EPISCO-POCRISY

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

Sometimes it amazes me how dishonest Jim Naughton can be. Commenting on the recent speech of James Jones, the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, in which the Bishop thought that the way to end the Anglican wars was to stop fighting, John Chane’s former publicity flack had this to say:

"Bishop Jones is going to be treated as a dangerous man by the Anglican right–and as a silly one by the Anglican Communion Institute/Fulcrum crowd who would condescend to Einstein on the topic of relativity. But the risk may be worth it if he is truly committed to the let-and-let-live solution he has articulated to the Anglican crisis over homosexuality."

To paraphrase Mary McCarthy, I don’t believe a word in that paragraph, even “and” and “the.” I don’t even believe Jim’s punctuation. And you know what? Jim doesn’t believe any of it either. Know how I know that? He comes right out and says so.

"Many, many bishops expressed a preference for this sort of solution at the Lambeth Conference in 2008, but Rowan Williams would not lead in that direction, preferring to place the burden of keeping the communion together on the backs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Christians, who were asked to abandon any hope of first-class citizenship in the Church until Williams had persuaded some of the most bigoted men in the Communion that it wasn’t such a bad idea."

Subtle, innee? Jim? I’ll type this as slowly as I possibly can. You and I both know that Gene Robinson got a pointy hat and Mary Glasspool is about to get one. You also know that it is now next-to impossible for a person who believes homosexual activity to be a sin to be ordained in the Episcopal Organization.

And you know that Mark Lawrence is the last orthodox bishop TEO will ever approve and he’ll only last until Mrs. Schori decides to cap him. So as far as the Episcopalians are concerned, there is one right answer and only one to the homosexual issue and your side is the one that proclaims it.

So what, says Jim. We’re not imposing our views on anyone else. All we’re asking is for the Anglican Communion to respect where we are as a church. No, you’re not, Jim.

Because that word “bigoted” gives the game away. Dismissing people as bigots merely because they disagree with you suggests that you mean for your views to not only be tolerated to eventually prevail. So you’ll stay in the same Communion with the Africans.

For now. The muscle will come later.

Williams’ approach hasn’t worked. It has done tremendous damage to the witness of the Church in the United States, Canada, and in his own country, where the public has turned away from a Church viewed ever more widely as a seat of reaction. Jones’ speech points the Church of England, and perhaps the entire Communion, in a new direction. Whether it has the wisdom to follow is another question.

Rowan Williams’ leadership during the Anglican crisis can be explained by two basic facts. He is a liberal while a large part of the Communion he heads is not. Since serious Christians don’t enjoy having 2,000 years of Christian teaching dynamited merely to make a tiny group of Episcopalians feel better about themselves, Dr. Williams’ course of action was probably the only one open to him.

He could have taken your side from the start and watched the growing and vital part of the Anglican world shake Canterbury’s dust from its feet a long time ago. Or he could have manned up, declared that Lambeth Resolution 1.10, all of it, meant what it said and watched the US, Canada and their allies, form the Episcopal Communion and keep their scratch to themselves.

But Dr. Williams steered a middle course and made everyone mad at him. Know why that was, Jim? Because, as liberal as he might be, he genuinely respects the conservative viewpoint and takes it seriously. Rowan Williams is a lot closer to an actual live-and-let-live position than James Jones or ecclesiastical airheads like Katharine Jefferts Schori can ever hope to be.

As far as the “damage” Dr. Williams has supposedly done to the Communion is concerned, project much, Jim? You and the Canadians started this fire and you have the balls to complain about the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury to limit the damage? Man up and deal with the fact that this is all on you.

Besides, how’s that whole homosexual bishop thing working out for you anyway? From all indications, TEO’s membership hemorrhage has picked up speed since Robbie got his pointy hat(all those progs who were going to flood TEO parishes after Robbie should be arriving any day now) and dioceses are awash in red ink from one end of the country to the other.

Rowan Williams didn’t damage your “witness,” Jim lad. You put that gun to your temple all by yourself.