EPISCO-POCRISY

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 | Uncategorized

Sometimes it amazes me how dishonest Jim Naughton can be.  Commenting on the recent speech of James Jones, the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, in which the Bishop thought that the way to end the Anglican wars was to stop fighting, John Chane’s former publicity flack had this to say:

Bishop Jones is going to be treated as a dangerous man by the Anglican right–and as a silly one by the Anglican Communion Institute/Fulcrum crowd who would condescend to Einstein on the topic of relativity. But the risk may be worth it if he is truly committed to the let-and-let-live solution he has articulated to the Anglican crisis over homosexuality.

To paraphrase Mary McCarthy, I don’t believe a word in that paragraph, even “and” and “the.”  I don’t even believe Jim’s punctuation.  And you know what?  Jim doesn’t believe any of it either.  Know how I know that? He comes right out and says so.

Many, many bishops expressed a preference for this sort of solution at the Lambeth Conference in 2008, but Rowan Williams would not lead in that direction, preferring to place the burden of keeping the communion together on the backs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Christians, who were asked to abandon any hope of first-class citizenship in the Church until Williams had persuaded some of the most bigoted men in the Communion that it wasn’t such a bad idea.

Subtle, innee?  Jim?  I’ll type this as slowly as I possibly can.  You and I both know that Gene Robinson got a pointy hat and Mary Glasspool is about to get one.  You also know that it is now next-to impossible for a person who believes homosexual activity to be a sin to be ordained in the Episcopal Organization.

And you know that Mark Lawrence is the last orthodox bishop TEO will ever approve and he’ll only last until Mrs. Schori decides to cap him.  So as far as the Episcopalians are concerned, there is one right answer and only one to the homosexual issue and your side is the one that proclaims it.

So what, says Jim.  We’re not imposing our views on anyone else.  All we’re asking is for the Anglican Communion to respect where we are as a church.  No, you’re not, Jim. 

Because that word “bigoted” gives the game away. Dismissing people as bigots merely because they disagree with you suggests that you mean for your views to not only be tolerated to eventually prevail.  So you’ll stay in the same Communion with the Africans.

For now.  The muscle will come later.

Williams’ approach hasn’t worked. It has done tremendous damage to the witness of the Church in the United States, Canada, and in his own country, where the public has turned away from a Church viewed ever more widely as a seat of reaction. Jones’ speech points the Church of England, and perhaps the entire Communion, in a new direction. Whether it has the wisdom to follow is another question.

Rowan Williams’ leadership during the Anglican crisis can be explained by two basic facts.  He is a liberal while a large part of the Communion he heads is not.  Since serious Christians don’t enjoy having 2,000 years of Christian teaching dynamited merely to make a tiny group of Episcopalians feel better about themselves, Dr. Williams’ course of action was probably the only one open to him.

He could have taken your side from the start and watched the growing and vital part of the Anglican world shake Canterbury’s dust from its feet a long time ago.  Or he could have manned up, declared that Lambeth Resolution 1.10, all of it, meant what it said and watched the US, Canada and their allies, form the Episcopal Communion and keep their scratch to themselves.

But Dr. Williams steered a middle course and made everyone mad at him.  Know why that was, Jim?  Because, as liberal as he might be, he genuinely respects the conservative viewpoint and takes it seriously.  Rowan Williams is a lot closer to an actual live-and-let-live position than James Jones or ecclesiastical airheads like Katharine Jefferts Schori can ever hope to be.

As far as the “damage” Dr. Williams has supposedly done to the Communion is concerned, project much, Jim?  You and the Canadians started this fire and you have the balls to complain about the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury to limit the damage?  Man up and deal with the fact that this is all on you.

Besides, how’s that whole homosexual bishop thing working out for you anyway?  From all indications, TEO’s membership hemorrhage has picked up speed since Robbie got his pointy hat(all those progs who were going to flood TEO parishes after Robbie should be arriving any day now) and dioceses are awash in red ink from one end of the country to the other. 

Rowan Williams didn’t damage your “witness,” Jim lad.  You put that gun to your temple all by yourself.

12 Comments to EPISCO-POCRISY

dwstroudmd
March 9, 2010

When is Jimmie-boy gonna take his dog-and-pony show to Iran and confront those folks about how they treat GLBT?s – or did he do it at the NatCat where it was reasonably safe to do so – or anywhere except in the “sanctuary” of the shalom of Katie-bar-the-doors Episcopal Organization, Political Action Kommittee?

He needs a real life.

Dale Matson
March 9, 2010

CJ,
Sometimes your comments make it impossible to follow with anything else. That was a rant cadenza of epic proportions.

Allen Lewis
March 9, 2010

One of your best commentaries, Christopher. You should get another blogging award for “Most Insightful Commentary” from someone. If I can find me a graphics guru to make one up, it will be on its way to you.

Naughton is nothing more than a “True Believer” in all things gay, bi, and lesbian. That colors his world, distorts his vision, impairs his hearing, and corrupts his mentation.

In short, he has sold out to the LGBT meme and is no longer capable of originating a coherent thought. The man is ill with the sickness of the liberal disease. Only the Grace of God and the Mercy of Jesus Christ can save him from his descent into destruction.

We need to pray for his recovery.

Dale Matson
March 9, 2010

Is the only beverage offered at the Episcopal Cafe Kool Aid?

William Tighe
March 9, 2010

As many have observed, the Catholic Church gives the Anglicans the likes of Naughton, Matt Fox, the late Bishop Pike, and Our Lady of Litgation herself, and they give us Cardinal Newman, Aidan Nichols, David Mills, Dwight Longenecker and Jeffrey Steenson. What unfair trading practices!

Floridian
March 9, 2010

One of your best comments as well, Allen.

NEVER forget that pain is the cause of same sex attraction. It is a usually a symptom of shame, attachment and identity disruption and disorientation and often an indicator of molestation, abusive, distant, absent, overbearing or abandoning parents, of disunity and contempt between the parents. As Dr. Nicolosi says, it is a compensatory urge and behavior. Engaging in the behaviors is harmful and unhealthy as honest statitistics and science show.

M. L. Martin
March 9, 2010

BIGOT (N.): Anyone who will not bend the knee and offer a pinch of infant to Caesar Moloch Paneros. — from the _Left-Wing Modernist Theological Dictionary_, i’th Edition.

someone
March 9, 2010

I don’t believe in coincidence (well not unless it is proven to me). I believe in connections; so, my thought today is this–what, if anything, do the current actions taken by the church leadership have to do with all those little children slashed to death in a Nigerian Church on Sunday? No one should die like that, most especially a child. There is no possible reason, or justification for what happened there.

Bill2
March 9, 2010

Yeah people are leaving the Episcopal Church and the ACoC because people view them as being reactionary. Yeah right. The reactionary gay marriages and the reactionary gay bishops. It has nothing to due with rank apostacy and uber-liberal politics.

Whatever he’s smoking, I hope the reactionary Obama-care covers it.

Sinner
March 10, 2010

Bishop thought that the way to end the Anglican wars was to stop fighting

Nope. That’s not what he said nor what he meant. The bishop actually said that the way to end the Anglican wars was unconiditional surrender by the remaining Christians in the Anglican Communion

Unconditional surrender by an army 75 MILLION strong who has a bunch of no more than ten thousand terrorists surrounded!

The lesson we should learn from is not Northern Ireland – but Northern Sri Lanka – where the government won the civil war simply by wiping out all the rebels

As God commanded: do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them … as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God

Homosexuality and Abortion are the two things that bishops thinks we can “agree to disagree” about! Homosexuality and Abortion were the sins of the Cannanites, the sins of the Amelikites, and are the sins of the liberals today.
God commands that we wipe them out: we are unable to do so today, but at
the very least we can drive them out of the church of Christ!

And – praise GOD! – the Christian parishes under that foolish bishop are doing just this – leaving his authority and joining the FCA and GAFCON!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Ed the Roman
March 10, 2010

I know a couple, who, when they were first looking for a house, saw one one Sunday rather near a Metropolitan Community Church, whose services were just ending. They were were greeted by a congregant who seemed (according to the husband) friendly to them both, although tightly wound.

The wife hadn’t heard of the MCC; the husband had, and described it to her later. She lost all interest in that house. She was at least partly on board with the gay agenda, but only if it wasn’t too close to her son.

This may be an example of “we don’t care what you do in New York” syndrome.

Allen Lewis
March 11, 2010

Floridian -

thanks for the complement.

I tried to send you a PM on Stand Firm, but they said your mailbox was full. I guess you do not check you messages that often??

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