THE HYPOCRISY AND SLURS OF LIBERAL EPISCOPAL BISHOPS

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
5/10/2007

Former Bishop of Kansas William Smalley, now the interim rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Anderson, Indiana, watched as a majority of orthodox members left his church over The Episcopal Church's stand on sexuality issues and the authority of Scripture and joined up with the Rev. Tim Tirman of St. Michael The Archangel Anglican Church at Davis Park. He said, "We're not going to stand at the door and bar people. Everyone is welcome in our church. We are an inclusive church and welcome anyone and believe judgment belongs to God."

This is an untrue and unfair attack upon orthodox rectors.

There has never been a known case of an orthodox rector, either Evangelical or Anglo-Catholic, who stood at the church door on any given Sunday morning and asked people, as they came through the doors, if they are gay or straight, what their sexual proclivities are, and then refuse entrance when told they were homosexual.

It is has never happened. Had there been such a case, it would have made the national news. One can see the headline: EVANGELICAL EPISCOPAL RECTOR BARS GAYS FROM CHURCH.

You have never seen it and never will. Orthodox priests have never barred anyone from coming to church. Only on very rare occasions have homosexuals been denied Holy Communion by an orthodox priest. I have seen with my own eyes, Dr. Louie Crew, the church's leading sodomite, receive Holy Communion from the Rt. Rev. Bob Duncan (Network Moderator) in the cathedral in Pittsburgh. The two men do not agree but Duncan has never denied the Eucharist to Crew who is free to damn himself.

It is statements like Smalley's, along with the statement that they are inclusive bishops ministering in an inclusive church to anybody, that are attempts to make them look good and make the rest of us look bigoted.

Inclusiveness is the new buzzword of liberals and revisionists. It is a deliberate attempt to make orthodox folk appear to be exclusionary, fundamentalist and homophobic when, in point of fact, they are teaching and preaching what The Church teaches about human sexuality. It is not the orthodox who have moved away from Holy Writ; it is liberals and revisionists.

This misuse of language must be seen for what it truly is - a watering down of the church's teaching on sexuality, the open embrace of sexual sin, and a fundamental denial that Jesus, Paul, the Early Church, and the Church Fathers all spoke decisively and with extreme clarity about how we should behave with our bodies.

The leadership of the Episcopal Church has affirmed its inclusion of active non-celibate gay and lesbian members and rejected the demands of conservatives to turn back from their wicked ways. This is not the doing of the wider Anglican Communion. It is the fault of those like Bishop Smalley who will not repent and would rather watch the church dry up and die before they ever admitting they are wrong. Bishop Charles E. Bennison has said as much to his people in Philadelphia. He doesn't care if the church dies it will somehow be reborn looking like Spong's Twelve Theses.

Smalley raises a second issue that "Everyone is welcome in our church. We are an inclusive church and welcome anyone..."

When has an orthodox rector ever made anyone feel unwelcome? The truth is; I have been to gay-friendly churches that, when they have learned who I was, have made me feel very UNWELCOME. Inclusivity applies to homosexuals and lesbians, but lo and behold, if you dare suggest that you have another point of view, (straight white male who believes sex is reserved for a husband and wife in marriage) it is you who are made to feel unwelcome.

Smalley's statement tries to make orthodox folk feel like bigots for not being inclusive of sexual sin.

It never cuts both ways. Louie Crew once advocated that "Inclusion" signs be put outside all those Episcopal parishes in the U.S. affirming sodomy. By implication, he was saying that those who would not put out such signs were homophobic and not inclusive. This is neither fair nor accurate.

The truth is orthodox folk have never denied entrance to any one. What they have said, and will continue to say, is that the issue of sexuality is an issue of proscribed behavior, not the denial of persons. They also say, and will continue to say, the church's message is come as you are, but not stay as you are. Come a sinner (all are sinners, no exceptions) and find salvation. That is the church's message. If it changes, there fundamentally is no message. The Episcopal Church will not be saved by a combination of Millennium Development Goals and affirming (LGBT) sexual sin.

Smalley then makes a third point: judgment. He said, "Judgment belongs to God." Indeed it does. Ministers of the gospel don't necessarily judge persons. In truth the church must judge how we live and call us to repent. Finger-pointing fundamentalist preachers are a lot closer to the mark than those like Smalley who would excuse certain behaviors based on a faulty premise that God winks and nods at how we behave.

The Pope is presently in Brazil blasting abortion as morally unacceptable. He is not pointing the finger at those who do abortions although he has said they are excommunicating themselves by performing them. On the basis of Smalley's worldview the pope is not inclusive of women's feelings and their right to do with their bodies as they please. The Pope should shut up. The Roman Catholic Church has also said homosexuality is a "morally disordered" behavior. I have never heard the Pope or a priest say that homosexuals were not welcome in the church. Neither have orthodox Episcopal priests.

Ultimately judgment is left to God.

It is interesting to note that Marcus Hyde was charged with a hate crime for throwing a pie at the Rev. Don Armstrong. The Police blotter said he "was passing judgment on Father Armstrong for his fellow parishioners."

So who is passing judgment on whom? Have you ever read of an orthodox priest or lay person throwing a pie at V. Gene Robinson? Of course you haven't. The orthodox go into their closets to pray for Robinson's conversion.

The giant fiction perpetrated by Robinson and Griswold at Robinson's consecration in New Hampshire was that they both needed to wear bullet proof flak jackets for fear of being shot, (presumably by a fundamentalist Episcopal priest). Admission to the auditorium required an official invitation and a level of personal bodily examination that exceeded going through an airport. (My wife could not join me and had to sit in our car the whole time.)

When Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola defied the top bishop of the Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury by installing his own bishop on U.S. soil this past week, he blamed "insulting and condescending" Americans for the continuing controversy embroiling the Anglican Communion. When Frank Griswold met the African Primates he commented that they (the primates) will catch up to us when they understand homosexuality better. That is judgment pure and simple.

Mrs. Schori recently said she understands that some people feel that the primates' recommendations are a "hard and bitter pill for many of us to talk about swallowing." She also said that worldwide attitudes about the inclusion of gay and lesbian people are changing and "I don't expect that to end. We're being asked to pause in the journey. We are not being asked to go back. Time and history are with this Church."

False. Time and history might be on the side of culture and certain failing mainline liberal Protestant denominations, but it is not on the side of the church. There are as many as 80 million Evangelicals in this country who do not that believe sodomy is good and right in the eyes of God. Their voices are rarely if ever heard by the liberal mainstream media because they have been deemed homophobic and not inclusive.

Goring the ox of orthodox clergy and laity has become the sport of liberal and revisionist bishops like Bishop Smalley and Mrs. Schori. In time it will catch up with them. September 30 is the deadline. We will see then just how "inclusive" liberal and revisionist bishops feel when they are told that their day is done in the Anglican Communion. Being united around Millennium Development Goals and sodomy will not be enough to save the Smalley's and Schori's of this world or The Episcopal Church.

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