It depends on the behavior. Sexual promiscuity? Absolutely. The common experience of humanity and reason tells us that this is not a beneficial behavior. Sexual orientation? I think there is room for debate on this one. Just because an author struggling to comprehend the will of God through the lens of his culture thinks homosexuality is an abomination does not automatically require me to agree with him outright.

There are those times in scripture, too, where we get terrible images of God. One thinks of the countless times God angrily wanted to obliterate the Hebrew people throughout their 40 year sojourn in the desert (not to mention the entire human race in Noah’s day and the city of Sodom and Gamorrah in Abraham’s day). Moses didn’t say “Thigh will be done.” He pleaded for mercy and argued with God time and time again that he would lose all credibility in the eyes of the surrounding nations if he did such a thing. That’s what Bishop Robinson is saying in the twenty-first century. A God who thinks my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ are an abomination is a God not worthy of my worship, and I have no problem telling this to his face.

Ultra Protestantism offers a church that stopped being able to make changes in the 1st century when the Apostles died. She theorises that everything since then be judged by those first years via the Bible (as interpreted by a local pastor or individual). While in reality these mini popes act as infallibly as the Bishop of Rome, in making decrees and judgements, these assume (or pretend to assume) that God stopped speaking when the Bible stopped being written. The Church has no authority nowadays to make changes to that.

Ultramontanist Catholicism, as we see it now in Sydney, etc, says that the Church still has the authority to change things - in the person of the Pope - but we know his changes are not autocratic: papers filtre through doctrinal commissions and bishops’ councils. Suggestions go through Vatican congregations and lesser and greater synods, trickling upwards like magma until they shoot out of the Papal Valcano and cool - looking as permanent as Rock itself - but being, in fact, as new as yesterday because nothing will go upwards that is not sycophantically supportive of the Pope’s personal biases (look at the changes, good and bad, between JP2 and B16). The Pope has that authority to change the entire flavour of Roman Catholicism. This is a new thing: for in centuries past, prior to the communications revolution, the Pope wouldn’t have known about anything anywhere, if no one bothered to tell him. His Authority, itself, is a new thing.

Pious Orthodoxy proffers a church that stopped making changes at the end of the 7 councils. Change, however, happens, in fact, on a combo of the two previous models. Local option is the norm and this trickles upwards, slowly: look, for example, at America, where most of the Bishops are free of the Monastic system. Yes, they are celibate, but they are raised to the Episcopacy without ever having been under the authority of a monastic elder. They form their own minds - free of the Church’s most dogmatically conservative restraints. This is a new thing - and new things give birth to newer things. She claims to rely ONLY on the Authority of the 7, but she, in fact, has made a bunch of Roman Catholic style choices, coupled with the Protestant local option.

Modern Ecumenical (liberal) Protestantism also has a model of authority and pretends otherwise. Her model uses the same “trickle up volcano” idea of commissions and synods, but in the end, she has no volcano from which to shoot forth, and so her pronouncements flow out every which way. Looking for something to disagree with, one can find it. Looking for something to agree with, one can find it.

In theory, there is a difference, however, between your examples from history and modern liberal Protestantism. In your examples both communities excommunicate each other. This is the problem. In *theory* the Post-Modern Church is supposed to avoid that - but she’s just as messed up as those other communities.

This is why I open these pages up, as I do, to conversation and differing views. I know that some communities feel God condemns XYZ and, lo, your host participates in X, at least. But I also know it’s entirely possible to disagree on my status without denying my position at the table. I’ve even seen that posture among Orthodox clergy.

I sent an invite to an AWESOME convocation to a very liberal friend of mine - but he said “I’m not *that* liberal” that he would sit down with the conservatives at that table. Me? I am that liberal. I would love to go. Does that make me more or less liberal? I can go to the conversation, I can participate - I can come away with what is valuable, and reject what is not. What is useful I can bring to my local community. What is not useful I can leave behind in Pittsburgh. I’ve no desire to break communion with the global south or with you, for that matter. Were they (or you) to be present at the same table, I would freely give of the things God has given me. What they - or you - do is not *my* choice.

1. If I were to be wrong on the various issues surrounding sexuality, then I would have been unjust, and, indeed, sinfully standing in the way of something God wanted and causing needless pain to people. But, the same would be true of you if the reverse is true.

2. A second option is that both of us are somehow wrong. That is, both of us are part of seriously damaging the Church with the arguments that we are making, on this blog and others. In that case, we are both to be pitied (as St. Paul would say) and are still in our sins and trespasses.

3. A third option is that somehow both of us are correct. I frankly cannot quite imagine how there is any way that could be. The argument would somehow have to be cultural. But even then, would one have micro-cultures within the USA or . . . .? I do not think that this is a live option, but it is in the realm of possibility.

But, we make our arguments as best we can on blogs like this and others. We make them because there is a bottom line belief that somehow these conversations (on this blog and others) can bring change. Sometimes one changes; sometimes both change; sometimes neither changes. And, there is the hope that the change that happens will be change for the better, godly change. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that sometimes the kitchen gets rather hot for any of us who are involved in serious blogging.

Now, as to the Anglican Communion, I used the Coptic Orthodox and the Syrian Orthodox quite deliberately. Both of those Churches were outside the effective reach of the Roman Empire. As a result, a Constantinian solution could not be imposed on them by the Emperor. Thus, effectively, there was a situation parallel to that of the Anglican Communion. Despite the pronouncement of the Ecumenical Council, there was no effective way for the Church to put that pronouncement into effect.

Since the Alexandrian Patriarch and all his priests held firm, the entire Patriarchate was “lost” to the Church and became the Coptic Orthodox Church. However, note that there is no inter-communion between the Copts and Chalcedonian Christianity. A similar situation seems to be coming into being in the Anglican Communion. While there may be no way for the Global South to enforce any agreements, nevertheless, ECUSA could end up (like the Copts) being an independent and separate Church without inter-communion with the Global South. The Armenian Church and the Nestorian Church of the Persian Empire also effectively ignored the post-Nicean Ecumenical Councils. Again, an Anglican-like situation.

In fact, the very schism between East and West reflects an Anglican-like situation in that Rome was effectively able to do what it wished. Anglicanism, in the way in which things are happening today, is nowhere near as unique as it thinks.

And, while I respect your views, I’d thank you not to compare your host to a thief as you did in your last paragraph.

James, you would not be able to fly to the vast majority of churches in the world of any type, not simply Anglican. World Christianity, as a whole, does not either agree with or approve of various types of heterosexual or homosexual behavior. People engaging in or encouraging those behaviors do not tend to get ordained. It is a facile over-simplification to claim that disapproval of a behavior somehow projects an inappropriate image of God.

After all, there would be quite a few behaviors that God appears to condemn and that have nothing to do with any type of sexuality. Do we then claim that it is a terrible image of God when we tend to either exclude from fellowship or pastorally counsel those who habitually engage in those behaviors?

One who habitually “borrows” from the Church treasury is usually barred from the parish council and maybe even from the parish. If, then, one is against certain sexual behaviors, is it then inappropriate to discipline those who engage in them, whether they are a Pastor Jimmy Bakker or a Pastor Ted Haggard or a Bishop Robinson? Rather, are we not saying to the world that there is an appropriate sexuality in which we must engage? Bishop Robinson only sounds convincing to those who already believe that his espoused behaviors are permissible.