The Washington Post has awoken to the story on its doorstep, in Episcopal Protest of Top Bishop Increases by Alan Cooperman.
The Witness has an article by Bishop Barbara Harris She Will Not Be Alone.
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh has issued a press release Pittsburgh Action Called Divisive:
… “This request is divisive, yet without substance,” said PEP President Joan R. Gundersen, “since our primate, the Presiding Bishop, has virtually no power and exercises no ‘oversight’ over dioceses and their bishops. It is an irresponsible attempt to create a media event, without regard to the genuine harm this does to parishes in the diocese, to The Episcopal Church, and to the Anglican Communion. It represents a premature judgment of our Presiding Bishop-elect, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, of Nevada. The move by the Standing Committee has brought distress to Episcopalians committed to The Episcopal Church, as parishioners fear the organizational estrangement being sought by their bishop. It stirs up division and anxiety in the many parishes that are divided in their response to the recent church controversies and to the course of action being pursued by Bishop Duncan.
The alleged withdrawal of the diocese from Province III is even more disingenuous. Not only does the diocese already have little involvement in provincial affairs, but the Bishop of Pittsburgh well knows that the creation of provinces and the assignment of dioceses to provinces can only be done by canon of the General Convention. It would not be unprecedented for a diocese to ignore its province, but neither the Standing Committee nor the Convention of the diocese can remove the diocese from Province III; only General Convention can do that, and not before 2009. Creating a tenth province, as suggested by the resolution, likewise, can only be accomplished by General Convention. “A province of Network dioceses would be a pastoral disaster,” Gundersen suggested. “At least 13 parishes in this diocese have declined to be part of the Network and declared a commitment to The Episcopal Church. Despite assurances from the Standing Committee, these parishes, and similar parishes in other dioceses, either will be abandoned or forced into a being part of the Network against their will.”…
Neil Alexander has issued A statement from the Bishop of Atlanta in response to the recent reflections of the Archbishop of Canterbury on the future of the Anglican Communion.
Roger Herft Archbishop of Perth in Western Australia has written an article in the Sydney Morning News entitled Love and generosity should guide fractured Anglican Church. This deserves careful reading.
Archbishop Andrew Hutchison of Canada preached this Sermon at Southwark Cathedral last week.
Roger Herft said: ” particularly those we determine to be the “enemy”. The heat is on. The gay and lesbian person is placed on the altar” Err, who said anything about ‘enemies’ ? Maybe that is the way +Herft thinks about conservatives, but we are arguing about Truth, not about personalities. And as for placing people on the altar, I think he means “same-sex sex” is on the altar… By the way, isn’t the altar where we are all *supposed* to be ? Offering our lives to God as “living sacrifices”… to deny self and follow Christ ? To die… Read more »
Bishop KJS says ‘all language is metaphorical’. How can it be? The very word ‘metaphor’ is employed precisely to distinguish language that is metaphorical from language that is not metaphorical.
If all is metaphor, then mothing is metaphor, and the word ‘metaphor’ is emptied of meaning.
In addition, such talk, with the appearance of learning, serves only to obfuscate, and to increase the sum of vagueness. Good teachers who serve the flock do so with clarity, even concerning difficult issues.
Please, please, please – context? Almost all of religious witness language tends towards non-literal speech. Until somebody can actually demonstrate that they have got God or Jesus sampled in a test tube – and the rest of us can repeat the maneuver any time we like if we follow their best practices – we are blessed and burdened with non-literal speech. If you carefully investigate the fundamental notions of God, you will find that a test tube God is by definition, impossible – thus the Tillich veneration of what he called the Protestant Principle – no graven images, if in… Read more »
Please, please, please – context? If we are being careful about how talk about something is not the exclusive, objective total reality of that something, even apart from graven images of God rendered from scripture in new conservative readings of scripture – we also might take some considerable care in distinguishing between the nastiness and negativities of typical conservative narratives about queer folks in loving relationships, with or without children whom those parents also love, and the real queer partners involved as the objects of that negative and nasty speech. For possible starters, we could stop talking about partnered gay… Read more »
drdanfee- I’ll explain why I disagree. The very reason why I believe that our focus as Christians should be primarily on the Jesus of the New Testament is because there at least we are on relatively unshaky ground (or as unshaky as we will get, anyway): the ground of history, and of documents susceptible to historical analysis. Now, when one is speaking of history and biography, is literal or non-literal interpretation appropriate? Clearly the former. How about when one is speaking of epistles? The same: literal. How about when one is speaking of apocalyptic? Semi-literal and semi-non-literal. So of the… Read more »