I was talking to Father Cullen, the Rector of my field-placement parish. We were talking about the conservatives and liberals, etc. He noticed that the perspective of some liberals is to write stacks of pages of exegesis in an attempt to find whatever looping can be found to justify doing this or that thing, or not doing something. This may be the case for some, even many, but all I can say for myself is that I desire to know the truth, not to justify a behavior.
Sometimes I wonder whether all these attempts to justify homosexual behavior, at least according to the rational of some, is simply an attempt to find a loophole to justify the behavior of some rather than to see the greater good in God’s way. Or, as Augustine might say in Free Choice and the Will: we must order our lives according to how things are. We cannot demand that the world change to meet our own desires. If we try, then we are worshiping the creature rather than the creator, which cannot bring peace and happiness because we are acting against how things really are. (Of course, the same charge can be levied against the prohibitionists as they try to persuade people that God is in the business of healing homosexuals and changing them into what God originally intended – heterosexuals.) Augustine also stresses that morality isn’t a code of conduct, but the method/process we go through internally as we make decisions, which speaks against much of the Legalistic Righteousness that is passing for Evangelical/Fundamentalist ideas of morality.
Are we practicing Natural Law, according to Aquinas? Are we striving to conform ourselves to and participate with God in Eternal Law? Are we attempting to implement Natural Law into Human Law as we order our society? Hum…..
comments? e-mail me

I had a lot of entries through MoveableType, but my website hosting service had a number of failures. Two months worth of posts are not lost. I’m wondering whether I made the right decision when I chose this hosting service!

Here is a great article written in Slate: Where Anglicans Fear To Tread

Conservative Episcopalians will not like the information coming from Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold concerning “alternative episcopal oversight.” From the Episcopal News Service:

12/5/2003
Griswold says Canterbury wants a solution within ECUSA for unhappy parishes
by Jan Nunley
031205-2
[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church needs to work out matters of "extended episcopal ministry" within its own provincial borders, and unhappy congregations should not expect "direct intervention" by anyone outside the Episcopal Church in the United States--including the archbishop of Canterbury, Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold has written in a December 5 letter to the Church's House of Bishops.
Griswold met with his Council of Advice, a team of bishops elected from each of the nine provinces of the Episcopal Church, in New York December 2-3. The council, which elected Louisiana Bishop Charles Jenkins as its new president, includes bishops Lloyd Allen (Honduras), Harry Bainbridge (Idaho), Richard Chang (Hawaii), Wendell Gibbs (Michigan), Robert Ihloff (Maryland), James Jelinek (Minnesota), Chilton Knudsen (Maine), Bruce MacPherson (Western Louisiana), and Jack McKelvey (Rochester).
"What they had to say confirmed much of what I have been hearing from you and others about the life we share in Christ and the complexities of the present moment," Griswold wrote.
Thanking the bishops for their "sacrificial expenditure of yourselves" in listening and serving as "ministers of interpretation and encouragement," Griswold alluded to his own struggles in the aftermath of General Convention's decisions to ratify the ordination of a gay priest as New Hampshire's bishop coadjutor and acknowledge the practice of blessing same-gender relationships. "I have certainly had my burdens to bear as well, though in a somewhat different way, and have had to experience the deep sadness of relationships becoming impaired or broken," he wrote. "At the same time I find an unexpected confidence stirring within me, and look ahead with a hope not of my own making."
No direct intervention
He then outlined the process for discussion of the draft plan for Supplemental Episcopal Pastoral Care, which was circulated on October 31. The document is to be discussed at the provincial meetings of bishops.
Reactions to the draft and any implementation already underway will be taken up at the bishops' meeting in March 2004.
Griswold pointed out that the draft was also sent to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. "I have been in consultation with the Archbishop, and in a conversation earlier this week he made it clear that the responsibility for working out a form of extended episcopal ministry lies within our province," he said. "Indeed, the consultation envisaged in the statement of the primates following our October meeting is precisely that and does not involve some kind of direct intervention on his part." Calls for such direct intervention, either by Williams or the primates, have been made by various conservative groups within the Episcopal Church.
"The matter of Supplemental Episcopal Pastoral Care in the Episcopal Church is clearly the responsibility of our bishops--to whom is given the ministry of oversight--and we are obliged to treat it with full seriousness. It is my firm belief that by exercising generosity and pastoral sensitivity in a spirit of trust we can meet the needs of all of our congregations," Griswold went on. "I note here how important it is for all of us who hold jurisdiction to be full partners in this work, regardless of our points of view. The various speculations about alternative structures and realignments are unhelpful and draw us away from the hard work we must do together in order to be faithful as chief pastors to all of our people, and to honor our call to be ministers of Christ¹s reconciling love."
-- The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of Episcopal News Service.

Good article from The Tablet in the UK. This takes on a number of things, but of interest to me is some historical background on the Communion and past controversies and what some see as a creeping into a more centralized authority, with real authority, to develop common canon law and doctrine.
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/archive_db.cgi?tablet-00814

This is a very good post, I do think, from the House of Bishops/House of Deputies listserv.

"+Magdalen/Thomas" writes:
> Summa: It is but natural for "animals" be they mammals or 'other' to seek
> sexual release with anyone or anything anywhere.
But no. See, there is way too much "fact" and not enough biology going on here for words.
But anything is good enough for the anti-gay bigots!
So when Akinola says "not even animals do that", the bigots cheer!
And when Thomas Darkus says "animals will do anything, should we?", the bigots cheer!
The interesting and dignified lives of animals get tossed aside here; the notion that animals might have their own nature, which is what it is, and was pronounced "good" by God--and is completely absent the history of original sin and the like--this gets lost. Animals, with their own dignity, their own value, and their own importance, become the whipping boy for the bigots in their haste to insult gay people.
Akinola thinks that animals are filthy--but not as filthy as those nasty faggots. In his haste to express his bigotry, Akinola will tell any lie necessary, of course, but we don't hear Kendall Harmon criticize that.
Thomas Darkus agrees with Akinola, animals are filthy--and thinks we humans certainly shouldn't emulate them.
And then Kendall Harmon says "heterosexuality is de rigeur for every species--at least those that have gender", and then thinks that we should emulate this (mistaken) idea about animals.
And what is most important here is that anything, no matter how vicious, how atrocious, how scientificially groundless, is allowed, provided it is used to attack gay people. We can be pilloried anyway the bigots wish.
Some animals (bonobos) have sex in a way that looks promiscuous to humans. But it's a complex thing--they don't just hump any time the urge comes one, rather, sex is a tremendously important part of their mechanism for soothing social insults and expressing bonds of affection and loyalty--and a way to express violence as well.
Some animals form life-long pair bonds.
But the one thing that all the bigots agree about is that gay people are filthy. Reminds me of when bigots though that all black people were filthy, no matter how clean they might be.
The bigots do not think that a dishonest bishop, a gluttonous bishop, a thieving bishop, a warmongering bishop, are bad. Or rather, they are downright good--heroic even!--provided they mouth the right bigoted bits.
I wait for one of the AAC to stand up and say "we think that Akinola is wrong". That they do not is shameful, even heinous. It is exactly like a northern white guy in 1950 apologizing for southern lynch mobs, while saying "of course lynching is wrong". Except that nobody has stood up and said that Akinola's lying is wrong. Nobody has stood up and said that stealing farms and ejecting laborers is wrong.
For shame!
Right now, when I hear the anti-gay American crowd say "of course we think that killing Matthew Shepard was wrong", I think they are actually lying. They think killing Matthew Shepard was just fine, since they do not in fact object when African bishops engage in the same behavior.
(Name deleted)

The American Anglican Council has taken out a full-page advertisement in the “Manchester Union Leader newspaper in support of Episcopalians in New Hampshire opposed to the Consecration of Gene Robinson.” You can download a copy of the ad here. If you want to see the ad, click here.

The following was read this morning by Professor DeChamplain in Preaching class with reference to speaking/preaching/communicating. I think it is very appropriate for our current controversies. There is nothing truly new under the sun.

"One of the most enduring illusions is that our current difficulties are abnormal, ought to pass soon, and will be succeeded by an uninterrupted era of tranquility. We expect life to be like the shuttle between Heathrow and Edinburgh, a smooth ride on the whole, interrupted by occasional bouts of turbulence, through which we are advised to fasten our seat belts. In fact, the human reality is the reverse of that. Turbulence is the norm, interrupted by occasional periods of tranquility.
"One reason why people endlessly predict the disintegration of the Anglican Church is because of the prevalence of this tranquillist heresy. The doctrine is that we have departed or fallen from a normative tranquility and that our present troubles are abnormally stimulated by human wickedness and error, whereas it is the other way round. Turbulence and disagreement are the norm, the signs of life, and we should accept them as such. 'The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity and shall not fail,' said Houseman. But job said it too: 'Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.' (Job 5:7).
"Let us spend some time meditating on this claim. Let us look at some of the troubles of our proud and angry dust."
(by: Richard Holloway)

Here is a link to a great article in an Australian newspaper concerning Anglicans, conservatives, and gays. Just read it!