FOR EVIL TO TRIUMPH

I'm pretty sure you won't see this post linked at Stand Firm. From Christopher Johnson at the Midwest Conservative Journal:

Friday, February 13th, 2009

David Virtue figures out what a lot of us concluded several years back. The “inside strategy” is like Mohammed. Dead:

"However, the question inside strategists must now face is this; in light of the communiqué delivered at Alexandria and the realization that the Anglican Communion is irretrievably broken and torn beyond repair, and the fact that lawsuits are relentlessly being ratcheted up by the Episcopal Church, what is the future of such a strategy?

"If GC2009 rescinds B033, pushes for rites for same sex partners, nods and winks at future pansexual bishops in TEC, and moves rites for same sex partners from optional to mandatory and then to coercive, where does that leave dioceses like Dallas, South Carolina, Albany, Western Louisiana, Western Kansas and Central Florida? The Diocese of Albany, at its last convention, changed its canons to make sure that anyone following Bishop Bill Love would not adhere to the Episcopal party line, but would such an orthodox bishop obtain consents? Most unlikely. Many believe Mark Lawrence is the last orthodox bishop. They may be right. He only obtained consents on a second run for the job after swearing fealty to Mrs. Jefferts Schori and agreeing not to take his diocese out of the Episcopal Church."

Charles Alley, on the other hand, believes that outside strategists misunderstand what inside strategists feel called to do:

"Such a strategy is incoherent for those who have as their vocation the call to remain in TEC. It is not that the members of this group are against the formation of a new province, or doubt the sincerity of those forming it, but rather it is not a logical alternative for those who have a call to stay. Perhaps the difference lies in the goal to which they are called. Some conservative voices do not see as their vocation the reformation of TEC. Rather, the call is recognized as to stand as a witness to the truth in the midst of the theological chaos. They are called simply to be the Church and provide an alternative model of doing church within TEC. In this way these parishes can provide a witness to what the Church is meant to be so that TEC might have the opportunity to see what it has become."

I’m going to let you in on something. I’m rather attracted to women who are, shall we say, somewhat…larger than the International Women’s Beauty StandardTM would prefer them to be. Somewhat older too, which goes without saying since I’m, like, what, 53?

Anyhoo, if you are appalled by my new girlfriend(I don’t actually have one, this is only theoretical) and decide to make it your life’s work to convince me what a mistake I made, do you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to hang out with you a whole lot less.

I’ve got news for any remaining inside strategists of the Charles Alley variety. There is no need to show the Episcopal Organization what it has become. The Episcopal Organization knows what it has become. And the Episcopal Organization likes what it has become.

Come to find out that this battle was over a long time ago. And it wasn’t lost because of Gene Robinson, the “prayer” book, women’s ordination or that Lambeth Conference resolution on birth control.

It was lost in 1967 when the bishops of what was then the Episcopal Church reacted to the idea of charging one of their own, James Pike, with heresy along the following lines. “Heresy?! In this day and age!! Oh my GAWD, what a perfectly dreadful and apPALLLLLLLLLing concept!”

But that wasn’t what killed the Episcopal Organization. What put TEO on it’s long, slow march to universalist death was the fact that the Organization’s “conservative” bishops, who were in a much stronger position than they are now, didn’t say, “This is unacceptable.

“Until this church realizes what it has done, we will have nothing more to do with this man or this church. We will walk away and form our own church, because we value the Gospel of Jesus Christ far more than we value some earthly club.”

But they didn’t. They valued the institution infintely more than they valued Who the institution was supposed to represent. So everything that followed became inevitable. Because the denial of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith carried no sanction, the sky officially had no limit.

The moral cowardice of the 1960’s Episcopal bishops meant that everything became permissible in the Episcopal Organization. And since, like it or not, TEO is the straw that stirs the western leftist Anglican drink, the doom of the Anglican Communion was sealed.