In another live webcast, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has talked about the New Orleans meeting of the House of Bishops. She then answered many questions, both from a studio audience and submitted by email.
You can read her introductory remarks here.
You can watch the entire programme here.
An ENS report on the programme is here: ‘There will be no outcasts in this Church,’ Presiding Bishop tells live webcast audience.
Why can’t the Church of England have this kind of event?
++KJS is terrific. So thoroughly Anglican, smart and spiritual, entirely unpretentious. Via media. TEC allows many of us to be both catholic and Christian generally. My wife has always insisted that if TEC did not exist in its current form, someone would have to invent it. We would be unhappy across the Tiber, and equally as unhappy as Protestants.
Well, I was very impressed by Bishop Katharine, but there is nothing new about that.
I am sure that those who will never accept her statements with good will won’t change their opinions now, either (which is truly very sad).
Well done Schori and TEC, God bless you all as you find your stride and for not surrendering. Remember the prophets of old, the Hoseas and Ezekiels and Jeremiahs. If they couldn’t elucidate with one strategy, then they prayed and woved and took another tack. I liked your question Simon. My first thought was that the question should be “When will the Church of England have this kind of event?” But as I contemplated, ABC already does do these kinds of things e.g. the question and answer session from New Orleans linked on TA a few weeks ago. So the… Read more »
Let me interrupt this lovefest for ++KJS: “This statement both affirms the church’s commitment to the full dignity of gay and lesbian persons and cautions us to wait before their full sacramental inclusion. There is a fundamental tension there that will continue to ***challenge us all***.” The issue isn’t whether all are challenged, but whether all are BURDENED. When the HofB committed to a moratorium on ALL consents for bishops (Spring ’05), then that was truly a burden on all—a burden SHARED. But now, w/ the specification that gays and lesbians “present a challenge to the wider communion”—and ABSENT an… Read more »
Sensible and prudent.
Like “sensible shoes” selected prudently for leading ones barefoot followers through blind curved biways that are littered with broken bones, stigmatic nails, rusting hearts and other Body-of-Christ cast-off parts.
“Greetings to all of you in the Episcopal Church, from Taiwan to Europe, Alaska to Ecuador, and everywhere between and beyond”……sounds like a US organisation or a global one?
JCF is right – the AC is being sold fudge but also Integrity et al are being sold fudge.
Many people asked TEC HOB simply to speak the truth about what it believes to be right and stand by its beliefs…..the tangled web woven with Lambeth Palace bureaucrats lacks integrity and hurts all.
The Lambeth strategy was to isolate “both extremes” – I believe they think this strategy has succeeded and listening to this speech they would seem to be right. An interesting consequence of this is there is now some disquiet and discomfort as to who is occupying an “extreme” position as the centre ground appears to have moved again! Lambeth Palace and the ACO are clearly happy they have achieved all the Windsor Report asked and see the experiment with the Primates Group as something of a disaster and best left for a while. Those who heavily bought into the Primates… Read more »
NP will ignore this comment (no surprise there), but I have to make it anyway. I am a gay Episcopalian whose brother has served in Iraq. The Episcopal Church has condemned the war, an action which filled me with deep gratitude and increased my certainty that I am where I am supposed to be. I deeply opposed the war from the beginning, and I live in a most decidedly Republican area. So each Sunday I take the Eucharist with people who have supported and continue to support the false witness that is daily murdering and maiming the people of Iraq… Read more »
JCF, I don’t think I agree. It’s about uderstanding that there are more people in the world than us and that perhaps it is not appropriate for Christians to demand that their personal needs, whatever those needs may be, come before the needs of others. That doesn’t sound to me like the sacrificial love we are always being told Christians should practice. What they feel and say and do about us may hurt, may even get us killed, but that still doesn’t mean that we should put ourselves before them. Sorry. I know that sounds hyperpious, but I see an… Read more »
NP: There are several dioceses, like Taiwan, which are outside of the United States but which are members of the Episcopal Church. That was the main reason for dropping “United States” from the title.
Ford “If the Right can be accused of narrowminded judgementalism, bigotry, and hypocrisy, and hiding behind God to justify it, and I think they can, then I really believe the left can be accused of a profound self centredness. Whatever else the Left may be doing, however closely they are following the Gospel in this, they are far from the Gospel in that respect” I agree, and I have been deeply moved by the call for gay people to possibly agree to accept their own exclusion for the time being(on another thread). But it rather does leave me with the… Read more »
Paul – indeed, TEC(USA) has dioceses in other countries…. maybe Rowan will “lead” us to the point where it has dioceses in England too. Martin – I am sure you noticed +Durham signed a recent ACI piece which was less than complimentary on the JSC fudge….I took that as a significant sign that Lambeth has not actually succeeded in isolating the extremes because the sold centre (+Tom?) is not fooled by TEC doublespeak. Susan, Ford, Martin – my problem with TEC HOB NO statement is that it lacks honesty. Same problem with the JSC fudge. I have praised VGR for… Read more »
“it rather does leave me with the question of who is allowed to fight for anybody’s equality and when. “ I think we should ask a different question. We start from a position of injustice which must be opposed.Here’s a hypothetical, and admittedly idealistically pious, suggestion of an alternative: We are all equal in God’s eyes. Thus, when others practice inequality, they are sinning, since it goes against God. Now, we wouldn’t “fight against” other people’s sin, we wouldn’t walk away from them. We would patiently try to help them, and pray for them. So when +Akinola sins by claiming… Read more »
Well PB Katherine is not perfect, and I suspect she would be the last person to claim that she was perfect. In her great favor are her steady intelligence – dissed on many conservative blogs as: THAT MARINE BIOLOGIST – who only knows about octopus and squid; plus her public calmness in the face of tensions and controversies – dissed among some right and lefty believers as: SHE DOES NOT REALLY CARE; plus her willingness to be clear where most other church life leaders are either loudly confusing and/or trenchantly silent – dissed as PHONINESS by those of us who… Read more »
I was on a clergy retreat and they showed this projected on a large screen. I wish someone had asked her what the support of glbt civil rights, mentioned at the end of the New Orleans document, would look like. A number of states, including my own, have passed very harsh antigay laws or constitutional amendments on marriage, civil unions, and the like. These were pushed by the fundagelicals with lots of ‘reverends’ speaking out. Silence from most mainline churches, including our own in the Diocese of Virginia.
I thought the implication by the PB was pretty clear that the question of the role of GLBTQ people will re-visited at General Convention in 2009 — the issue is not going to go away — people are going to try to persuade other people — the people who leave are not going to be around to be persuaded (or that’s how I read things, anyway). BTW — why did no one at the HoB meeting ask Bishop Anis about his predecessor as Primate of that province who had the misfortune to be arrested in a cottaging sting? IIRC, the… Read more »
May God bless you Susan and others like you. Ford, you commented “It’s about understanding that there are more people in the world than us and that perhaps it is not appropriate for Christians to demand that their personal needs… come before the needs of others. That doesn’t sound to me like the sacrificial love we are always being told Christians should practice.” There are some very motivated Christians who are prepared to face death to spread the good news of Jesus. Yet often these “loving” Christians use intimidation to gain conditional conversions along the lines of “You will go… Read more »
NP: “Susan, Ford, Martin – my problem with TEC HOB NO statement is that it lacks honesty. Same problem with the JSC fudge. I have praised VGR for being much more open and honest….”
You are so full of it.
So September 30th came and went. We’re (TEC) still here in the AC, I’m off the boat and you’re still whining about TEC’s non-compliance (according to the Gospel of you) with Lambeth 1:10.
Some things never change.
choirboy – very powerful arguments from you…. a)30th Sept was the deadline for TEC(USA) to respond – they did….. what did you expect to happen? b) now, the AC’s Primates are being asked what they think of TEC(USA)’s response…..and many are calling for a Primates’ Meeting (including the ACI and +Durham) but Lambeth seems to feel it is easier to manipulate the process without a meeting….. if TEC(USA) had given a clear, acceptable, honest answer to the Primates, I suspect there would be many positive Primatial voices raised to celebrate the ABC saving the communion but there ain’t; c) It… Read more »
“Before you try and make a big deal of the fact that TEC made its Sept 30th deadline to respond to the Primates, maybe you ought to wait and see what actually happens in the AC??” Poor NP. He/she keeps drawing new lines in the sand, and every time that his/her latest timeline event passes, without the predicted house falling in on everyone, NP creates a new timeline: just wait and see. Sorry, NP, you’ve been so regularly wrong that the only reliable consistency is your inconsistency of correct prediction. All that is going to happen is that the more… Read more »
Interesting link, NP. It reads more like an expression of disappointment that they didn’t get their way with the JSC. By the way, your acronyms are making your postings increasingly difficult to read. They comment how this has “predictably” not met with communion wide approval. It’s rather funny that they cannot see that their desperate attempt to paint this out as negatively as they can so as to maintain the frenzy for righteousness of the poor faithful remnant is even more predictable. Is there anyone who DIDN’T think the ACI would come out against this? Nothing TEC does will be… Read more »
“So when +Akinola sins by claiming I am inhuman and ought to be jailed, our response should not be to fight against him, but to try to bring him to an awareness of his own sinfulness in doing this.” So when +Akinola sins by trying to introduce a law that will further endanger our brother Davis and those who speak out for him, we are just to sit there prayerfully hoping to “bring him to an awareness of his own sinfulness in doing this”? Because what I see happening on TA is people talking, nothing more. Talking angrily at times,… Read more »
“really and truly confused” Are we all confused about this because we are so caught up in the “fight for your rights” model? Jesus didn’t fight, and look what happened. The Crucifixion was an actual event with real people. They were killing a heretic and a political troublemaker. Well, that particular troublemaker didn’t fight back. We mysticize the reality out of it. It was all because of some “higher purpose”, going meekly to die because it was the Father’s will. True, and of huge Cosmic significance, but in real time, He was a real human being who didn’t fight against… Read more »
Ford is absolutely right in challenging the rights-based attitude of some.
He has also said law suits are wrong… and I would agree (from the bible) – conservatives being sued by TEC should, as the ACI points out, obey the bible, give their buildings to TEC and move on….. God is not dependent on endowments and buildings and fighting for rights to buildings in the courts is also wrong.
(see Ford – I can criticise “my own” when they disobey the bible!)
“Ford is absolutely right in challenging the rights-based attitude of some.”
Oh dear! Now I have to reassess my entire world view!
“Jesus didn’t fight, and look what happened” But he did. Not for himself, but for other people. He spoke out loud and clear for the persecuted, the lowly, the outsiders of his time. Are we not to speak out for the outsiders of our time, just because we may find ourselves to be part of one of those groups of people? Can I not accept my small private trials with humility, yet still speak out against the real trials of others like me? What we do about Nigeria is up to every single one of us. Write letters to their… Read more »
Yes Erika
Jesus did fight and he did succeed.
It’s just some (mainly) men like putting back in place the yokes of slavery and the burdens of accussations, particularly I notice on others more so than on themselves. Just as some are as determined to reinstate divine laws and rituals as essential even though Jesus had made them optional. They advocate that Jesus was only partially successful, and it was only to those of their camp.
Such have become the teachers of the law of this generation that Jesus so despised in that generation.
“Jesus did fight” When? The only bit of fighting He did was to drive the money lenders out of the temple. He didn’t fight for the rights of the Samaritans, He held one of them up as an example of holiness to people who considered them cursed in the eyes of God and broke several ritual laws to give the Good News to another and tell her to spread it. He didn’t demand the rights of the woman taken in adultery, He forgave her. No marches. No petitions. No campaigns, just respect for the fact they are ALL made in… Read more »
Ford – I was expecting a reply like that from you! Don’t worry, it does not mean you are wrong just because stupid old NP agrees with you on something!
Erika/Cheryl – not sure how you prove He did “fight”….not in saying “turn the other cheek” or “forgive 70×7” or in Mark 10:45.
He did speak to the truth in love….but was not mostly concerned with civil rights but his Kingdom eg Mark 1:38 and see his shocking first answer to the “paralytic” in Mark 2.
But Jesus did fight, just like Paul 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” You see, you fight to control “the numbers” and “the colleges” and “the churches”. We fight to control the collective consciousness. You can’t control that… Read more »
“we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.” Thanks! I asked for an Evo to give me chapter and verse, but you rose to the challenge, thereby heaping coals on the heads of those who have spoken scornfully of your theology in the past! Cheryl, this is the point I have been trying to make. Currently we ARE waging war as the world does, and that is why we have no effective solution. I have been saying that we need to find a way to “wage the… Read more »