JOHNSON’S RAZOR
People are always asking me, “Gosh darn it, Anne Kennedy, why do you keep writing about the Episcopalians?! Hasn’t that ship sailed?!”
As far as I’m concerned, the entire Anglican tradition ship sailed, struck an iceberg in 2003, sank and rusted completely away by 2008, thanks for asking. But if you publish one of these blog deals, you have to go where the material is and the Episcopalians are almost always good for an amusing profundity or two.
Case in point.
A while back, an emptiness of Episcopal bishops got together and came up with somehard, fast and ironclad rules helpful guidelines that dioceses had damn well better utilize if they know what’s good for them might find useful in order to prevent any more Mark Lawrences from polluting the One True Church their discernment processes for selecting their new bishops.
According to George Conger, most of thehard, fast and ironclad rules helpful guidelines were innocuous. These three, however, were not:
8. Will the Bishop elect uphold the Oath of Conformity as found in the Book of Common Prayer on page 513 (page 415 in the Spanish Book of Common Prayer)?
9. Will the Bishop elect recognize and respect the office of the Presiding Bishop and the authority of General Convention?
10. Is the Bishop elect willing to participate fully in the councils of the Church and to adhere to the norms of behavior as adopted by the House of Bishops?
What was the problem?
However, the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, Professor of Historical Theology at Wycliffe College in Toronto said these three questions were “clearly designed to emphasize certain elements that are viewed has problematic in recent years. And they do so from the side of those who would like to limit the kinds of minority witness” made by moderate and conservative bishops at the last few general Conventions.
“Why single these elements out,” he asked, as “8 is already in the oath made at the consecration and 9 and 10 are presupposed in various ways. Why not emphasize through reiteration the elements” found in the Book of Common Prayer such as “guarding the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church” or “be faithful in prayer,, and in the study of Holy Scripture, that you may have the mind of Christ”, he asked.
Respecting the authority of the Presiding Bishop and General Convention was “particularly tendentious, since it has no particular content offered for the words ‘respect’, ‘office’, and ‘authority’,” Dr. Radner said.
It was “precisely the issues that are being contested by some bishops,” he noted.
I no longer have any argument with any of this. Given the Episcopal Organization’s repeatedly-documented disinterest in its own canons, given the fact that its current leader doesn’t know the difference between Yahweh and Satan (check out the comments) and given the fact that a recent sermon of hers was greeted with stunned, open-mouthed disbelief by actual Christians, including those few names even in Sardis inside her own “church”, rules like these are to be expected.
What fascinates me about stories like this revolves around the most famous Episcopal Organization joke. There are a million variations of this that take different paths to the same punchline so here’s mine. Two Episcopalians walk into an Episcopal church andsay, “Ouch!! Damn it, Who put that Episcopal church there?!!” sit down in a pew.
It’s the Sunday of the bishop’s visitation. As the organist struck up Freddy Cannon’s “Palisades Park,” the bishop, a lesbian, and the rest of the clergy processed in stark naked. The readings were from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and the Bhagavad-Gita while the “gospel” readings consisted of a few Koranic verses that mentioned Jesus.
The shahada, the statement of adherence to the Islamic religion, replaced the Nicene Creed while the “peace” was passed by feeling up whoever happened to be standing next to you. After receiving “communion” in both kinds (a Ritz cracker and a Jäger shot), one of our Episcopal friends returns to his seat and tells the other one, “I swear, if they change just one more thing about the liturgy, I am so out of this church!”
Reaction to this news is exactly the same as reaction to this kind of news always is. There is exactly the same Gravely Concerned stroking of the chin as there always is as well as exactly the same worried declaration about how this or that new policy is going to Marginalize Conservatives.
And that’s where these complaints always stop.
As far as a certain type of Episcopalian is concerned, the most famous of all Episcopal jokes is not and has never been a joke at all. “Just one more thing” is always just over the very next hill. But it never ever arrives.
As far as I’m concerned, the entire Anglican tradition ship sailed, struck an iceberg in 2003, sank and rusted completely away by 2008, thanks for asking. But if you publish one of these blog deals, you have to go where the material is and the Episcopalians are almost always good for an amusing profundity or two.
Case in point.
A while back, an emptiness of Episcopal bishops got together and came up with some
According to George Conger, most of the
8. Will the Bishop elect uphold the Oath of Conformity as found in the Book of Common Prayer on page 513 (page 415 in the Spanish Book of Common Prayer)?
9. Will the Bishop elect recognize and respect the office of the Presiding Bishop and the authority of General Convention?
10. Is the Bishop elect willing to participate fully in the councils of the Church and to adhere to the norms of behavior as adopted by the House of Bishops?
What was the problem?
However, the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, Professor of Historical Theology at Wycliffe College in Toronto said these three questions were “clearly designed to emphasize certain elements that are viewed has problematic in recent years. And they do so from the side of those who would like to limit the kinds of minority witness” made by moderate and conservative bishops at the last few general Conventions.
“Why single these elements out,” he asked, as “8 is already in the oath made at the consecration and 9 and 10 are presupposed in various ways. Why not emphasize through reiteration the elements” found in the Book of Common Prayer such as “guarding the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church” or “be faithful in prayer,, and in the study of Holy Scripture, that you may have the mind of Christ”, he asked.
Respecting the authority of the Presiding Bishop and General Convention was “particularly tendentious, since it has no particular content offered for the words ‘respect’, ‘office’, and ‘authority’,” Dr. Radner said.
It was “precisely the issues that are being contested by some bishops,” he noted.
I no longer have any argument with any of this. Given the Episcopal Organization’s repeatedly-documented disinterest in its own canons, given the fact that its current leader doesn’t know the difference between Yahweh and Satan (check out the comments) and given the fact that a recent sermon of hers was greeted with stunned, open-mouthed disbelief by actual Christians, including those few names even in Sardis inside her own “church”, rules like these are to be expected.
What fascinates me about stories like this revolves around the most famous Episcopal Organization joke. There are a million variations of this that take different paths to the same punchline so here’s mine. Two Episcopalians walk into an Episcopal church and
It’s the Sunday of the bishop’s visitation. As the organist struck up Freddy Cannon’s “Palisades Park,” the bishop, a lesbian, and the rest of the clergy processed in stark naked. The readings were from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and the Bhagavad-Gita while the “gospel” readings consisted of a few Koranic verses that mentioned Jesus.
The shahada, the statement of adherence to the Islamic religion, replaced the Nicene Creed while the “peace” was passed by feeling up whoever happened to be standing next to you. After receiving “communion” in both kinds (a Ritz cracker and a Jäger shot), one of our Episcopal friends returns to his seat and tells the other one, “I swear, if they change just one more thing about the liturgy, I am so out of this church!”
Reaction to this news is exactly the same as reaction to this kind of news always is. There is exactly the same Gravely Concerned stroking of the chin as there always is as well as exactly the same worried declaration about how this or that new policy is going to Marginalize Conservatives.
And that’s where these complaints always stop.
As far as a certain type of Episcopalian is concerned, the most famous of all Episcopal jokes is not and has never been a joke at all. “Just one more thing” is always just over the very next hill. But it never ever arrives.
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