No More

More news . . . the retired bishop of Newark has decided to send a calculatedly insulting letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The incessant politicking, posturing, and rhetoric will only escalate from here.

I will be posting no more material on the current Anglican Unpleasantness until Martinmas at the earliest. There are plenty of voices of sanity and credibility out there to whom one should listen for such news—just don’t expect any here.

My time and energy will be much better spent in the 10th century. . .

13 thoughts on “No More

  1. John-Julian, OJN

    But, do cut us a little slack: wouldn’t the 14th century be tolerable, too?

    An enquiring Julian monk asks……

  2. mother m

    Thanks for sparing us from all the politics. The 12/13th centuries are my preference but I understand your choice. You could always spend that extra time with your wonderful wife…just a thought.

  3. bls

    (Retired).

    I’ll retract this comment when Rowan Williams publicly rebukes the Nigerian Nazi Bishop.

    (Believe me, I’m not holding my breath.)

  4. The young fogey

    Thank you for your fairness describing quondam +Newark’s letter.

    My last word on the row as somebody rooted in traditional Anglo-Catholicism and who thus essentially lost my church home some years ago:

    Whoever ‘wins’ – no matter which side remains in the Anglican Communion – 99 per cent of Episcopalians would not be affected in ANY way. Church life would go on exactly the same.

    Most Americans – including a few Episcopalians, I’m told! – don’t know or care what the Anglican Communion is.

    So I don’t understand all the venom from liberal (a term describing a spectrum of belief) Episcopal loyalists.

    The mere existence of a church (diocese, parish) that teaches views you disagree with, or even hurts your feelings by so doing, is NOT by definition abusive or hateful. Unlike pre-1800s England those who don’t agree with that local church can always worship somewhere else!

    I can agree with the liberals that in cases of parishes that want to leave, the bishop calls the shot. Not the parish, nor the courts. They can ask their diocesan to negotiate – and I still think majorities of parishes ON EITHER SIDE ought to be allowed to keep the churches they’ve always used – but if he or she says no that’s it. It shouldn’t go to court. But if the parish pushes it and it does go there it’s a slam-dunk for the highest authority in the denomination.

    Just like the only certain thing one can say about the ‘Reformation’ in England is it was an act of state, the only inevitable outcome here is a VERY few congregations on either side that want to leave/switch – what did Dr Jefferts-Schori say, one per cent? – will be split nearly down the middle and factions in those rows will get hurt, having to move and start over.

    As for the Bishop of Uyo’s inflammatory remark, recently in my com-box a conservative thinking he was serving God and the Catholic faith ‘outed’ somebody in a thread nothing to do with gayness. The victim actually is a new friend of mine offline. As I wrote to another friend who’s gay and out, that’s not on and not what I’m about and both friends are always welcome at A Conservative Blog for Peace.

    I’m just about convinced that for the most part these conservative Americans of the other-than-Catholic persuasion who simply want to worship and teach as they’ve always done in the buildings they’ve always used are decent folk. IOW many/most are not the same as or the moral equivalent of the Bishop of Uyo or Fred Phelps (as Spong understandably is to the right, Phelps is sort of the Godwin’s Law of this kind of discussion). As you’ve got friends in FiFNA and the SSC you already knew that. :)

    (I agree with you that Catholics don’t seem to have a future in the new arrangements under the overseas primates.)

    As I’ve been saying recently, some perspective please, literally for Christ’s sake.

    And with that I’m done.

  5. Derek the Ænglican

    Actually, Anastasia, I see no problem with the use of Nazi here since the language used by the bishop was eerily reminiscent of Nazi rhetoric–so much so that several of the main conservative figures quoted it (in German).

    In the case of this bishop using the term is not merely elevated rhetoric.

  6. bls

    OK, I retract. Still, I have no problem with Spong’s letter; I hope somebody else writes one, too – or maybe Spong can write another!

    (And yes, “Nazi” was used descriptively, not hyperbolically.)

  7. Christopher

    That language “not fit to live” has a history and a spirit if you will, what Stringfellow would call a principality and power.

    While certainly National Socialism certainly spoke of “life unworthy of life” with regard to first those with physical and mental disabilities/homosexual men/Aryan women who’d had abortions, and then Jews, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and what would likely have next been Slavs, that principality and power, that spirit has manifested itself and possessed us in all sorts of ways before National Socialism (the slaughter of the Armenians comes to mind, as does extermination of First Nations populations and enslavement of Africans) and after National Socialism (sadly the century into which I was born has so many). That power is a spirit of murder on the level of a people.

  8. Anastasia

    eerily reminiscent…okay but I’m not satisfied. I’ve commented here before about historically based comparisons. I’m not a fan, especially when they’re inflammatory. they confuse rather than clarify the issue.

    He’s not a nazi. He may sound like a nazi to you and if that’s what you mean, say that. anything else is sloppy.

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