7/30/09

Another thing I'm struggling with:

Why bother with the church?

I'm not saying I'll leave. It wouldn't matter to a soul if I did, and I have reasons for staying - I believe in God, I love my fellow-parishioners and need them. Frankly, I neither need nor value orthodites, so why should I value or support a church that continually aids in their wickedness? I wonder if there is a point at which we will have to look around and admit that the ecclesial institution - as a whole enterprise - has failed, and what we call "churches" are destroying, rather than bringing the Kingdom. I wonder if we're at that point.

Maybe "church" should die and there can be Church, again.

Mimi once said that she didn't believe she was extraordinary, but she is, as are many of us in the progressive side of things. I'm sorry. I know how that will be taken by the orthodites, but I can't help the truth. We see things, apart from desire for security, apart from fear of difference, apart from the need to compartmentalize and "study" and destroy living differences and spirit, apart from - well - all the things that make churches, churches.

I believe that makes us an evolutionary vanguard - not special, but simply leading - and, perhaps, we need to make a new image of ekklesia.

Things I Struggle With . . .

I sent an email to one of our delegates, a man in my parish, a man for whom I have great respect and love. I won't print any of what was said, so, please, take all that I say here completely as my interpretation of the communication.

As I've said on other blogs, I was angry, hurt, outraged and disappointed by the failure of our delegation to support D025 and 056. I expressed this to him clearly, and, he assured me, articulately. His response was thoughtful and clear, and reaffirmed my own confidence in him, as well as the people of my diocese. I understand that we are trying to maintain a neutral stance in the midst of all this, and I'm aware of my own idealism and mystical approach which makes me impatient with such a stance.

However, there is still a disconnect that leads to a real concern both for my actions and TEC's outlook. First, this gentleman assured me, repeatedly, of his acceptance of GLBT's, including stories of family members and his own willingness, if such a shift in policy were made, to bless the union of a gay family member (this member of my parish is also a postulant to Holy Orders). However, that's not what this is about. I struggle with sexuality; not with being gay, but with being a sexual being. I could care less, to be brutally blunt, about other peoples' romantic relationships. Marriage is a completely private affair, to my mind, and of little interest. I dislike married clergy, detest a married episcopate, and believe that, in secular terms, no married couple - even with children - should receive state breaks or benefits not extended to each individual. I don't hate marriage - - I could never work up that much feeling about it.

I thought I had made clear that "gay" is not what any of this is about. If that were it, I'd care less. The justice aspect is my immediate concern, with justice for the individual being the greatest part of that. To lay suffering and misery, disdain and hate on another on the basis of no more than "tradition" or even outright superstition is wrong. Even if you claim that you believe the tradition and scripture to be absolutely correct, so what? Without objective evidence, you have no right to enforce your beliefs. I've set that out in my argument in a thread below - - belief counts only so far as it can be proven, especially when that belief operates as proscription. I believe marriage and romantic relationships are futile, perhaps destructive and I believe that children can be produced without such entanglements and raised successfully in a group/societal environment. If my belief, through argument or luck, becomes the majority one, should that alone ensure its enforcement? This is the crux. To deny others' own experience of themselves is to arrogate unbelievable power to oneself. I don't deny that the orthodites experience God as fearful, vengeful, irrational, distant, that they experience homosexuality as personally harmful. Again, so what? They can believe that. I won't make them sleep with others of their sex, or deny them romantic/sexual expression outside of same-sexual relationships. I won't deny them the right to believe God is what they view, even it's truth . . . for them. God relates as we need Him, and they need an inscrutable parent/policeman/watchdog. The conflict lay in their trying to make themselves special by taking God's power to themselves, to define their beliefs and experiences as universal. If you must maintain purity, withdraw and do so, but don't require the world around to conform to your desires.

This is my concern. Not "teh gay." Sex is . . . maintenance. The issue is who is God; I'm not, but neither are they, and taking that upon themselves is something I must oppose, for their good as for mine, so I struggle with issues that, as presenting issues, are of little concern. I struggle with the idea that we too have become entirely too immersed with the "presenting issue." Perhaps my identity as a gay man, or that part that I identify with as gay, is too caught up in it to present the real dangers and point of the struggle. I frankly don't know what God thinks of homosexuality - I simply know what He thinks of me, including my own sexuality, and what He shows me in the steady gay relationships I've come to see around me.

I also struggle - mightily - with the Anglican Communion, another major concern in my communication with my friend. I keep being told of its value. How much it allows us to do. Of its necessity at all costs. That by submitting to injustice for us in the First World we can slowly undo injustice in the Third World. I hate the Anglican Communion. Hate it. Despise it. Will dance on its grave. I believe it to be, not just useless, but a destructive demon of vanity and sloth. Yet, it's hard to see if that's right, or the supporters are.

AC's been around longer than me and has brilliant minds and open hearts in support of it. Yet, when I ask "HOW? How is the AC so important? What can it do that we cannot if we start to make new associations?" all I get is - as with ++Whalon - anecdotes about works that, quite honestly, could've been done as, if not more, effectively by a secular social-action network. Or, I'm told about "friendships" and connections made, as if that were some sort of magical formula, or even real. Clearly, those "friendships" have proven false or based on convenience in many cases. I suspect a sort of American imperialism in it, benevolently-conceived, but imperialistic, nonetheless, which says, "By God, they will love us! We will stay right there in their faces til they see we're right and they're wrong!" This I see combined with a wilfull ignorance of being used, abused and manipulated by these "friends," which is based in Pride - OUR Pride, refusing to believe we could've been fooled, wrong about our noble, liberal ideals and our application of them to people who have proven unworthy. I hear, most plaintively, that we can make it better by swallowing our pride and accepting the AC's declarations on our actions, their sanctions, their disdain. But no one can tell me how!

I'm not a big fan of Dr. Phil, but, let's be honest, there's a lot to be said for the simple question, "How's that been workin' for ya?" Things are worse, not better, for our penitence and shame, our degrading ourselves and our witness.

But, I struggle. Can it make it better if we just bow out? It feels wrong. Cowardly. Craven. Soft. Faithless. But, I'm aware of my own stiff neck. So, how can our humiliation help the "less fortunate?" Show me. I'll resist, but knowing that - I'll accept. Prove it. Prove we need the AC. I'm not gainsaying, but really struggling.

So, those who favor the AC over TEC's actions, please! tell me why we must stay, but be prepared to defend. Drivebys are not helpful. Vacuous statements of goodwill are pointless. Show me.

I'm struggling. Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is craziness. But . . . which of us is crazy?

"Thank you very much! Thank you very much! . . "

For any of us who remember the Albert Finney film Scrooge, you know the context of the song.

I sing it, today, to Ebenezer Williams of Canterbury.

He has given us a great gift in his reflections which may be found here with further comment on Thinking Anglicans here.

This is the part I'm most grateful for (emphases mine):

". . a person living in such a union is in the same case as a heterosexual
person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond; whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons
must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church's teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the
necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the
episcopate, requires....So long as the Church Catholic, or even the
Communion as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle..."

Get that folks?

Now, Rowan says "We might have to treat them like humans, but the fags chose to be fags, so we don't have to treat them as full humans. The Bible says so! Just look!

"Not only that, but we have to hold ourselves accountable to THE CHURCH, especially those parts we left because we figured they were wrong. And, even if you don't accept that, you can't do anything that the whole church doesn't do because, of course, the Communion is actually a CHURCH, which is my CHURCH, and I say what flies, and what flies is appeasing the lowest common denominator!"

If you're getting a more charitable reading out of this, please, check with your doctor about medication.

So, I am thankful.

Even alleged centrists will have to accept that Rowan has completely betrayed their trust. Even die-hard "communionists" will have to accept that there is no Anglican Communion - at least, without jettisoning Cantuar. All there is otherwise, is a miniature Rome, being groomed to allow Rowan to bring a suitable sacrifice when he kneels before Peter's throne, or the iconostasis, or whichever church he's been a sleeper-cell for for so long.

Even those who believed - and I was one of them - that he really-deep-in-his-heart understood and supported LGBT's and was simply trying to make peace in the family, even those folks have got to say, now, "We were wrong. He considers us just as 'unclean' as the orthodites!"

Thank you, Rowan, for finally taking the mask off.

Hopefully, it wasn't too late.

Oh, and I frackin' . . . well, you know.

Trying to Explain It

I've been trying to get to the real core of the whole sexuality debate in the church. It's not about sex, it's not even about justice or human rights.

It's about Reality, with the capital "R."

You see, there is no value in a theology that won't stand up to reasonable investigation and testing. The concept that this means that you'd have to prove God or Afterlife or any of that is, at the core, a red herring. These are matters of faith, yes, but neither unprovable nor provable. Reasonably, they can be allowed to remain as they are. No one is objectively harmed by the belief in God or an Afterlife, and no one is objectively harmed by being allowed the option of deciding against such possibilities. They are neutral. Alleged - and I mean alleged - concern on the part of others for any such thing as a soul, while, if real, is admirable, is unwarranted as a justification for action against a freedom which provides no objective harm. Even in faith, we must accept that God understands the nature of this situation, the Reality into which He, Himself, placed us and will not hold us culpable for reasonable theology and action.

Sexuality is the presenting issue, and the facts speak against the "traditional" theology of sexuality. There is objective harm done to homosexuals of faith when faced with this teaching, while there is no objective benefit in embracing that teaching.

Objective Harm:

Forcing oneself into a "marriage" based on a desire to be "normal;"
Feelings of inadequacy or even loss of humanity which leads to:

• Depression
• Suicide
• Risk-taking behavior, often used to stereotype the homosexual "lifestyle" by proponents of this "traditional" theology - not limited to drug usage, sexual promiscuity, self mutilation

In short, a great deal of the "harmful" nature of the homosexual lifestyle can be shown to be either typical of an age group or the direct result of those "traditional" teachings that demonize homosexual attraction and sexual contact.

So, dealt with. The facts on the ground, any reasonable faith, all these speak loudly against and only against the "traditional" religious teachings on homosexuality.

Presenting issues aside, it is an affront to reason to claim as valid argument the premise that someone of an "orthodox" outlook can dismiss the direct experience of a homosexual person's own life, relationship with self and God, history, self-awareness and self-exploration, direct revelation (if one grants the possibility of any revelation from a Divine source) based on writings and hermeneutics applied to a general populace under entirely different conditions with no knowledge of that homosexual person him/herself. If faith requires that we embrace harm, then what we have faith in is wrong. The "orthodox" faith is, therefore, entirely wrong on this issue, and that is the real underlying conflict.

Will we accept a faith that demands we lower ourselves to an animalistic, irresponsible form of life, mindlessly devoted to teachings regardless of their relevance, mindlessly obedient to those who claim to be keepers of those teachings, or will we step up to a life in which we take responsibility for all that is ours to take responsibility for, using the minds and experiences God gave us, the community of common humanity that God bestowed upon us, the gifts of discernment and responsibility that God has created in us, leaving to Him the Mercy and Compassion of which He has assured us, the understanding of our limitations that His Incarnation has brought Him?

Will we trust ourselves to people who claim the necessity of punishment and reward to prevent us from doing things that we know in ourselves to be wrong, and who require mindless wrong on our part because of an all-or-nothing approach based on lack of discernment?

New Prayer for the Election of a Bishop

Almighty God, giver of every good gift; look graciously on your church, and so guide the minds of those who shall choose a bishop for this diocese that they won't choose some idiot who needs to be shot out of a giant, giant cannon into the sun. Amen.

Rowan Rex

I don't know if I'm getting written off as a joke or a conspiracy theorist, since no one comments, but, I'm telling you, the real architect, and a cunning one, behind the AC "crisis" is Rowan Williams. He's the only one who will benefit, and his recent ham-handed attempts both to co-opt complete control of the CofE (seriously - look at Thinking Anglicans, ask MadPriest) and to threaten TEC (but only after a blatant show at GC - "I'm here, and I'm watching you!") show that he believes himself in a position to openly show his manipulation.

It truly is End Game.

There is no longer an Anglican Communion. Once we can get Rowan out, maybe there will be again. I promise you, ACNAites, there will be no Anglican Communion if he chooses you over TEC. What there will be is Rowan Williams, the new director and head of a worldwide Anglican Church, telling you what you will do, how much you will pay, and what you will believe. For you in the US, it will be particularly bitter, because, having thrown off the tyranny of an English autocrat centuries before, you will have eagerly, willingly and wantonly given yourself right back to it. You won't control this new AC you imagine, as you expect, nor will your Global South friends - a group of old men in England will.

A sad end. From imperial serf to free man to imperialist's slave.

How Will We Respond?

Thinking Anglicans has section of news devoted to the response of the Church of Sweden to The CofE's criticism of their same-sex theology.

Note the quote:

"He interpreted it as a warning that Sweden’s church risks being isolated if it moves forward with the proposal."

Will they be? This is the challenge. We're being cut off by angry old men in the CofE - do we tell the Church of Sweden "That's rough, buddy!" in hopes that these ecclesial imperialists will deign to let us sit at the table with them?

Or do we tell them "No. Our committment to the world stands, and you are not isolated."

Another quote:

“We need to listen carefully to our sister churches before we decide how we can best do things. What else is a communion of churches for anyway?”

A noble thing. We listened, too, and got slapped back.

What we need to show Sweden is that a communion of churches is NOT for bullying the marginalized.

From rrchapman via MadPriest

Thoughts of Another Disgruntled Day

First, I'm not too happy with the Georgia Delegation at the moment, but I'm not sure of their motivations, so I'll hold off on an harangue.

Second, I left this post with Mark Harris:

Okay. Lisa Fox was willing to eat crow, so I'm at least willing to have a wing, now that equal parts fever and nausea have passed (sick yesterday, so understandably negative).

It is more than I ever expected to see - I especially like that reminder that TEC is a constituent member of the AC - there would have been no AC without Episcopalians helping to promote it (for which we have and will pay), and Canterbury is not Rome - it doesn't have a right to a worldwide communion by virtue of its own say-so.

Yet . . . this is not, as so many have said, the end of B033, but a rather nuanced statement that gives a certain amount of plausible deniability to bishops who still refuse to stand up for justice. Don't pin any real hopes on this - it's still just going to prolong the agony.

The only real answer is to refuse to recognize the AC while Rowan Williams - a true self-promoting power merchant - is still ABC, and refuse to receive those who continue his policies. We can do without the AC, I'm not sure they can do without us, and I'm pretty sure we cannot survive with our souls intact as long as we serve an Anglican Communion under a would-be autocrat like Williams.

It's time to ask ourselves: Do we really believe in what we are doing, or not? If we cannot answer that with straightforward and - yes - defiant action, then we need to back down, apologize, and make reparation to ACNA and anyone else who feels we driven them away over what is an experiment.

I mean, come on. Is it really so difficult to distance ourselve from what, until Rowan Williams and his power-grabbing, was no more than a mutual-aid society?

Is it really so difficult to say, "Hey! We could do charity better through non-church organizations while we set up our own?"

Are we honestly so stricken with the jealousy of other nations, taken the charges of arrogance to heart so deeply, that we can't even recognize when we are right?! Oh, yes, we'll export pollution, greed, and poor food, but we won't stand up for Jesus?!

Announcement

The triptych of the Holy Avatar Aang and the Prophets Sokka and Katara

Given my disgust with our bishops, corrupted by Lambeth and its machinations, I've decided to become

AN AANGLICAN

What this means is that I embrace the wisdome teachings of the Avatar Aang as found in a cartoon. It seems at least as valid as embracing clearly destructive teachings from poorly-translated sources pitched to the lowest common denominator, and teaches wildly outlandish things like respect for all life, compassion, loyalty, honor. PLUS, Lambeth doesn't have flying bison, flying lemurs, dragons or Uncle Iroh - - though it does reputedly have a few benders (letteth the British reader understand).

I Frackin' TOLD You!

Our bishops are not worthy.

I've told you and told you and told you that they are nothing but ambitious career self-promoters, but I kept being told "Oh, no! Our bishops aren't like that!" I was right. I will continue - quite obnoxiously - to remind you all of that as this joke of a convention goes forward. I told you that their entire purpose was to consolidate power and that Williams had offered them a vision of great authoritarianism. I told you Lambeth and our continued association with it was poison.

You ignored me.

And yet, once again, I was right. Yeah, I have trust issues - big ones - but that is a good thing when dealing with power brokers and self-promoters.

Read what Gene Robinson had to say last week.

Especially note the paragraph that says:

"We also had a disturbing private (no one in the gallery) conversation in the House of Bishops that led me to feel discouraged about what lies ahead. That conversation is private, so I can't detail it, but there seems to be a kind of belligerent attitude toward the House of Deputies by some of our bishops. Their vision of the episcopate is way too 'high and mighty' for my taste, or my theology, and I am not happy about it. The last thing we bishops need is a larger measure of arrogance."

Gene gives me hope that there are people worthy of the miter.

Of course, we know about Williams' unprecedented and unwarranted interference in our convention, but we also didn't notice that he was busy trying to make himself the "most powerful Archbishop of Canterbury since the Reformation." TOLD YOU! He's not wishy-washy.
Williams has been using this AC "crisis" as a personal power-grab; indeed, he's manufactured the entire crisis! Until he opened his yap, no one, including the conservatives, gave a damn about the AC - as it should be, as it is a useless, antiquated vanity piece which accomplishes little and preserves less. You've been had, folks, even with warning.

Luckily, the English seem a bit more on the ball about their episcopacy.

There is the amazement and the usual pathetic hopefulness about the bishops' passing D025 and how they "Really do care!" Blindness to the fact the whole thing is a sop, that it's just passing the buck of actually taking a stand to the next generation - if there is one in this tepid TEC.

Summertime and the Livin' is . . . not all that interesting, really.

The summer trudges on in SOWeGA. It's been very pleasant, recently, and with a good deal of rain, for which I am very thankful, but, other than that, just boring.

I think a combination of heat and general boredom is probably the reason there are so many martyrs in the Kalendar about this time of year. After a long stretch of hot weather with little relief inside or outside, and not a lot to do, I'm certainly ready to behead/crucify/burn any smug smartass who feels the need to tell me where I'm going wrong with God. Of course, we're more civilized now, so I don't. Besides, the police apparently frown on that sort of thing.

I've never had much use for martyrs, blasphemy though it may be, so that's another thing to annoy me this time of year. So, they died. If they didn't die, bring 'em to me and I'll be impressed. If they died and came back, provided we have no Romero-style resurrection, I'll be curious, to say the least. They got killed . . . so what? Kids get killed for no good reason all the time. Ah, but martyrs have a reason, you say! So? So did Mao's people, Stalin's people, Hitler's people, so did the guys who crashed jets into the World Trade Center. Big whoop. Lots of people die for lots of things. Would these saints have been so ready to die if the first blush of religious conversion had worn off? Besides, if you really love someone and want to show it, you do it best by being willing, not to die for them, but to live for them. That's a lot harder. You can keep your martyrs.

Our new priest has already begun moving in to his and his wife's (I apparently need to remind some of the more enthusiastic of my gay brethren that the young rector is married) new house. They begin after a trip to Turkey - why, I don't know. There's enough hairy, sweaty, oily guys here. It can't be for the candy. I actually made some lokoom, or Turkish Delight, and all I can say is, if that little bastard in Lion, Witch, Wardrobe was willing to sell out Mankind for that, Aslan should've eaten him. It is overly sweet and has the texture of solidified mucus.

If the Turks think that's delightful, that's all I need to know to keep out of Turkey.

The News . . .

Katzie is merely suffering from a skin allergy, apparently very common to cats. He's received a cortizone shot, which may have to be repeated at intervals, but seems livelier, and the fur is slowly growing back.

I am very irritated, right now, with my fellow liberal Christians, or, more specifically, the allegedly-liberal leadership of TEC, and the "moderate" mantra of "a different way forward" with no explanation as to why it is either necessary or desirable. It's cowardice.

We don't need the Reasserters/Fundies/Calvinists/Biblical literalists.

The Reasserters/Fundies/Calvinists/Biblical literalists add/have added nothing to TEC.

Prove me wrong, O "Moderate" Wisdom . . . if you can . . . without mystical passes about "unity" and togetherness and singing songs about Coke and all that crap. Even Jesus recognized that sometimes unity isn't possible.