The claim that "whereby each side has logged on merely to those sites with which they agree"

Personally witnessed oer 500 postings removed, plus the references to the said postings later removed.

Some might claim that I have never blogged on conservative sites. The editorial history and my non-presence speaks for itself.

Once again, some souls rely on the oppressed having no voice so they can whitewash and deny they ever repressed an alternative opinion on their site. Similar to polygamous wife bashers who claims that their wives never complains, and rely on their peers being oblvious or complicit with the beheading or excommunicating the wives who objected to being mistreated.

"gay debate of the past five years has suffered from too much niche internet activity, whereby each side has logged on merely to those sites with which they agree."

...and from which they have not been banned by those who cannot bear dissenting voices.

The Goddard to Goddard exchange of letters has shown that letter writing alone is not the answer.

Unless both sides see each other as faithful Christians, treat each other with absolute respect and grant each other the right to exist and to express their faith with integrity... in short, as long as we can live and let live in the big Anglican tent, we'll never be close enough to see the others, far less to listen to them.

I agree that face to face and person to person is to be preferred to some absenting themselves.

On the other hand, last time we were treated to the spectcle of an African Bishop attempting to exorcize a gay man ... from which we could learn that person to person does not always work, and from which we could alsolearn about the vast gap in understading of sexuality between that African bishop and most Europeans and North Americans.

Showdown or shindig?

How sad that our big tent Anglicanism has come to be symbolized by the blue one on campus: hard to get in and lots of empty seats.

Although the emphasis on retreat, workshops and indaba groups is inspired and allows for plenty of interaction and reflection, the programme looks pretty intensive. Delegates are going to be exhausted and homeward-bound by the time they get down to the nitty-gritty topics on the last few days. A two-hour slot between mid-morning coffee and lunch to discuss "human sexuality" hardly does it justice: that's just three minutes per bishop!

Hopefully, after two and a half weeks of episcopal team-building, bishops will facilitate further discussions in their dioceses after the conference has ended. In many ways, the nature of the media and flourishing of the blogosphere has led to the democratisation of Anglicanism. Global bonds of affection have increased vastly in the last few years, even though institutional structures have suffered. The attempt to develop these structures will, in my view, only compound the problem and stifle risk-taking.

Whenever gays and lesbians choose to come out to family, friends and the wider community, it is always a provocative act. This is what we are witnessing on a global scale now. Rather than it being a stand-off between the West and Africa, we are hearing more and more voices from Africa who would otherwise be silenced. European-imposed systems are being challenged and eventually dismantled: first Apartheid, and now, perhaps, British colonial anti-gay laws.

“Once again, some souls rely on the oppressed having no voice so they can whitewash and deny they ever repressed an alternative opinion on their site. Similar to polygamous wife bashers who claims that their wives never complains, and rely on their peers being oblvious or complicit with the beheading or excommunicating the wives who objected to being mistreated.”--Cheryl Va.

Very well put, Cheryl. Most of us have had our posts removed, at one time or another, from liberal blogs like Thinking Anglicans, Father Jake, or whatever. Everyone goes over the line once in a while, myself included. But the sponsors of such liberal sites have NEVER made it a POLICY to censor views they don’t like. It’s quite different on the conservative end; they are afraid of criticism, so they cut out what they can’t answer.

Second what Erika says. While reading and perusing blogs and newsfeeds are invaluable, nothing is like personal encounters. Isn't that part of what Incarnation is all about? A huge problem in the is that those with opposing views on issues are increasingly NOT seeing each other as faithful Christians, but apostates and heretics, or at best, backwards.

The ironic things is that while internet and the information age has brought us all closer together, it has at the same time, depersonalized us.

Bravo to Cheryl for tagging up the firm censorship on the leading conservative blogs - proud to be banned, though it does not help speaking across our differences. The post I surmise got me banned from StandFirm, for example, was probably called: Is Anglican Realigment The New Leather?

I leave the remarkable and not so hidden parallels to your fertile imaginations.

Meanwhile, this heat generated - by queer folks sheer existence and honesty - is demonstrated in a fast-breaking USA report of a father in a conservative Bible Belt state who took to his 18-year-old son returning from a Pride Day celebration, loudly praying for God's help to exercise the demons and swinging his fists and a baseball bat against his offspring, to boot. This early report is outlandish enough that police are investigating. For any citizen who grew up in one of those states back in the day, the outlandish prayers plus baseball bats plus fists sounds way too familiar.

Face to face encounters have their place, their values, no doubt. (Baseball bats and exorcisms, please check at the safety information booth?) But so do strong affirmations of Big Tent Anglicanisms, including those indispensable big tent vitamins of agreeing to disagree and live and let live while we bear witness, worship in common prayer, and do service despite all our fears and all our ignorances across all of our Anglican differences big and medium and small.

If this big tent Anglicanism cannot survive intact, then the most well policed confession on the planet will hardly save us as Anglican followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

Let Lambeth be quiet, then, shhhhh the Holy Spirit may work as always, though not on anybody else's timetables.

A member of St Chrysostom's Church, Manchester is a steward at Lambeth and is keeping a blog. Interesting and light hearted - it gives a young person's view: http://lambethletters.wordpress.com/

"Most of us have had our posts removed, at one time or another, from liberal blogs like Thinking Anglicans, Father Jake, or whatever"

I have never known Thinking Anglicans to "remove" posts. What does happen is that they don't arrive due to some electronic glitches. They will be posted if you resubmit.
Other reasons for your post not appearing are abusive language or personal attacks on other posters, and simply exceeding the word limit of 400.

There is no policy to silence those the moderators don't agree with.

I agree that "niche" interwebbing is part of the problem. Certainly there are those of us on all sides who travel to sites we don't agree with - and there are sites on both sides that allow and even encourage an honest exchange of views. But I suspect that a majority of controversialists tend to get their news from their own "side" and either ignore any other perspective or simply treat it as false.

I have links to some conservative commentators at simplemassingpriest. That said, I explained in one post that there are certain "conservative" sites to which I refuse to link because of the extreme toxicity I've found there. And I'll certainly concede that there are similarly toxic liberal/progressive sites.

The other thing that struck me about the links above was "Stand Firm's" admission that Schofield actually had been "disinvited." Even these "conservative" stalwarts have punched a hole in Venables's apologia.

It was inevitable that Schofield would be disinvted. His case was precicely analogous to the "Southern Cone Bishop of Recife," who was not invited in the first place.

Erika,

Intersting the conditions you place on real conversation, "unless you absolutely recognize each other as faithful Christians ..." That is the wall built on your side. That is sheer assumption. Simply overlooks the fact that in this case there would be no real issue. What is needed is that you have a basic common reference point (that we might think would be Jesus Christ in the context of scripture but as we see here even that will not consistently be accepted) around which to converse and you want to hear together.

Ben W

Ben:

This is precisely the problem...we on the "liberal" side of this issue have no problem recognizing you on the conservative side as faithful Christians seeking truth in your own way (even as we determine that your path is incorrect). On the other hand, you refuse to recognize that WE are also faithful Christians; you insist that, if we follow the path we have chosen, we must not really be Christians.

Well the search for a new viable Anglican common point of reference apparently continues, given our heat and polarizations.

In the olden days, replete with plenty of Anglican fudge, I suppose we could have found common ground sufficient for talking and listening in those three classic areas - reason, study of scriptures, and study of traditions. Now of course conservative realignment has thrown quite a few wrenches into the possibilities of reason as a shared arena for diligence, as it claims to be very suspicious of enlightenment era habits of mind, along with having very little to do with very much of the current modern best practices tools kits - whether in empirical inquiry and hypothesis testing, or in critical scholarship from a number of angles.

Having cut loose from a shared and widely share-able definition of what reason helps us discern, the hunt in on for a plausible, plain-spoken Anglican conservatism that pledges no change, period, ever. This sells out in its holier than thou way, to way too many dubious Status Quos in society and in church life. Above all it prides itself, almost as if it were divinely blessed to ever again have to be subjected to scrutiny or investigation in any lights other than the carefully golden ones it likes to shine all around its own thinking.

Sorry folks, from where I grew up in Bible Belt USA, this is just tons of used-car-sales religion. Why worship a Jesus who never makes you ask questions, investigate difficult and complicated serious matters, and learn something once in a while? You know, something deep and important and newly hypothesis tested, that you did not even guess would prove true, five years ago?

What a fine but odd sort of parlor manners to redefine the new conservative Anglicanism. If it goes that far, the new and improved Anglican conservatives can count me out. Gee, come to think of it, they already do, presuppositionally. Imagine that, I am already out and have little or nothing to lose, except my fondness for all the sweet and difficult narratives of all the varieties of theoretical and applied reason. Outside is looking better and better, by the moment. Especially given this new fangled covenant confession thingy. Every time I pick it up, it starts ticking like an overwound clockwork that will either break down of its own internal tensions, or explode parts all over everybody in the room nearby. Who sent it? What has it to do with being Anglican?

RP: "Why is [the AC], then, fragmenting over homosexuality?"

Rowan Cantuar: “this particular issue of sexuality is one on which the overwhelming majority... across the world, inside... Anglicanism, still agree. It is still a rallying point"

What is the BASIS of this astonishing claim? The railroaded bishops of Lambeth '98? The "squeaky wheels" of Primates Meetings since then?

I'm far from convinced that a "majority of Anglicans across the world" either 1) KNOW (i.e., understand) *OR* 2) CARE about the issue of homosexuality, to any significant degree (much less that it is a "rallying point").

This bit of "conventional wisdom" needs to be CHALLENGED. I'm disappointed that Rebecca Paveley failed to do so.

Ben
"Intersting the conditions you place on real conversation, "unless you absolutely recognize each other as faithful Christians ..." That is the wall built on your side. That is sheer assumption."

It may be. But the problem is that none of us can judge. It really is time that you accepted that there are many ways of reading the Bible. As I suggested on another thread - reading a basic theological summary of the different ways Christians experienced their faith over the last 2000 years is a good start towards understanding that there is no one foolproof way of knowing what is right and what is wrong (if you want to think in those categories), or even whether it matters much to God that we have the right theology about him.

That is just a fact.
You can still believe the way you do, but you cannot, in all honesty, claim that you know the truth.

Therefore, if anyone genuinely believes themselves to be a faithful Christian, then that is what they are. Until God, and God alone, should later inform them that they had been wrong.

Heaven knows how the lesbian and gay members of Ben's family, friends and colleagues--present and future, deal with his attitude to them (& us) !

Erika,

It is at least a start that you acknowlege that you do not operate from a basis in scripture or history but simply from assumption! As you said: "It may be... none of us can judge. It really is time that you accepted that there are many ways of reading the Bible." If this holds than you have no issue with me (so on this basis I may even, on your terms, have more reason for what I have stated than anything you have presented - simply stop judging!).

You say none of "us can judge" and immediately go on to make a judgement! Your statement: "It really is time that you accepted that there are many ways of reading the Bible." If there is no basis for - no way of making - a judgement how did you come up with this? You have just cut off this branch on which you were sitting. Are you saying whether one reads the Bible as Jim Jones did (and led almost a thousand people to their death) or as Rowan Williams that makes no difference? There is no difference between reading scripture with attention for its meaning or with attention to subverting its meaning, that makes no difference? That is where you have put yourself. Interesting, as you end up saying: "you cannot, in all honesty, claim that you know the truth."

Of course who is talking about a "foolproof" way of reading the Bible? What we want is a thoughtful person who is able and prepared to recognize real data and find his or her way to the real and true. Someone who reflects on data, who is open to correction, who is prepared to distinguish between sense and nonsense. Or our conversation - any conversation - is at an end!

Ben W

Pat,

"This is precisely [NOT] the problem." The problem as it was presented is that you want to co-opt the issue by saying there is no issue.

Any person or group can and often does take that position - simply see it our way and there is no problem! Those for instance on the Arian side would have said "just see it as we do and there will be no problem." Or those affirming polygamy, "just see it as we do and there is really no problem." AS you put it: "we on the "liberal" side of this issue have no problem recognizing you on the conservative side as faithful Christians seeking truth in your own way (even as we determine that your path is incorrect)."

So the first order of business seems to be to identify the problem! Well, are you serious about dealing with this with reference to scripture or the history of Christian teaching or not? At least we are beginning to see where we are on this.

Ben W

Paul did not operate on the basis of scripture when he went to the Gentiles. Paul acted on faith.

Paul was not even fully converted before he accepted healing ministry from Annias. Someone he had specifically travelled to Damascus to either murder or silence.

Early Gentile Christians were not circumcized nor accepted under the letter of law, they were accepted by their faith alone.

Thus Erika's suggestion "Therefore, if anyone genuinely believes themselves to be a faithful Christian, then that is what they are" is scripturally correct.

In fact, those that would refute that statememt are in disagreement with OT, Paul and Jesus. They have refused the least of these Matthew 25:34-45. Malachi 3:5 God judges against those that do not fear God and deprive aliens of justice. Romans 2:14-16 the Genitles are a law for themselves since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences bearing witness.

God judges men's secrets and hearts. God's annointed does not judge by what is seen with human eyes, nor decide by what is heard by human ears, but with righteousness gives decisions for the poor of the earth, making manifest a covenant of peace that applies even to beasts (see Isaiah 11).

Ben
"It is at least a start that you acknowlege that you do not operate from a basis in scripture or history but simply from assumption! "

Did I say that?
I thought I only said that my basis in scripture is different from yours, and that the weight I give scripture is moderated by the time honoured Anglican method of Scripture, Tradition and Reason.
To ignore that this Anglican way of interpreting the bible exists and simply claim that those who follow it are only operating from assumption is not a very educated point to make.
Your theology has to be argued from a better basis than simply rubbishing what other people believe, lying about the Christian tradition they are standing in, and dismissing them as not faithful Christians.

It really might help if you did some reading. Karen Armstrong's History of the Bible is a good start.
Or try Alistair McGrath's "Christian Theology, An Introduction".
Or Hanson & Hanson's "A Reasonable Faith".
I'm sure people on this list will be able to recommend other comprehensive introductions to how Christians have interpreted their faith throughout the ages.

To say that there are many ways of reading the bible is not making any judgement other than saying that anyone who claims there has always been only one approved way is not well informed.

Ben:

As I said, the problem is that you on the conservative side insist that we on the liberal side are not acting in good faith, reading and interpreting Scripture as WE are given to understand it, and remaining faithful Christians for all that. You insist we are ignoring Scripture, because we emphasize different things, or read passages as meaning different things, than you do.

We, on the other hand, generally treat you as acting in good faith. We do not comdemn you as faithless, only as misguided.