Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Jordan Hylden: Brave New Church

Jul 21, 2009
Jordan Hylden
First Things

The seventy-sixth General Convention of the Episcopal Church made headlines last week for moving forward on same-sex blessings and officially opening its doors for partnered homosexuals to serve as priests and bishops. Stacy Sauls, the Episcopal bishop of Lexington and a close associate of the presiding bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori, argued that it was long past time to do it: Over thirty years ago, he said, the church had placed pastoral compassion over Scripture, tradition, and the teachings of Jesus to permit remarriage after divorce, and it would be nothing less than hypocritical for the church not to do likewise for gay and lesbian people.

There is a certain logic to this, of course. If we’re going to set aside the teaching of Jesus for ourselves, shouldn’t we do the same for others? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” as someone once said. According to Bishop Sauls, this was the most important point he made at the convention. Arguably, it was the most important point anyone in attendance made. The Episcopal Church has now, quite definitively, decided to step out on its own, away from Scripture, tradition, and the rest of the Anglican communion. It was a bold and brave step, for with it the church has decided that it is now a church that takes its own counsel, answerable only to God. No doubt it was a matter of prayerful discernment and conscience for many, and no doubt many will shy away from drawing out the full implications of their decision. But the implications are there nonetheless. It is a brave new thing for the Episcopal Church, a brave new church on its own in the world. the rest

1 Comments:

At 8:27 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a very well expressed article, and has attracted some cogent comment at its site of publication 'First Things' (a Catholic magazine). One comment there is from a Jennifer Priestly who sets out to defend her 'spiritual community', which appears to be squarely within the liberal (majority) sub-culture of TEC, and she even refers to 'salons' as if such are gatherings for spiritual learning and discernment. Her comment seemed to me one further good example of how far off the track of any reasoned, informed discourse on the Christian faith rank-and-file liberal Episcopalians' thoughts now are. It is worth looking at the comments responding to hers, as well as hers, after of course reading the article first.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home