Gene Robinson – the man will say anything. Remember him saying that he won’t be “the Gay Bishop”? Yeah, right. Well now, he says this about The Anglican Church in North America:
A church that does not ordain women or openly gay people - I don't see a future for that.
Now maybe he really believes that. If so, he would do well to look at the numbers of those churches who don’t ordain women or open gays, from the Presbyterian Church in America to the Roman Catholic Church and compare them to the slow-motion implosion of The Episcopal Church, the mainline Presbyterian Church, and other Libchurches.
Now, who does not have a future?
That’s not to mention he has his facts wrong. Some ACNA jurisdictions do ordain women. (But none may have women bishops.)
The Anglican Church in North America is not perfect; it is a work in progress. But if it does not work (And I think it will.), it will certainly not be because we do not ordain gays or women.
He meant what he said. If it doesn't involve Gene Robinson, humble bishop, then it has no future.
ReplyDeleteI would hazard that Gene Robinson is making these kinds of statements because it keeps him in the limelight and provides free publicity for himself as a leading proponent of the gay rights cause and its favorite poster child. He mentions the cause of women's ordination to demonstrate that he is an advocate for all the "oppressed." In doing so he is doing damage to the cause of women's ordination in the ACNA but I suspect that does not matter to him as much as getting headlines for himself.
ReplyDeleteKatherine Schori, on the other hand, has not to my knowledge made any official pronouncements in regards to the ACNA.
If the ACNA does not thrive, it will NOT be due to its position on the consecration of women bishops or the ordination of actively homosexual clergy and the blessing of homosexual liasons.
He may believe it does not have a future because many progressives wrongly think that the future is constructed. Philosophically they tend to see reality itself as a social construction and therefore the goal must be to impose "will to power" in order to build their desired future.
ReplyDeleteThe problems are numerous with this kind of thinking. The inherent violence of it aside, it rejects the personal agency of a personal God. It also assumes that people who reject their future will not take their ball and go play somewhere else (as the ANCA rightly has). It also is arrogant in assuming that progressives will build a promised land and not another disutopian Hell as have others who put on the ring labeled "will to power.
Peace to the ACNA ... I look forward to the liberty of being part of an ACNA church. I hope one opens in my city.