]

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GetReligion notes that The New York Times (peace be upon it) has, remarkably, described the Episcopal conflict in language that is much closer to the truth than the "all about homosexuality" shorthand it and so many other news outlets have resorted to over the past several years:

For a long time now, many reporters have based their stories on the assumption that all of this fighting began with the ordination of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the openly noncelibate gay bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. Things were rolling along toward tolerant modernity and then the church consecrated a gay bishop and the nasty traditionalists went ballistic.
...
So with that in mind, let us celebrate the top of this New York Times story about the D-Day that is now facing Episcopalians in Pittsburgh:

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will vote Saturday on whether to secede from the national church, part of the continuing fallout from 30 years of theological disputes that boiled over five years ago after an openly gay bishop was elected and consecrated in New Hampshire.

If it does vote to secede, as expected, Pittsburgh would become the second diocese to vote to leave the American branch of the Anglican Communion, which has 2.4 million members. The diocese in San Joaquin, Calif., voted to secede last December. Two other dioceses, in Fort Worth and in Quincy, Ill., are contemplating similar votes.

Should a split occur, the Pittsburgh Diocese intends to align itself with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, a theologically conservative province that covers six nations in South America. The San Joaquin Diocese also joined that province.

This has been the source of some spirited protests from the Episcopal Communicators List, another listserv in the style of the HoB/D listserv, whose members include press officers and such from 815 and the various dioceses around the country.

As with the HoB/D, I'm inclined to let the exchanges carry on undisturbed, except in those cases where revisionist spin breaks the threshold of bald, pure mendacity. Thus the following:

Jim Naughton, communications director for that great bastion of orthodoxy, Bishop John Chane's Diocese of Washington, took exception to a passage in the story and wrote to the communicators list. Remember that this is the same Jim Naughton, writing to the same communicators list, who tried to rally the troops to help keep the story of the Episco-Muslim priestess "under the radar". The bold is my emphasis:

Hey gang,

There is something in today’s NYT that I think deserves a response. In an otherwise fair piece on the situation in Pittsburgh, Sean D. Hammil writes:

“The dispute includes complaints that the national church allows open debate on whether Jesus is the Son of God, or that the only way to God is through Jesus — tenets of faith that conservatives find indisputable.”

To my knowledge, there is no debate in our church over whether Jesus is the Son of God. I don’t know whether everyone who finds his or her way into a church on Sunday believes it, but it isn’t as though the issue is open to dispute in any serious way. We proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God in our Prayer Book. This understanding infuses our hymns. We profess it every Sunday as part of our Creed. We teach it in our seminaries. There is absolutely no movement to change this bedrock element of our faith.

To suggest that we do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God is to call the integrity of our faith into question. Yet having allowed Bishop Duncan and his followers to make this very serious charge, the Times made no effort to determine if the assertion is true. The only people speaking about what Episcopalians believe in this story are people who are leaving the Church. I think the Times would benefit from hearing from actual Episcopalians.

Find out how to contact them here:

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html

Cheers,

Jim

Jim Naughton

Canon for Communications and Advancement

In a subsequent post to the list, he adds:

If there is a debate going on in the Episcopal Church about whether Jesus is the Son of God—an honest to goodness back and forth with significant numbers on both sides; a debate that is taking place in dioceses all over the country--within General Convention deputations, on seminary faculties—I haven’t heard it. If it was on the agenda of the last General Convention, I missed it. If it is to be discussed at this General Convention, no one has told me.

When reporters base generalizations about what the church “allows” on the behavior of a few outliers, they are serving the interest of the church’s critics. There is nothing balanced, or for that matter, accurate, about that. I don’t think Hammil did that on purpose. He isn’t a religion writer. I think he just didn’t realize how loaded this area is.

It is true that the article needs to examine why Pburgh wants to leave. That doesn’t mean it needs to embrace the explanation they advance uncritically. That is what the article does. There is no examination of its motives, just an acceptance that this is about what they say it is about.

Jim Naughton

Canon for Communications and Advancement

Folks, this is what Naughton, Fox, and the rest of the communication directors who are in the tank for Schori and 815 do. This is part of their job: To monitor what goes on in major news outlets, to parse the language of reporters, and to pounce on them when they think they've written something that's injurious to their cause (and to their bosses).

Neva Rae Fox, who us 815's communications director, chimed in with this:

Concerning the conversation on the talk list about today’s NY Times article: I have submitted the following to the reporter.

I would appreciate copies of any letter, blog or other form of response that you might send or post.

Thank you.

Faithfully,

Neva Rae Fox

Mr. Hamill,

Thank you for your in-depth article which appeared in today’s New York Times, Pittsburgh Episcopalians Weigh Division. However, I must point out that the Episcopal Church has never disputed that “Jesus is the Son of God”. While there may be debate in some quarters about beliefs of the Episcopal Church, there has never been “open debate” or any debate in councils or conventions on our core belief that Jesus is the Son of God.

This hardly needs to be said on these pages, but the notion that there "has never been an open debate" about the divinity or uniqueness of Christ in the Episcopal Church is 100% pure bravo sierra.

As we've documented here, the examples are numerous, tawdry, and span a period of decades, from the lowest to the highest levels of the church. You can start with sufi-swirling and Druis priests, and hop your way all the way up to "putting God in a small box."

Here's what I hope you'll do:

Go to the heresy thread, pick just two examples (try to be as random as you can - we don't want everybody picking the two most egregious examples), then compose an email to the New York Times reporter (his name is Sean D. Hamill; his article is here for your reference) thanking him for his use of language that more accurately describes the nature of the crisis, and include your two chosen examples, with links (preferably to the original stories; use Stand Firm links only if the originals are unavailable; yes, check them please before emailing them).

Go to this page at the New York Times for information on contacting Mr. Hamill.

Orthodox Anglicans who will read this post outnumber, by probably 100-1, the Episcopal communications professionals who will write Mr. Hamill insisting that there has been no debate about the divinity or uniqueness of Christ in the Episcopal Church. I like those numbers.

Please keep the following in mind if you take up this task:

1. Be polite. Compliment Mr. Hamill on his use of language. Do not berate anyone... anyone.

2. Summarize your picks as briefly as you can - and as accurately as you can.

3. Include links to the original material to which you're referring.

4. Report back here with a summary of what you wrote.

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Comments:

Actually, in a weird sort of way, their statements are true.  There is no debate.  They have renounced the faith by fiat.

[1] Posted by Ann Castro on 10-03-2008 at 04:17 PM • top

[sionnsar]

That 2.4 million membership is a VERY "optimistic" count -- especially as more and more churches and dioceses depart the Episcopal church. The worldwide Anglican Communion numbers about 77 million.

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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment

Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

[kaehurowing]

I’ve read the actual number of people who attend on Sundays is more like 800,000, a small fraction of its official number. Many of the people they count as members are dead, gone, or in nursing homes.

[RobbyS]

Taking their methodology of voting tombstones from Tammany Hall and Boss Daley.