A Small Sampling of Revisionist Opinion (with Commentary)

It's been three weeks since the Primates Meeting at Dar es Salaam and the call for ECUSA to mend its ways. I thought it might serve to do a survey of revisionist reactions to it and offer up a sampling but, regrettably, quickly realized most of the reactions were as monolithic as the media's to a war briefing by the president. I did, however, manage to to scarf up three reactions of interest before throwing in the towel and settling back to a decent scotch and a CD of Max Reger's organ fantasies.

Let us begin with with the serene musings of The Rev'd Dr. Walter Van Zandt Windsor (can they fit that on the church letterhead?).

"While I understand that it was the forays into the United States of foreign bishop’s behaving as ravening wolves and swallowing up our sheep, on the grounds that our Church had lapsed into heresy, that has helped to create a desire to modify some of our actions in recent General Conventions, I say, enough is enough! These Primates by their immoral intrusion have raped our Church, and gutted it of the very congregations and individuals who would uphold the faith as they would have it practiced in the U.S."

It surely is an oversight that Fr. Van Zandt Windsor neglects to mention those "ravening wolves" he so deplores "raped" the Church only in the parishes to which they had been invited, by an overwhelming majority of desperate parishioners, no less. Well, never mind, obviously they were asking for it. Besides, with the employment of such calm, dispassionate and reasoned discourse as seen above, he should have no trouble at all winning those erroneous and violated pilgrims back to the broad path of universalism and social justice.

Here we have The Rev'd Brian Taylor who sees the Bible as travelogue and Christianity as but another fine product in God's Supermarket (aisle 3).

"The world needs a church that doesn't see the Bible as a rule-book, but as a chronicle of a sacred journey. The world needs a church that isn't exclusive and triumphant about the uniqueness of Christ, but knows that other religious and spiritual paths also lead to God."

I love the prescriptive "the world needs." Duly noted, Father, and thanks for sharing!

And speaking of God's Supermarket, those smart shoppers at Rainbow Presence were clever enough to have loaded up the cart at the recent sale (20% off!) on forward slashes.

"We agree that:The Episcopal Church must understand what is being asked of it—especially in terms of its lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender members. The Episcopal Church needs to know who its lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender members are in order to know who is being asked to pay the price of unity in the Anglican Communion. Until lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender members of the Episcopal Church have full and equal access to all the sacraments and rites of the church, lesbians/gays/bisexuals/transgendered people are essentially second-class members of the Episcopal Church."

Well said and bravo, oops, bravi! One little thing, Rainbowers and sorry, I'm a little slow on the uptake: again, please, just who is it you represent?