VICTORY PARADE
In a few days, Big Narcissism will finalize its takeover of the Episcopal Organization:
Sixteen fractious years after it allowed the ordination of homosexuals, the Episcopal Church appears poised to adopt a blessing rite for same-sex couples wishing to wed.
If approved, as expected, at the church’s General Convention starting Thursday in Indianapolis, the liturgy would be the first such rite endorsed by a major denomination in the United States.
If, by “a major denomination,” one means a minor universalist sect whose membership hemorrhage will shortly become a fountain.
Advocates of the blessing – already written, down to the “We have gathered here today” and “I do” and the exchange of rings – stress that it is not a sacrament and would not confer “marriage” on the couple.
Wink, wink. In other news, Chuckie’s down.
Its passage would be a major advance for gay people within the 2 million-member denomination, says Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. of the Diocese of Pennsylvania.
He serves on the legislative committee that will present the measure to the 300-member House of Bishops and the 800 laity and clergy who make up the House of Deputies. If the same-sex blessing is to pass, both houses must approve it.
“For some people, it’s going to be troubling. For others, it’s going to be thrilling,” said Bennison, whose 55,000-member diocese encompasses Philadelphia and the four suburban counties.
While for actual Christians and actual Christian churches, yet another Episcopal apostasy will be a matter of almost complete indifference. What have those wacky Episcopalians done now? According to Chuckie, there’s a chance that this thing won’t happen.
“Some bishops I’ve talked to say it’s going to be much easier for the deputies” – the laity and clergy who make up the convention’s “lower” chamber – “because they don’t have to face the fallout,” he said. “It’s the bishops’ desks where the mail is going to land” in dioceses where gay marriage is largely perceived as an assault on Christianity.
Just tell ‘em Elizabeth Kaeton and Susan Russell will start crying again. That’ll stiffen squishop spines. Northwestern Pennsylvania’s Sean Rowe is more optimistic.
Reaction within his “middle-of-the-road” diocese will be “mixed” if it passes, Rowe predicted. “For some it will be a cause to celebrate, and for others a source of disappointment. But we’ve been having conversations on human sexuality for some time, and learned to disagree in ways that are charitable.”
Since we’ve long since expelled or driven away just about everyone who honestly disagrees with us. But at least TEO hasgotten academic “theologians” to tell it whatever it wants to hear a solid theological foundation for its action.
Paul’s condemnation of “unnatural” sex acts in the Book of Romans, they say, might have been a condemnation of temple prostitution. And Leviticus’ command that homosexual acts be punished by stoning, while “difficult,” can be discounted as a byproduct of the “strict gender hierarchy of the ancient Mediterranean world.”
“Might be a condemnation of temple prostitution,” Gracie? Bit of a crap shoot, that. And what not boinking someone who’s the same sex as you has to do with a “strict gender hierarchy” completely escapes me. But theology has never been all that complicated for high-church universalists.
For Bennison and many other Episcopalians who advocate for gay ordination and marriage rights, however, the biblical injunctions against homosexuality are important – but not the final word.
Or for high-church universalist Mormons for that matter.
“We have (biblical) texts that endorsed slavery,
No we don’t, Chuckie, any more than we have Biblical texts that approve of divorce. Like I’ve always said, show me where in the Bible anyone is commanded to own a slave and I’ll buy that idiotic comparison. Because there are lots of Biblical injunctions not to do what Gene Robinson, Susan Russell and Elizabeth Kaeton enjoy doing in their off-hours.
but nobody today believes that slavery is the will of God,” he said. “So there’s continuing revelation” about notions of right and wrong.
Apparently, the Episcopal deity regularly makes mistakes.
“That doesn’t mean we can make up anything we want to,” he said,
HAW, HAW, HAW, HEE, HEE, HEE, HO, HO, HO, HAR, HAR, HAR, HEE, HEE, HEE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP IT, CHUCKIE, YOU’RE KILLING ME, MAN!!
“but the authority to accept what scripture means lies in the community of believers.”
Which basically means that Episcopalians are closet atheists who dress funny and enjoy getting up early on one of their days off to perform or participate in weird ceremonies for reasons known only to Vague, Ambiguous, Infinitely-Malleable, Inclusive, Affirming, Open-Minded And Tolerant Deity Concept.
Sixteen fractious years after it allowed the ordination of homosexuals, the Episcopal Church appears poised to adopt a blessing rite for same-sex couples wishing to wed.
If approved, as expected, at the church’s General Convention starting Thursday in Indianapolis, the liturgy would be the first such rite endorsed by a major denomination in the United States.
If, by “a major denomination,” one means a minor universalist sect whose membership hemorrhage will shortly become a fountain.
Advocates of the blessing – already written, down to the “We have gathered here today” and “I do” and the exchange of rings – stress that it is not a sacrament and would not confer “marriage” on the couple.
Wink, wink. In other news, Chuckie’s down.
Its passage would be a major advance for gay people within the 2 million-member denomination, says Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. of the Diocese of Pennsylvania.
He serves on the legislative committee that will present the measure to the 300-member House of Bishops and the 800 laity and clergy who make up the House of Deputies. If the same-sex blessing is to pass, both houses must approve it.
“For some people, it’s going to be troubling. For others, it’s going to be thrilling,” said Bennison, whose 55,000-member diocese encompasses Philadelphia and the four suburban counties.
While for actual Christians and actual Christian churches, yet another Episcopal apostasy will be a matter of almost complete indifference. What have those wacky Episcopalians done now? According to Chuckie, there’s a chance that this thing won’t happen.
“Some bishops I’ve talked to say it’s going to be much easier for the deputies” – the laity and clergy who make up the convention’s “lower” chamber – “because they don’t have to face the fallout,” he said. “It’s the bishops’ desks where the mail is going to land” in dioceses where gay marriage is largely perceived as an assault on Christianity.
Just tell ‘em Elizabeth Kaeton and Susan Russell will start crying again. That’ll stiffen squishop spines. Northwestern Pennsylvania’s Sean Rowe is more optimistic.
Reaction within his “middle-of-the-road” diocese will be “mixed” if it passes, Rowe predicted. “For some it will be a cause to celebrate, and for others a source of disappointment. But we’ve been having conversations on human sexuality for some time, and learned to disagree in ways that are charitable.”
Since we’ve long since expelled or driven away just about everyone who honestly disagrees with us. But at least TEO has
Paul’s condemnation of “unnatural” sex acts in the Book of Romans, they say, might have been a condemnation of temple prostitution. And Leviticus’ command that homosexual acts be punished by stoning, while “difficult,” can be discounted as a byproduct of the “strict gender hierarchy of the ancient Mediterranean world.”
“Might be a condemnation of temple prostitution,” Gracie? Bit of a crap shoot, that. And what not boinking someone who’s the same sex as you has to do with a “strict gender hierarchy” completely escapes me. But theology has never been all that complicated for high-church universalists.
For Bennison and many other Episcopalians who advocate for gay ordination and marriage rights, however, the biblical injunctions against homosexuality are important – but not the final word.
Or for high-church universalist Mormons for that matter.
“We have (biblical) texts that endorsed slavery,
No we don’t, Chuckie, any more than we have Biblical texts that approve of divorce. Like I’ve always said, show me where in the Bible anyone is commanded to own a slave and I’ll buy that idiotic comparison. Because there are lots of Biblical injunctions not to do what Gene Robinson, Susan Russell and Elizabeth Kaeton enjoy doing in their off-hours.
but nobody today believes that slavery is the will of God,” he said. “So there’s continuing revelation” about notions of right and wrong.
Apparently, the Episcopal deity regularly makes mistakes.
“That doesn’t mean we can make up anything we want to,” he said,
HAW, HAW, HAW, HEE, HEE, HEE, HO, HO, HO, HAR, HAR, HAR, HEE, HEE, HEE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP IT, CHUCKIE, YOU’RE KILLING ME, MAN!!
“but the authority to accept what scripture means lies in the community of believers.”
Which basically means that Episcopalians are closet atheists who dress funny and enjoy getting up early on one of their days off to perform or participate in weird ceremonies for reasons known only to Vague, Ambiguous, Infinitely-Malleable, Inclusive, Affirming, Open-Minded And Tolerant Deity Concept.
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