Ah, no, we won't be there. Gay cooties will be there. Those Americans will be bringing them!

Ah, yes. We Anglicans play by "vast majority" rules; I remember now. We takes votes on how the lives of other people should be lived.

We don't bother our pretty heads about persuading anyone, or coming up with sound theological argument; we just bully our way through - and tyranny of the vast majority rules.

At least the Catholics deign to make an actual argument about the topic - something that can be looked over and worked with and argued about. Anglicans just make pronouncements, while gasping and clutching at their pearls.

Why are these prelates surprised that others don't have much respect for them?

Why is it always the Americans who are the bad church? Why not the Canadians or the English?
TEC is not the only church pushing the envelope.

Personally the Ugandans sound like "if you don't play by my rules, I'm not going to play with you anymore!" I remember that from my childhood.
That's really living the Gospel isn't it?

Uganda's (hierarchy's) loss is Lambeth's gain. But what of the poor *people* of Uganda? Pray they may receive more faithful shepherds.

This statement from the Church in Uganda is puzzling to say the least. The spokesperson speaks of their dissocation from the American Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury; how, then, can they still remain part of the Anglican Communion?

Perhaps this logic follows that of the Primate of Uganda, who, in an earlier communique, mentioned a figure of '1000 bishops' who have declined the invitation to Lambeth. There are simply not that number in the Church. Where is the logic?

Of course the classic point is the last one on female ordination. here the Ugandan bishops ( unlike the Anglo-Saxon leadership) admit that there is a division on the ordination of women, and that evangelical people come to different conclusions on this issue.

This of course shows that the perspicuity of Scripture is a flaw. Furthermore they imply that that female ordination variance is acceptable because the ordination of women is not concerned with sin... but surely divorce and re-marriage ( another area of evangelical disunity) is. The Ugandan bishops should be praised for their honesty and exposing the central weakness of GAFCON.

JFC wrote: “Uganda's (hierarchy's) loss is Lambeth's gain. But what of the poor *people* of Uganda? Pray they may receive more faithful shepherds.”

“The poor people of Uganda” have had civil war ever since Idi Amin. Many years ago the present dictator, Museweni lived in my home town in exile. It was war then, it is war now.

Sweden supported the camp the USA supported. They got their exile, the others not. When Museweni left for Uganda with a suitcase of un-accounted-for Mexico-dolares (one had to have a Licence those days to take even small sums abroad) the civil war re-ignited.

I understand “the poor *people* of Uganda” don’t live in civilised enough circumstances to be able to bother either way with gay marriage in distant lands, nor rights, nor un-faithful shepherds.

So let’s pray!

"Why is it always the Americans who are the bad church? Why not the Canadians or the English?
TEC is not the only church pushing the envelope."

Well, Canadians are nice and everyone likes them -- pretty hard to get people hopping mad at Canadians. And England is the home church of the communion -- if you break with the CoE, it's at least a bit of a logical quandary as to whether you're still "Anglican." But after 8 years of Neo-con governance in the USA and a longer period of a disproportionate American cultural, economic and military influence that has unsettled more traditional cultures -- well, TEC is the easiest target.

Why do some of you WANT to be in the same church as this bunch or premodern fundies?

You should all be campaigning for a split - the myth of a united Christian religion is just that. Liberal and conservative Christians believe entirely different things - face up to it.

"Of course the classic point is the last one on female ordination. here the Ugandan bishops ( unlike the Anglo-Saxon leadership) admit that there is a division on the ordination of women, and that evangelical people come to different conclusions on this issue."

Hmm, no division on the ordination of women? Just push through the single clause, and you will see the division.

But I agree 100% that all our troubles began with divorced and remarried clergy.

"Why is it always the Americans who are the bad church?"

While several synods have voted in support of SSBs, none, to my knowledge has formally given approval. Canada has not consecrated an openly gay man. Canada has been far more quiet about all of this. An American bishop just last week essentially made support for SSBs an issue for Episcopalians in the next American election. Why? The Church has to be led by local American secular political initiatives? TEC is not at all shy about being public in her actions. Well, honesty is a virtue, but very publically carried out honesty seems like grandstanding to many. "Behind the scenes" isn't necessasrily a bad thing, nor dishonest. In so far as it avoids treading on people's toes, thus not getting their backs up, it might at times be a better way to do things. Also, America is the Centre Culture in the world, thus is both emulated and hated by smaller cultures. The influence of mass market American culture is relentless and is destroying, with local participation, smaller cultures around the world. Look at the bizarre phrase "gay culture". That is urban North American gay culture, it doesn't even speak to rural Americans, let alone those growing up gay in other cultures. But it is American, so it is assumed to be The Way Things Are, no-one questions it, and we all happily follow along. Well it isn't MY culture, and I don't identify with it. This is a natural thing, the impact of the dominant culture, and the envy and hatred of the smaller cultures, it has been going on as long as there have BEEN dominant cultures in the world, and it explains why TEC is coming under so much fire, She has been placed, wrongly I would claim, as the Church of the dominant culture, and is thus to be hated. That She is so "in your face" in Her actions merely compounds the issue. It reminds me of the cover headline in Time the week after 9/11 "Why do They Hate Us?". Why do they have to ask? The answer is pretty obvious, and a lot of it is based on nothing more than envy of the dominant culture, and is thus unjustified, though totally human. I don't mean to insult, Bill, and I don't have the hatred for TEC or the US that I have just tried to explain, but many do, for these reasons.

"female ordination variance is acceptable because the ordination of women is not concerned with sin"

But it most certainly is concerned with the validity, and thus the grace received by the worshipper, of the sacraments. That may well not be an issue for them, but if so it reveals a theology of sacraments that is certainly not orthodox. So this shows an obsession with sin and disregard for the sacramental life that is at the core of the vast majority of definitions of Christian Orthodoxy, it shows the same kind of disregard for the scruples of others that they blame "liberals" for, and it also makes their self appointed status as "orthodox" completely untrue.

It helps that the Uganda believers lay out their objections clearly. However, the response is fairly easy by now:

1. Two believers may walk together event though they disagree on doctrines and other things, mainly because they walk together as Anglicans - aware that their views are innately tied to and derived from their hermeneutics and scholarship, with the result that either of the two may be partly or wholly wrong in something as time and best practices of modern inquiry and help from the Holy Spirit may reveal. As Anglicans in our meantime, neither believer need refuse worship, or service in a hurting world, shoulder to shoulder with the other.

Why else are we Anglicans, and not some other sort of Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox-Byzantine believers?

2. More pointedly, we have no empirical data that a gay couple is any less functional nor ethically hindered because of their gender/sexual orientation than any opposite-sexed couple.

Yes, this data came as a great surprise to us given the many negative traditional beliefs that same sex couples were innately twisted and inferior in daily life, not to mention impaired in impossible ways, ethically, according to our traditional frames.

At this point, we face an empirical contradiction, quite similar to the dilemma believers once faced in agony about believing in a flat earth and Ptolemaic Cosmos. Either the data is correct - and many different research methods continue to show it generally solid though capable of even further technical corrections and even breakthroughs in some areas - or we have been reading scripture wrongly, especially as to the real nature of gender and sexual orientation.

Bishop VGR in New Hampshire is leading a fairly traditional conservative life as a bishop in his own diocese. The notion that rubbing shoulders with him is dirty and dangerous is understandable - pretty much as parts of our negative legacy require - but the data ask us to ask: Are these loaded notions of dirt and danger, true? Afraid not.

The whole thing gets even more strained when one applies dirt and danger notions to anybody who knows and relates to Bishop VGR, since where does the dirt and danger stop spreading? One remove, two, three, four, five? It is especially curious that African believers should adopt and preach these contamination fears, given than our traditional European religious and cultural beliefs once associated such uncanny contaminations with being dark-skinned African.

Thanks Peter and Ford. I forget TEC gets associated with the US's politics/policies. Just for the record, I wasn't putting down any other church but just wondering why they only mentioned TEC when things are also happening in other national churches.

On the other hand Orombi seems to be telling the ABC what to do with the recent wedding so I guess we all get the wrath of GS.

Well, Y'all, in a nutshell, reason we Americans are the ones to avoid is that we have a female Presiding Bishop. And she doesn't know her place! How dare she think she is equal to the men....

"But I agree 100% that all our troubles began with divorced and remarried clergy."

Posted by robroy.

I have the impression that all our troubles began much longer ago, perhaps with Mary's fiat mihi, when a young girl consented to participate in the new and quite scandalous thing God was minded to do.

"Well, Y'all, in a nutshell, reason we Americans are the ones to avoid is that we have a female Presiding Bishop."

Nonsense. They hated Frank Griswold just as much. It's the Church that she leads, and the society it is associated with, that they hate. Her being a woman is just another thing they can carp at. Frankly, they'd hate TEC even if Jesus Himself was wearing her mitre. In the long run, it's change and the possibility that they might inadvertently do something their vindictive God will torture them eternally for that scares them. As long as we are as virtuous as people were in the past (I know, but to them, Ozzie and Harriet are the iconic Christian family) there's no risk of damnation. Change anything, and you just might upset God, Who as we all know, is very sensitive to the slightest infraction and will happily do away with the Incarnation, Resurrection, and the indwelling of the Spirit to cruelly punish the slightest thing we might do wrong.

"Why do some of you WANT to be in the same church as this bunch or premodern fundies?"

Speaking only for myself, MM: I don't believe that the masses of Anglicans, around the world, ARE fundies (Fundamentalism being, as you should know, a Modern phenomenon!) It's their *hierarchies* who are the Fundamentalists.

Pre-modern masses? Maybe.

But I actually think pre-modern and post-modern have a LOT more in common: it's the Modernist fundies who are (ironically) BOTH novel innovators, and regurgitated ancient heretics!

"Look at the bizarre phrase "gay culture". That is urban North American gay culture, it doesn't even speak to rural Americans, let alone those growing up gay in other cultures."

Ford -- "gay culture" considerably predates the founding of the USA. Take a look at Queer Sites: gay urban histories since 1600, edited by David Higgs, Routledge, 1999, which charts the histories of such cultures in Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, London, Lisbon, Rio and San Francisco. I realize this doesn't fully counter your point, but I have trouble believing that American culture is as dominant as you say. I wonder if American culture is not sometimes mixed up with the cultural imperatives of our shared technological/industrial society -- I believe these are two different things.

American culture, experienced from within, is not at all monolithic, and you're certainly correct in saying that TEC is wrongly placed as the "church of the dominant [American] culture." In the context of its larger national culture, TEC is in fact a prophetic counterbalance to the excesses arising from the American political and military hegemony of recent years. I'm surprised that the "orthodox" don't seem to at least see this as something good and positive about TEC. Sadly, sex seems to rivet their attention. What would Freud have said about that, I wonder?

"TEC is in fact a prophetic counterbalance to the excesses arising from the American political and military hegemony of recent years. I'm surprised that the "orthodox" don't seem to at least see this as something good and positive about TEC. Sadly, sex seems to rivet their attention."

This is because the same forces in US politics that have made sex the centerpiece of their religious consternation are in favor of the American political and military hegemony of recent years. And those outside the US are dependent on those same sources for financial support, so they dare not speak against the worst of US politics.