Monday, July 27, 2009

Pluralist Speaks: The Real Archbishop of Anglicanism

Pluralist Speaks: The Real Archbishop of Anglicanism
I was so upset that ABC Rowan had reduced sexual orientation to life-style choice I forgot to think through the larger argument he is making against innovation as he innovates a history for the AC that never was! Thanks Pluralist!
Following ABC's logic I guess St. Paul only really needed to write one letter and just send copies to each church.  I mean why waste parchment as if the local church could have concerns the global church hadn't already settled.  Also,  I wonder if St. Peter waited until everybody got the "roof-top vision memo" to change what the church said about what is clean or unclean.
ABC makes more than one category error in giving to the global church an authority that is not already operating in the local church.  I've asked this before and I'm asking it again. What are either of the historic creeds for if not to define that which we hold in common, so that in proclamation any part of the church can be said to represent all?  After that, why would a bishop from the other side of the planet even want to weigh in on obviously local church concerns?  Do the polygamists in Africa realize the local-trumps-global authority they already enjoy?  Does ABC Rowan realize that he is describing as historic an ecclesiology that never was?

The Archbishop of Canterbury - Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future

The Archbishop of Canterbury - Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future

ABC Rowan doesn't surprise me. Especially when he says in section 2 para 9 "It is that a certain choice of lifestyle has certain consequences." This is not the same argument he gave when he was Bishop of Wales.
For too long the stand against full inclusion of GLBT persons in the sacramental life of the church has relied on equating sexual orientation to "life-style choice."
Isn't it the Church that is making the prior and more complicating choice by baptizing infants, long before they are able understand who they are as sexual creatures and then work from that understanding as grounds for their own life-style choices?
Maybe Rome could help here by returning to the practice of what my Southern Baptist forebearers long called "believers baptism." Maybe TEC should redefine confirmation as a coming out party. Or maybe we're doing exactly what Jesus calls us to do. Risk our institutional life while Rowan tries to preserve his fiction of a singular AC. I'm blaming it all on Constantine.

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