Virginia Bishop Spins Theology, Morality as He Heads to Ultra-Liberal California Diocese

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
3/8/2009

The Bishop of Virginia, Peter James Lee will shortly retire and head to the ultra-liberal revisionist Diocese of California as Dean of its cathedral. Before stepping away from 25 years as bishop of the largest East Coast diocese, he gave an interview to the "Washington Post" in which he made a number of statements that stand in direct contradiction to the Christian Faith and historic Anglicanism.

When asked what the most important ways in which the Anglican Communion, the worldwide church of which Episcopalians are a part, has changed in the past 25 years, Lee said this, "The awareness of each other, largely because of technology . . . the violence in Darfur, for example, would not have had the impact it had in the United States. It's good and bad. It means when a gay bishop is ordained in the United States, it's on CNN in Africa that day, but without any context."

So Darfur is bad and Gene Robinson's consecration is good, but the African perception of Robinson's consecration is perceived as bad because it is without context. This is the culture argument. It is saying that if Africa's culture was more advanced and sophisticated and they would just "listen" for another ten years to the whine of Louie Crew, Susan Russell, Gene Robinson and Colin Coward forever and ever, amen, they would get with the program and see Gene's behavior in a better light.

Beneath his argument is a latent racism. The Africans should just understand Western pansexuality, bag the Bronze Age attitude of Old Testament prohibitions on homosexuality, dump the behemoth, homophobic thinking of St. Paul and feel Gene's pain and then bow down before The Episcopal Church that is daily declining into irrelevance.

Then Lee said, "The [Episcopal] Church is hugely impacted by what's going on internationally . . . the churches in the lower hemisphere sometimes resent the Church of England, the Episcopal Church -- the rich Northern churches, when it's actually kind of a displacement of resentment against U.S. initiatives, politically and diplomatically. We suffer, in a way, from that."

Displacement of resentment. Nonsense. It has nothing to do with politics or diplomacy. Actually, Africans admire US political initiatives and many are saddened that the US did not intervene in Rwanda, Zimbabwe or Darfur, nations that have seen millions slaughtered. The Lord's Resistance Army and the President of Sudan remain political thorns in Africa's side.

As far as the churches in the Global South are concerned, money has never driven their evangelistic efforts. The incredible growth of the churches is in direct relationship to gospel proclamation, a gospel TEC is ashamed of and finds beneath its dignity to proclaim. Its gospel of inclusion and diversity is only emptying churches. Its praise of pansexuality has seen four dioceses leave the church, more than 100,000 Episcopalians and 700 churches walk away from The Episcopal Church. A new Anglican province has now been formed.

Furthermore, while many African Anglican provinces are financially strapped, Nigeria with its 25 million Anglicans managed to raise $1.5 million dollars in three weeks to cover the costs for GAFCON in Jerusalem. No small feat.

Lee's condescension is typical of Western colonial attitudes that are still pervasive in a post-colonial world. It is precisely the kind of thing that has brought the Anglican Communion to the brink of schism. In Alexandria recently, the primates obtained clarity as to the differences that separate orthodox archbishops from heterodox ones. The Anglican Communion will never be the same again.

Bishop Lee is on the wrong side of history.

In explaining his support as chair of Friends of Canterbury Cathedral at a time when the shift of Anglicanism has moved away from Canterbury to the remarkable growth of the church in Asia and Africa, Lee had this to say, "...the past 25 years has been the decline in the appreciation for the breadth of the Communion. Historically, we held together with different emphases. But some people found our breadth to be too broad and I think that's very sad."

That "breadth" Lee talks about has been a bridge too far for orthodox Anglicans in the Global South who have had sodomy thrust at them for three Lambeth Conferences, endless primatial gatherings, and they won't compromise sexuality issues for the sake of their own souls and the souls of their people. For Lee, it is a cultural issue. For Global South Evangelical Anglicans, it is a salvation issue. The difference is between light and darkness, heaven and hell.

What is "sad" is that Lee doesn't get it, and it is reflected in his own diocese. The diocese claims close to 80,000 members, but average Sunday attendance is 22,000 (2007). It will be less than that in 2009 with the flight of a dozen or more parishes. In Nigeria a diocese of 80,000 is small and if a quarter of its people showed up the bishop would be out asking his priests and deacons why so many no shows.

Challenged on the priciest litigation in the history of the Episcopal Church over who controls church properties, Lee said this "Looking back, I think those seeds were planted decades ago. At the time, I thought the different emphases were just that, different emphases, and that there was a fundamental loyalty to what we had in common . . . to be fair, their focus was on a certain kind of biblical morality that was, in my judgment, fairly narrow. That they would read the Bible through the lens of late-20th century moralism. The place of women, gays and lesbians. I think that was unfortunate."

There is so much bad epistemology and history here that it defies reason. First of all, to argue that Africans are reading the Bible through the lens of late-20th century moralism is laughable bearing in mind that Archbishop Peter Akinola studied at Virginia Theological Seminary located in Lee's diocese. Was he taught it there? Most of the African Archbishops have studied at the finest US and UK seminaries and universities with the net result that there are more earned PhD's in Nigeria than in the US, Canada and the UK PUT TOGETHER. And the Africans are moralists?

The issue of the ordination of women priests is also very mixed. The province of Nigeria opposes women's ordination, but the Province of Rwanda does not. Regardless of where Episcopalians and Anglicans stand on this issue, there is certainly not the uniformity that Lee would have you believe.

As far as non-celibate practicing gays and lesbians is concerned, this issue has torn and ruptured the fabric of the Anglican Communion so badly, it will never be put back together again.

On the issue of litigation, Lee is disingenuous. He was within a signature of settling with some 20 parishes until Mrs. Katharine Jefferts Schori and her attorney David Booth Beers stepped in and told him he had to sue and litigate for them. Millions of dollars later, nothing is fully resolved.

Said Lee, "I want to raise the strengths and uniqueness of what it means to be an Anglican Christian -- of holding Orthodox views, but doing so in a way that remains open to all sorts of conditions of people. The separatists seem to have an emphasis on disciplining people who have different lifestyles than they do. That's alien to the Anglican Communion."

What "condition" is he talking about? Homosexuality, perhaps? Being "open" to them has brought nothing but ridicule and scorn upon America's "Gay church", a church that is emptying at the rate of 1,000 parishioners a week.

And now Lee wants to get out of Dodge as fast as possible. He said this, "Now, I'll have more freedom. I won't have to take into account what the most conservative or most liberal lay leaders in Virginia will say about x, y and z." Right bishop you won't. Let the bishop following you pick up the pieces and continue the litigation. You can take off for California to the very gay friendly Diocese of California...where you can join Bishop Mark Andrus and ride convertibles in gay parades. Yes, Bishop Lee, you will be welcome in that diocese with open arms. There will be no troubling issues of conscience to worry about. You can preach your inclusive "gospel" in the cathedral to your heart's content and everyone will applaud you. Except for Jesus. He will weep.

END