The What of What says What?

A quick skim suggests that several members of the "Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion" have declared -- or have been declared for -- that they are not in communion with some members of the Anglican Communion, as commonly or even legally understood. Now, by the logic of "communion," someone not in communion with someone in a communion is not in the communion. That is, there are members of the Committee who are not members of the Anglican Communion. By the logic of "committee of," this committee cannot, therefore, be a committee of the Anglican Communion. A quick glance around shows that the other"Instruments of Union" or whatever suffer from the same problem, except, perhaps, that role presently played by Taffy Bushybrows, whose position on this -- as everything else -- is so nuanced as to be undecipherable.

Consequently, all this kerfuffle is irrelevant. The fact that some groups says it is representing the Anglican Communion in no wise means that it is, especially if it demonstrably is not (see above). So, the appropriate response to all these decrees or whatever is to ignore them, along with the proclamations of the Holy Rollers of Derby et al. To consider giving them a vote of approval or rejection is to give them a legitimacy they do not have.

Let the purple suits (since aniline dyes, so unimpressive) worry about things calling themselves the whatsis of the Anglican Communion. Let us in the communion get on with our thing, cooperating in the work of God's Commonwealth with those whose orders and sacraments are mutually reognized with ours.

Do you believe in miracles?

Being a retired philosophy professor, I have to say "What do you mean by 'miracle'?" If you mean an occasion where God sets aside the laws of nature to bring about an outcome impossible or improbable under those laws at the bidding of some person in deep concern about this outcome, then, no, I don't believe in that. If you mean only that a person praying for an outcome that is improbable or impossible under the known laws of nature brings about that outcome, then I have to go at least to litotes: I don't disbelieve.

The known laws of nature are known to be wrong in at least some of their details, though just where and how has been a matter of dispute for the last century, after a very hopeful beginning in the early 1900s. With a significant part of the universe missing and while chasing a particle that some have said (at least partly seriously) is trying to prevent its own discovery, scientists are coming to a point where they must look for new paradigms for investigation. And many have been offered. I find not incredible one that has not been suggested in scientific circles: that psychic energy (for want of a better term) exists undetected and has effects in the physical world.

I am well aware of the debunking of such a notion: the erroneous reports, incorrect interpretations, conscious and unconscious misdirections, coincidences and what not. But there still seems to be a core of cases that resist explanation from current science and have not been dealt with otherwise because we don't know what else to do. Nor do I have any suggestions what else to do except observe and record carefully and keep an open mind.

So I can imagine a force, springing perhaps from human though, which humans could learn to manipulate to cause effects in the physical world. And one that humans have occasionally actually manipulated, either by accident or by esoteric techniques. The trick in research would be to isolate cases of this sort from those that fall under one or more of the debunking rubrics. Attempts to this so far have been fairly unsuccessful: the best case presented have often been found to be flawed in areas where the researcher had a particular blind spot. But the effort ought to continue.

One hope for improvement is that I do not take this quest as a spiritual one, as a move toward liberation or ascension to a higher plane or absorption into the All, or whatever. Yet it does have a religious base of a sort. If you believe there is a God who laid down natural laws which He will not violate (slipping back into a common mode here) and you allow the possibility of miracles, then you are led to the possibility of (undiscovered) natural laws that explain what appears miraculous given the currently know natural laws.

To clarify one thing, no one (or almost no one and no one we know of) knows how to manipulate this force. If someone happens to hit upon it at one time, lucky for them. If another, in as deep anguish and with as much faith, does not happen to hit on it, bad luck. Not lack of faith or inadequate trying, just not hitting on the right moves, whatever they are (and the successful one appears to be no clearer about that than anyone else -- possibly because they have been pointed in the wrong direction). Something more is required than faith the size of a mustard seed (which, come to look at it, is not all that small a seed after all) and apparently than some rituals, with or without faith. What that more is has yet to be found (or demonstrated not to exist) and we apparently do not know where to look.

This seems very flimsy ground for even just not disbelieving in miracles, but it is a reason which satisfies some sort of rational base, given the postulates of faith.

A Liberal says the Creed

"How can you recite the Creed every week, when you don't believe a word of it?"
Most liberals have been asked that question. And most have replied (if at all) by explaining that they take the words to be understood in some non-literal sense and that they believe the underlying claims. And they do believe some of the words, too.

A stronger response would be to ask how the questioner manages. The question suggests the the asker takes the words of the Creed literally and bearing all the baggage of traditional Christianity, but, in the modern world, even the most profoundly ignorant must have heard enough to have occasional doubts.

"We believe in God the Father Almighty" Big guy, with a white beard and a penis, or stern but loving Being who is always there to help you? The first is blasphemous, the second unlike most fathers we know and demonstrably not true. What is God really like?

"Creator of Heaven and Earth" In six days plus a break, but this specimen, this rock, this.... the more particular reasons to doubt are calmed by inventing special acts of nature, the more doubts arise.

A lot of stuff I don't understand but which must be right since its in the Creed. But what am I really committed to by this? "begotten not made" "of one Being with the Father" "True God from True God"?

"Through him all things were made" But didn't the Father make everything. To be sure, He does say "We" and "Us" a lot while He is doing it, so maybe Jesus was there too. But how "through," For the most part, we don't get a notion of what tools God used, if any; a couple of times He speaks things into existence and one time He seems use His hands to mold a body, but not other person seems to be involved.

"For us and our salvation" Substitutionary redemption makes God a pretty horrible Person, setting things up so that his only Son has to die and excruciating (literally, no less) death to fix a mess that an all-knowing God should have foreseen (come to that, setting things up so that such a minor act of disobedience should have such eternal consequences).

"He came down from Heaven" Does everybody pre-exist in Heaven or is Jesus a special case? And if Jesus is a special case, being God, how can God all fit in one tiny body and who is minding the universal store while Jesus is on Earth (Ahhah! that's why there has to be at least two Persons)? And where is Heaven in a universe without up and down?

"Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary" Wait, a male child born without a male gene getting in there somehow -- the Holy Spirit can do that: create a male gamete without a male? And Virgin Mary -- my daughter better not try that one on me. Not even if she claims to have seen the Angel Gabriel.

"He rose again on the third day, according to Scripture" Now, I really have trouble with a three- day-dead body getting up and walking around, even without the walking through walls bit and the disappearing and reappearing. (I have trouble with "buried" too -- who would ask for the body of a convicted insurrectionist? And who would give it up to be made a center for further insurrection?)

"He ascended into Heaven" Even if He traveled at the speed of light, He is still in this galaxy, wherever Heaven is.

"I believe in the Holy Spirit" and another load of stuff I don't understand, but that people seem to argue about. But the whole Trinity thing is not terribly clear to begin with.

"the resurrection of the dead" I don't know about that.

Even if the asker does not meet with all some of these questions (and there are others, of course) every time he says the Creed (and listens to what he is saying -- which may be rarely), he surely does some times. But a person who believes what the Creed says, ratherthan the words it uses to say it, can get through the whole thing without a qualm.

Apology

This blog got off on a limited theme, about homosexuality in the Bible (or absence thereof) and marriage equality. I still don't have my mind completely around some of the matters in this area, but the urgency in getting straight (oops!) on these has dissipated in the rush of events. I want to get back (on?) to the central questions here, trying to work out my theology in a satisfying (to me, maybe to someone else) way. So I am scrapping a pile of drafts that went over old material of sex and the Bible and beeps and hypocrisy and the foolishness of GAFCON and the like, to return to issues in my own faith. I welcome, indeed, seek, comments of any sort on these musings. I apologize for presenting them often as finished ideas when they are very tentative and shaky.

The next ABC (come quickly)

Perhaps the next Pope o' Rome will have more trouble than the next ABC repairing his church from the actions of his predecessor, but it'll be a near thing. If, as his recent hagiography implies, Rowan was groomed for the See of Canterbury almost from grammar school, then the groomers must be mightily disappointed or even shamed. If his earlier actions and writings were taken as indications of what he was to do when he reached his fulfillment, then the watchers and readers were sadly disillusioned. If he was thought to be the one to repair the damage done by Peggy Thatcher's dithering revenge on the C of E for its weak support (at best) of Tory bellicosity and mammonolatry, the thinkers got it wrong.

Everything known suggest that Rowan was picked to do a number of fairly specific jobs to drag the C of E into at least the 1990s, if not the 21st century. These tasks included

Getting the chancel prancing Papist and the noisome and noisy Roundheads back into the Elizabethan settlement "Freedom of conscience within uniformity of worship*."

Getting women first and, almost immediately, unclosetted sexual minorities** into full participation in the church: as priests and bishops without restrictions and in all other roles as well.

Restoring the C of E's reputation as a leader in support of human right and the MDG.

Encouraging the North American Anglican communion churches to proceed on their trajectory of inclusion but to do so in a way that would help the C of E to catch up and stimulate some other churches to at least get started on this road.

On these tasks, at least, his score is a perfect zero.

The Papists are either looking to flee cross the Tiber or to build a church within the church, free from some off the usual rules (like subservience to your bishop). The Roundheads want to take over the church and force their uniformity on conscience as well as worship and form an alliance with the Papists (that is some progress, I suppose) to thwart the rest of the reform program. The great middle is largely ignored -- except briefly in General Synod, when it tries to enact the program as much as it can (to be subverted at the next step, with the ABC's covert support).

This last is, of course, about the matter, most openly, of women bishops, where the General synod passed -- over the ABC's pleas to the contrary -- a motion to make women bishops with full rights and duties, objectors to be handled more informally rather than by statute. In perfecting the legislation called for, the committee changed that to giving statutory restrictions on women bishops and statutory extraordinary rights to those who objected. General Synod may well reject this change, but that is, obviously, no guarantee that it will not end up being the final legislation. And the whole process has now been slowed down by at least another year.

At Lambeth, the Communion put on a big display for MDG, led by the C of E and Rowan his own self. Very little of this seems to have been cashed out by C of E, though other provinces, including some much poorer ones, have done quite a bit. Organizations around the C of E, but not part of it in any official way, have also done quite a bit.

The case for human rights is even more bleak. Groups around the church have done what they could; the church -- and Rowan in particular -- has mouthed general platitudes and refused to speak out about particular situations, even when -- maybe even especially when -- they involved churches in the Communion and the actions of their heads. This is back to the matter of sexual minorities, of course, since the most egregious of these non-pronouncements has been about the new, stricter --even lethal -- laws against homosexuality introduced in several African countries with the loud support of the heads of their Anglican churches. Of course, this path was already apparent in the home church with the debishoping of Jeffrey John early in Rowan's tenure and a variety of (generally unsuccessful) moves to prevent the blessing secular same-sex unions or even full wedding style ceremonies. And, in addition, the C of E repeatedly appealed for exemptions from non-discrimination laws for even positions most remote from religious purpose, matching or even beating the RCs. Theological musing and practices as a bishop of lesser standing would not bind the embodiment of the Anglican Communion.

And, since the C of E was not moving forward (or was even going backward a bit) and nothing was happening to jump-start the African churches, the appeal to North American to not get too far ahead had little force. The appeal was made, at least, but it was framed less in terms of not getting too far ahead and more in terms of not doing something totally wrong (maybe sinful, certainly discomforting to some and possibly a liability in some mission fields). Further, the framework of the appeal quickly came to be the framework for a structure new to the Communion (which isn't that old to begin with) which would change the appeal into a command -- never a good approach to the USA and Canada and something foreign to (indeed, against a foundational document of) Anglicanism.

In all of these failures, Rowan has had the opportunity to do the right thing, the thing he was trained up to do and promised to do, by word and deed, in his earlier career (though, to be fair, he did show signs of the power center idea of the ABC from early on). He took none of these opportunities and -- perhaps worse -- undercut those who tried to make what he did look like doing the right thing (++Katherine's appeal for B033 at GC2006 comes to mind).

May the next ABC come soon, while there is still a C of E or an Anglican Communion to serve.

*"uniformity of worship" is a sort of Anglican joke, since, at least in the older churches of the Communion, the official BCP and Hymnal are supplemented by a variety of more or less official improvements, trial usages, local usages, borrowed BCPs from elsewhere (and from elsewhen as well) so that quite possibly no two Anglican services are ever the same. And this doesn't even consider the pomp and circumstance bits that range from Byzantine elaboration to po' chapel minimalism (three hours to 25 minutes, say).

** Well, except for necrophiliacs, bestialists, pederasts and ephebophiles, the promiscuous, sadists, masochists, fetishists and so on. It basically means LGBT and even then probably with some exceptions, varying from place to place. In fairness, when this commitment is working, all are welcome and treated much the same outside considerations for ordination or certain occupations, like Sunday School teachers and choir directors.

Episcopocracy

I'm kinda slow. This didn't occur to me until I read some remarks by +Mark SC and Mimi's report of +ND's remarks.

Bishops in TEC don't have a lot of power in the church nor influence outside it. Almost all their actions have to be filtered through committees of priests and (brrr!) laity (even though they get to pick many of them). I don't know about Canada, though it sounds similar, but England is frustratingly different: their are still committees with some laity and the whole national government (virtually all lay, most not even in the church, some several not even Christian), but some of them do get a role in the actual national government (though a rather minor one) and all or more or less lords. And their opinions are sought outby the papers. And in Africa and other third (and lower) worlds, they are among the elite: cars when most have only bicycles, if that, mansions (not to say palaces), and other conspicuous signs of wealth. And their opinions -- even their support -- are sought out by the governments. No messy lay committee with any power, few messy priestly committees with any power.

It is not merely personal glorification that the Others want (to be a bishop, to be an Archbishop), it is power. The ACNA has so far only a College of Bishops and does not appear to be making much progress toward even a grammar school of laity or priests. The bishops who stole away from TEC had displayed an autocratic form within their dioceses and mean to continue and expand it. Before they had only the power of licensing and committee appointments to sway the events in their church, now they will be absolute.

Of course, this is all very unChristian (citation of contrasts between rulers of this world and rulers among Christians), as is attributing these motives to others, even if I had clear evidence, but it does help me see how little this all has to do with homosexuality or Biblical interpretation or creedal fidelity or any of the other things being tossed about. It's just like politics (than which it is hard to say a natier thing).

I know, I know

I should stop writing about same-sex marriage and talk about health care. But it is clear that the people who are screaming about the actual proposals in health care, are not going to listen to facts or the actual text of the bills (unless they misread it like McCaughey), so it seems pointless to add another unheard voice to the many clearly heard ones. Of course, one could the same about same-sex marriage and homosexual inclusion. My only defense is that, until recently, no one seemed to me to being agood job in sorting out the various sense of marriage and what was peculiar to each. I don't suppose that the antis ever will, but hopefully (and, indeed, apparently) some of the pros are getting better at it.

Trans

The problems of a very good runner in a women's race the other day brings to the fore the problems I am having understanding transgender (etc.) within the lgbt spectrum. Her problem seems to be (if she really has a problem other than being too good a runner) with the apparently simple question of sex: plugs and sockets, right? But then chromosomes don't always match up, folks with a y chromosome, may be sockets because they can't process testosterone (another athlete's case). I suppose in some possible realm a double x is a plug because s/he is overly sensitive to testosterone or overproduces it or radically misuses estrogen or the details of organ development just got screwed up in the womb. This latter event accounts for a certain number of babies every year being born intersex, with plumbing not clearly one way or the other. Chromosome checks and hormone checks can give some sense of what was intended and surgery can recreate that result, but not always completely, giving a fully functional person of the apparent sex. And some people who pass initial inspection still turn out to be intersex in later life, with some characteristic of each sex -- stereotypically penis and breasts as a hermaphrodite, but other combinations occur. On the other side, we find men who have two y chromosomes (and one x) and women with three xs, who tend to give exaggerated versions of their sex's (stereo)typical behavior (which raises the question of what a double x + y would be like). And, in the end, some one has to decide -- separately for each situation, probably -- how much of what is enough to assign a person to a particular sex. If matters are so confusing for prima facie objective questions of sex, what chance have more subjective questions to be simple or straightforward?

Gender roles are social constructions; society determines how a person of a given sex is supposed to behave and dress and talk in various circumstances. In some societies these are very restrictive, basically one pattern allowed, at least in public. Other societies offer a number of options, though usually with a core of common measures (even executive women in custom suits don't wear boxers, say). People who violate these patterns are thought odd (though possibly in a good way, but usually not -- at least patronizing), people who behave more in the pattern of the other sex are thought queer (definitely in a pejorative sense, sometimes a criminal one). But again much depends on context: Eddie Izzard or Dame Edna or Chantilly on stage is at most slightly discomforting, one of them in the same get-up (well, down a bit for Chantilly) in the checkout line at Wal-mart is something else again. Age, status, occupation and a whole range of socially defined differentia play a role in setting the limits. And. as there is intersex in sex, so there is androgyny is roles -- people who do not conform to either set of patterns but pick some from each.

The corresponding intermediate position in gender identity is gender queer or gender nonconforming. Gender identity is what the person thinks themself to be: male, female, neutral or both, regardless of their body and the roles they play in society. In many respects this seems to be the most important factor for transgendered people. They have this sense of gender identity that is at variance with their bodies often long before they can act out the other roles and may keep it in their core self-identification even it they do not act out the corresponding roles. But when possible, maybe only occasionally and briefly, maybe as a new life, they will live as their identity, obeying the patterns of their self-identified gender ( and perhaps eventually reshaping their bodies to conform). This, a real chosen life-style, still -- in a society where it is possible at all -- carries a load of burdens, even if fairly "successful:" official identification papers (though these are getting easier to change), rest room choices, the constant threat of original socialization popping up in a wrong move, and so on. Notice that, while coming to live with a gender identity not of your body is a choice, the gender identity itself does not seem to be, although its sources are less well understood or even explored than even sexual orientation, which is another, separate factor and the one that gets the most press (perhaps confusedly).

Sexual orientation has to do with what sort of person you can/do become romantically and sexually involved with. The choices are men, women, both, either (and whatever else there might be) or none. But, given what has gone before, this is not as clear cut a choice as it might seem: is the desire for a body structure or a way of living or some combination. Biologically speaking, the answer has to be that the quest is for body structure, with roles coming in only as a clue to that. But that still leaves many combinations to be sorted out: neither man oblivious to the successful transrole of his partner nor the partner, fully self-identified as female, thinks of themself as being a homosexual, even when the situation is revealed. Contrarywise, a body male who self identifies as female though takes on none of the female roles may have sex with a body-and-self-identified female and think of its as a homosexual encounter, regardless of what the partner or the rest of the world would think.

So now I am getting closer to my question, which might now be put as something like "How much of physical homosexuality is covert identity heterosexuality (and tother way round, of course)? One of the gender roles is clearly attraction to the opposite gender, but this is separate from the other roles, so it may be the only cross role one plays. Or the other parts of the cross role one uses may be minor or occasional. The gay and lesbian people I have talked to seem to be quite comfortable in their bodies, but they may not be totally frank or they may not be representative of a significant group. None of this has anything to do with the right of every person to be who they want to be and to be united with the one they love, with at least the state's blessing and without hassles, but it raises a lot of questions about research and scientific understanding of human sexuality.

It's empty because there is nothing in it

I don't have a problem with the Shroud of Turin. Its claim to be the burial shroud of Jesus doesn't get past the first word. Assuming that the Crucifixion took place more or less as described, Jesus wasn't buried. Pontius Pilate was a strict military governor (in fact, called home once for being overly severe), so he isn't going to break an easy rule. In three hundred years of continuous conquest, the Romans had learned that leaving a tomb -- or any other visible reminder -- of a charismatic rebel leader just leads to a prolonged or recurring rebellion. So, he would not have agreed to Joseph's request, even if Joseph had been fool enough to make it -- admitting friendship with a just executed rebel leader was grounds for arrest and at least a beating.

"But all the texts agree that Jesus was buried." Well, yes, because you need a burial to get a resurrection (if a body got up from the garbage heap where the crucified were tossed, no one would notice or could point to the evidence that one was missing). And the resurrection was necessary to complete, make sense of, the crucifixion. Which is somehow necessary for our salvation (though just how is hard to answer in a way consistent with other theological points).

Of course, the resurrection presents its own problems as well. If Jesus' body was resuscitated, it is a very strange body indeed. The inevitable damage from being dead 36 hours has been repaired, though not the external wounds. It can eat and break bread and be felt, but it can also pass through walls or, more likely, port to or from any place. And it does not seem to be in continuous existence, for there are long stretches when no one knows where it is (I will pass over the levitation at the end). Once you allow all that, the difference from a vision seems mostly verbal. And Paul, who never claims more than a vision, still claims that what he had was the same as what the Twelve and Mary and all had.

But the question is still, what does all this or any part of it have to do with our salvation?

Well, gag me with a feather

As thatFriend of Jake said. I think I have never been so happy to be wrong. Or nearly wrong, since the resolutions on blessing same-sex unions is still out there somewhere. But for now, Yah-hooo!
And a better than 2 to 1 margin: no bad surprises, a few good ones, and the dunnos vastly went for 'Yes.'

Getting it rite

Another corollary to the axiom, "A committed life-long relation between two people of the same sex is the moral equivalent of a heterosexual marriage" is (in case I haven't mentioned it before)
A committed life-long relation between two people of the same sex deserves all the recognition and support from both church and state that a heterosexual marriage does.
That is, the state ought to give out marriage licenses to such couples and the church ought to solemnize, bless and proclaim their union. (I would add that the state ought to have rules for divorces for such couples and the church ought to devise rites for the dissolution of all unions, but that is another issue.)

To review the reasons in favor of taking up these obligations, simple equality aside:
The state gets information which will simplify questions about rights and responsibilities of property and the course of public health threats as well as increasing the societal bend toward stability. In short, just the reasons for licensing and recording heterosexual marriages.

The church also have exactly the same reasons for proclaiming and blessing these relations as it has for heterosexual marriages: supporting the stability of the family, channeling desires, and providing temporal images of God's love.

And what can be put up in opposition to these actions of church and state?

They legalize, even bless, sin!

Well, even assuming homosexual sex acts are sinful (oh dear, there's another topic to look at), they are already legal (that is, decriminalized -- finally, but somehow still insultingly). Indeed, states are coming more and more to the realization that criminalizing sin per se is a bad, unproductive, idea -- quite aside from any notion of separation between church (the spotter of sin) and state (the spotter of crime). There are overlaps, of course, but the sins that are also crimes should be outlawed for their criminal (they muck up property transactions), not their religious (they piss God off), content. And, of course, the state doesn't license the sex -- if any -- in a marriage, only the union (and the accompanying property rights and duties -- all the state can deal with, after all.) The same applies to churches, who do not bless the sex acts in a marriage, but the union itself. While sex acts may be presumed to be a part of a marriage, they are not singled out for special consideration.

Well, even if they don't license or bless homosexual sex acts, these actions would provide secure place to carry them out and thus increase their frequency.

How much did the spread of marriage laws and marriage rites increase the amount of heterosexual sex acts in olden times? Or, if that is too speculative, how much has the decline in marriage in modern times decreased the amount of sexual activity? The effect is surely negligible, even if you don't think post hoc ergo propter hoc is a fallacy. And why, exactly, would increased frequency, did it occur, be a bad thing? If the issue is increased sin and damnation, then we need to look again at Paul, who, after all those passages apparently about how awful homosexual desires and actions are, always comes back to the Good News that all of that (and other things also in the tirade) is vanished in the salvific action of Jesus. So, unless you think seventy times seven is a literal limit on the number of times one can be forgiven for something (in which case, you have less than a year and a half before damnation overtakes you) rather than a symbolic way of saying "as long as he asks," a Christian homosexual (and this is not an oxymoron, by this same reasoning) does not fall deeper into sin and damnation at all.
(Note: this not urging increased sin so that grace may increase, but merely noting that, if it were sin, grace would be sufficient to cover it.)

Well, even if it doesn't legitimate sin, it does legitimate an unhealthy life-style.

I guess I never understood what the gay life-style was, because, with some few flaming exceptions -- easily matched from straight culture, though in somewhat different form -- the lives of the gays I know or hear about do not seem that different from anybody else's: drag out of bed, slog off to work, drag home, watch tv, sleep. I tend to think, then, that "lifestyle" is again a code for "sex act". So, then, are homosexual sex acts more unhealthy than heterosexual ones (presumably meaning heterosexual ones that homosexuals don't engage in, since most homosexual sex acts are also heterosexual ones, with insignificant -- from a health point of view -- modifications). I suppose that each sex act carries unique risks and, if that danger is realized and the act is stigmatized, proper treatment might be delayed and unhealthy consequences ensue. But then, legitimating the context of the act would go some way toward removing the stigma and the delay in treatment, hence, hopefully, the bad outcome. Yet another way in which marriage is a healthy choice.

So, I see no rational reason against marriage for all couples, and several reasons in favor of it -- for both church and state. All that is left against it is the ick factor, which is no ground for such an important choice.

Windsor Compliancy Report Card

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog to bring you this relevant news. We'll get back to love soon.

The Windsor report recommends a number of things. Some , however, seem more important than others as affecting the life of the Church. Since GAFCON and its associates, even within TEC, regularly complain about TEC's "disobedience" to these recommendations, it is interesting to compare their performance with TEC's.

1. Don't consecrate bishop's whose manner of life is objectionable to some members of the Communion.

So far as I know, no one has objected to any bishop consecrated in TEC (or ACC) since the report came out. Have I missed something?

GAFCON churches have consecrated a number of people who owe their positions to thievery (or embezzlement or whatever -- and probably simony) and has taken in several deposed bishops of the same persuasion. Stealing is behavior is widely objected to even in Anglican circles. They have also consecrated clerics who have preached in favor of punishing -- even killing -- homosexuals just for being homosexual. Indeed, it seems some have been raised just because they preached that way, This behavior is objected to by many parts of the Communion, even -- officially -- by the Windsor Report and the ABC.

2. Don't establish rites for blessing (etc.) same sex marriages.

Well, I admit this is a fudge, but the Church has not established (or even officially set out to study -- which means that any actual establishment would be 6 years away at least) any such rite. The fudge is, of course, that various parishes and even dioceses have carried out such rites, using ad hoc forms and, perhaps, even some that circulate widely and would surely be considered if the Church were to start a study.

GAFCON passes this with flying colors, naturally.

3. Don't cross provincial borders to establish churches.

Well, TEC, because of its history, has churches in all sorts of places, but no new ones since the Windsor Report.

Four or five GAFCON provinces have established churches -- or, more often, taken over existing ones -- in the US and Canada. When they took them over, they regularly tried (and in many cases have succeeded so far) to take over the assets of the church and use them in opposition to TEC and ACC. TEC has sued (successfully in the decided cases) to recover the property-- an unChristian move according to the thieves, as Paul is against going to the government for church matters. Unfortunately, even though this government is not antiChristian (it really isn't) and, so, different from the government Paul was suspicious of, it does have laws of fiduciary responsibility, such that, if TEC had not sued to recover the property, it could itself be sued for heedlessly alienating that property.

4. Accept all lgbt people in the Church as full members of the Church -- and all equally under God's love.

Well, TEC doesn't get an A+ on this, but its record is not embarrassingly bad, certainly better than most other provinces of the Communion, including the C of E (which hasn't even dealt squarely with women yet).

So far as I can tell, no GAFCON province has objected to laws in their countries which criminalize homosexuality, association of homosexuals, homosexual acts and so on. In most cases they have been approving, if occasionally silently, and in some cases have been in the forefront of those advocating more such laws and stiffer penalties. They have also allowed (even encouraged) preachers to preach against homosexuality in terms that would surely come under hate speech and clear and present danger to violent acts in the US and are at least distasteful almost anywhere.

5. Listen to the experiences of lgbt members and others.

Again, TEC does not get and A+, but fares pretty well against others in the Communion and other US Churches. Vocal spokesperson for lgbt inclusion are heard, even if off the record, and there is some indication that some official body will actually sit down and listen to them -- and others not so loud -- on the record.

On the grounds that you can't get anything sensible out creatures lower than dogs or from admitted criminals, no GAFCON province has any program for listening to lgbt people nor plans to have one. They always plead that there are more important things to worry about -- poverty, hunger, disease, corruption, ... but then they don't do much along the lines of dealing with these, either, and actually hamper some efforts since they won't take aid from TEC or other people where men marry men.

Have I forgotten anything important? Have I misevaluated anyone?

Last Rite

No, not Extreme Unction (which sounds like it should be administered by Uriah Heep), but Marriage, the last of the rites to get on the list as a sacrament or something close.

Marriage has been mainly about property. In olden times (e.g. biblical ones), marriage was a contract between two families (usually) involving the exchange of a woman (and some other property) for some property. It was a lifelong commitment because otherwise all the property had to be given back and the one family was stuck with the woman again (and at second-hand value). (This is why biblical marriage were often intrafamilial: first cousins, even half-siblings). People who didn't have property, didn't get married in any legalistic way, they just cohabited or practiced some folk ritual (jumping the broom, say).

Of course, when a couple of propertied families contracted a good marriage, they celebrated the successful conclusion of the negotiations and the signing. And, why not invoke the gods (or, eventually, God) to oversee the contract's execution (it seemed to help with that subdivision last year)? So a ritual evolved for these occasions. And this ritual came to include an expression of the clauses of the contract: life long commitment, exclusivity, sharing property, taking care of one another, etc., to the point where the ritual almost replaced the contract and the contract was not considered valid without the ritual (there are wonderful medieval debates about when the contract came into force, in case one of the participants -- bride, groom, or priest -- died before the whole thing was over). Marriage came to be -- in some people's mind, at least -- not something done by the bride and groom (or their families) but something done by God through the agency of the priest ("whom God has joined together").

The Church (or whatever) saw several advantages in this situation and so institutionalized it, first bringing the ritual into the church (first the informal parts, then the main worship space) then raising it to the status of a sacrament (the Wedding at Cana gave her a needed precedent). She also expanded its scope, so that everyone, whether propertied or not, had to be married to live together or have children (the opportunities for bastards in the strict sense were sharply limited). As noted, knowing who goes with whom is useful information to have, and the Church gave up little to get it.

For a time, then, a Church marriage was the only kind there was (officially). But, with the rise of the modern state and its interest in information about its citizens, civil marriage reemerged and became the only official standard. The church marriage became again a ritual around the signing of a contract, an occasion to proclaim and celebrate the union the contract involved and to bless that union. But much of the aura of the intervening era of sacramental marriage remained, and spread even to civil marriages without ecclesial frills.

Marriage is traditionally a man taking a woman (men were too valuable to be used as bargaining chips). What exceptions there have been we few, widely separated and very temporary, though occasionally historically important.

However, notice that sex is nowhere mentioned in the contracts. It may be assumed, or acknowledged with a Pynthonesque nudge and wink at "union," but it is not dealt with in the clauses. Thus, the contract can serve as well for for a same-sex couple as an other-sex couple, barring reference to 'bride' and 'groom', with their assumed genders, or "this man" and "this woman" with explicit reference, assuming that the couple can fulfill (or commit themselves to try to fulfill) the clauses actually there. And there is no apparent reason why a same-sex couple cannot do this.

And, since the clauses of that old private contract, now made public and civil, informed the church ritual, there is no reason why a same-sex couple cannot have their union blessed. What is blessed (proclaimed and celebrated , too) is the union, the commitment to live out those clauses. Other things that happen in the context of that union are incidental: if they break the clauses (as wife-beating and adultery surely do) then either the union is dissolved or the reconciliatory prescriptions are brought into play; if they don't (as consensual sex acts clearly don't), then these, though unblessed, do not per se affect the union or the blessing on it.

Why the to-do about marriage?

Marriage has usually been about property. Where I am now, a marriage license is issued by the same clerks who handle "documents of writing affecting real property or personal property" in the Finance Divsion of the county government, along with the Assessor and the Collector. The State licenses autos and drivers, the municipalities license pets, marriage is for the County.

Government (composed mainly of clerks) register marriages for the convenience of clerks. Laws give certain rights and duties -- about transmission of property and paying off debts, for example -- to married people, and it is easier to see to it that these are honored if you have a list of names of those whom they apply. There are also public health concerns: knowing who a carrier lives with helps to follow and check the spread of a contagion, And there is the general concern for stability in society, that things stay as much as possible as they are -- and marriage (and the difficulty of getting out of it) help this in at least one area.

Given all this, it is clear that governments would like to see to it that more people are married, especially people who are living together or have children together. And, indeed, there are occasional drives to get cohabitors to marry (though, because unsuccessful, not so many as formerly).

But why then the fuss about homosexual marriages? Surely, it is to the government's advantage to have the information. Given the context in which the government puts marriage, the answer must be that homosexual marriages will cost the government too much. And, indeed, there have been comments -- on the fourth page of the Business section usually -- about how small-business owners will be hurt by increased retirement and health care liabilities, and similar claims about Social Security. But people who claim to be able to predict these things say that these inbalances will quickly be corrected -- as they would be if more cohabitors married or, indeed, if just more employees did. So this does not seem to be a very powerful objection. Nor is it ever treated as one; as noted, it is never the headline. The headlines reveal that the objection stems from something barely mentioned in the government's interest in marriage: sex acts. About all the government says about that topic is a threat of unpleasant consequences to the person in a marriage who has sex with someone outside it (it can create all kinds of paperwork in an inheritance trial, for example). Given that existing homosexual unions seem to be about as monogamous as heterosexual marriages, this does not appear to be much of a problem -- and the routine to deal with it is already well-oiled by current marriages.

Ah, but (significantly) homosexual sex acts are icky (homophobia is coprophobia by proxy?). But most people, those who watch porn on their computers, know that some folks find this act stimulating and that heterosexual couples engage in it (at least, the law says, the right people are doing it together). Nor do all homosexuals do it all the time -- indeed, some don't ever. So, the mere possibility of icky acts (we are not -- any longer at least -- going to check) does not seem a valid reason for preventing homosexual marriages. We allow others where that -- and probably far worse -- sex acts occur. And in the broad range of activities covered by even this small area of government, much ickier things happen and, indeed, are ordered to happen (had your septic tank pumped lately?).

But this icky act is a sin! So is divorce (and more explicitly than any sex act) and much pawnbroking, both of which are carried out or licensed by the government. And, of course, talk of sin has no play in discussion of government activities.

But this would be blessing sin in a sacred institution. And here we have it! The opponent of homosexual marriage has confused a civil marriage -- two people's deed to one another -- with some religious -- or at least spiritual -- entity. Or even two: a ceremony and a state of life. Of course, using the same word for all of them aids the confusion. But a civil marriage is quite independent the others as they are of one another: you can have one without the other any way you want.

How this confusion comes about -- and is exploited by various people (to what purpose I can't quite figure out) -- is the next topic (forthcoming)

Axiom and action

Axiom
A consensual committed life-long mutual relationship between two people of the same sex is the moral equivalent of a heterosexual marriage.

Corollary
Being in such a relation is not a bar to any role in this church.

Action

TEC implicitly accepted these propositions at GC2003 when it accepted V. Gene Robinson's election as Bishop of New Hampshire.

It has never explicitly accepted either of them.

Not at GC03.
ABC was said to have muttered that we did the right thing but in the wrong order (or so it was interpreted by those used to reading the enigmatic oracles -- he probably said "hysteron proteron"). I suppose this bass-ackwards approach was taken because it was clear that accepting the election would pass ("Vicky Gene is such a nice guy" as, indeed , he is) while the general principle might not. And maybe it was thought (by whomever was doing the thinking) that the general principle would even further strain the bonds of the Communion. It is not clear that it could have, given what has happened since -- little or any of it actually about lgbt people.

Not at GC06
I suppose that, along with B033, this nonaction was taken in the hope of mollifying the situation and giving the new PB some space in which to operate in the Communion. And we know how well that turned out. Collaborating with Others on a display issue while continuing not to give all power to those who are Absolutely Right, will not win a favorable response from the latter.

Not at GC09
HOB has announced (implicitly, of course -- the via media "Do it, but don't say so"?) that no action will be taken on same-sex unions: "We have to wait for our secret committee's reports". As if there was an argument that had not been worked to death already, or a new piece of information to explore (except, of course, the stories of happily united faithful across the demographics -- which "will be given all due consideration"). Of course, the GC does have some control over the budget and in these times cut must be made ... . As if!

Not GC12
Sorry, but the report was negative. Nearly a half of lgbt unions end in separation, and in a very large number cases at least one partner has sexual liaisons outside the union. So, it cannot be morally equivalent to heterosexual marriage.


By the way, you might want to gussy the axiom up with more adjectives: "self-giving," "caring," "loving," and so on. And add "blessed and registered as much as the law allows." This will not change many of the facts on the ground, alas.

First things.

I am setting up this blog to discuss things Episcopalian, at the moment mainly same sex marriage in its various guises and the pusillanimity of GC in dealing with this issue. I hope that this issue will go away and then certainly I will get on to other issues -- and I may before then even.

I have been an Episcopalian for slightly less than half my life, having dropped in accidentally in the course of getting married one time. Prior to that I was an accidental Fundamentalist (it was the only church in town and everybody went to church there and then), an interdenominationalist (the school church), a Lutheran (LCA - another wedding) and mainly a nothing -- but "spiritual." Once in, I found I liked it a lot and dove in to the activities of my parish (laid-back Anglo-Catholic:fancy dresses, candles, incense but sneakers or Jerusalem ground grippers -- and liberal to radical politics): lector, vestry, altar party, diocesan delegate, etc. and graduated from the diocesan School for Ministry (even got married *in the church* once). My parish has usually (since I've been here) had a woman as rector or at least assistant and is an Oasis parish: advertising as friendly to lgbt people, who, indeed, make up a significant part of the congregation and the leadership.

Lately I have gotten a little disgruntled at the slow pace of progress and the political hanky-panky in at least the national church and the World Wide Anglican Communion led by the ABC. So now and here is my opportunity to vent to someone besides my long-suffering wife and my inattentive cat.