This is in stark contrast to the utter failure to hold anyone responsible who is grievously distorting the Christian faith or blatantly denying their confirmation and consecration oaths. This irresponsibility dates from the time of James Pike (Bishop of California, 1955-66) when he denied the church's teaching regarding the Incarnation and Trinity. He was censured by the House of Bishops, not for the substance of his denials, but for their "tone and manner." This substitution of Episcopal "manners" for the Christian faith a half century ago has marked the precipitous slide away from the duty to be a "guardian of the church's faith," (Book of Common Prayer, p. 519)

The drift of this "generous orthodoxy" has only accelerated. The unrebuked atheism of Bishop John Spong's "12 Theses," the acceptance by the Bishop of Massachusetts of the claim by the Rev. Carter Heyward, Professor at the Episcopal Divinity School, that her "God is different from and superior to the Hebrew/Christian god," and that the Trinity is a "homoerotic relationship between three males" are examples of this "generous orthodoxy". The Bishop of Pennsylvania claims that the church can "rewrite the bible" (and must do so to encompass that Bishop's teaching). The New Testament scholar and Episcopalian, Marcus Borg, who has reduced the Christian Faith to unitarianism, is a perennially well received teacher among the "generous orthodox."

Matthew Fox, who departed the Roman Catholic Church under just condemnation of Gnostic distortion of the Christian faith, has found a generous home in the Episcopal Church. Our present Presiding Bishop has taken upon herself to share the unique redemptive role of Jesus Christ with other redeemers, a truly generous act consonant with secular and non-Christian proclivities.

Surely Professor Grieb is aware that, in 2003, the House of Bishops voted down Resolution B001 in which they repudiated by a vote of 84 to 65 the very faith they had sworn to uphold. This vote is a telling inclusive and "generous orthodoxy" to unbelievers but quite exclusive and ungenerous to believers.

Another example of exclusion by a well-meaning attempt at inclusion was the defeat by the House of Bishops in 2006 of a proposed amendment to a resolution. The amendment was to substitute the word "believers" for the word "persons" in a resolution stating that "Lesbians and homosexual believers are children of God." The proposed amendment (to read "Lesbian and homosexual believers are children of God,") was to enable us to be in accord with scripture (John 1:11,12) "He came unto his own but his own received him not. But as many as received him gave he the power to become the children of God." Archbishop Temple was quoted in support of the amendment that we are creatures of God by creation but children of God by redemption. It was overwhelmingly defeated, leaving lesbians and homosexuals without the believing door to become the children of God by receiving Jesus Christ. Actually such well meant "generous orthodoxy" can become singularly ungenerous.

I leave to the last the most outrageous and schismatic of the Episcopal Church's "generous orthodoxy." Declaring null and void the election of Mark Lawrence, an impeccably faithful example of the very best clergy, elected on the first ballot by the Diocese of South Carolina, that is the only one of 110 dioceses that is growing. This rejection of Lawrence is not the result of the Christian faith but the action of an apostate, self destructive, and different religion.

Surely what is becoming increasingly obvious is that we have two different religions in one church as Bishop John McNaughton warned us some twenty years ago. Professor Grieb has apparently purloined the phrase "generous orthodoxy" from the truly orthodox author, The Rev. Fleming Rutledge. It is unlikely that the Anglican primates will fail to tell the difference.

---The Rt. Rev. C. FitzSimons Allison, D. Phil (Oxon) is Bishop of South Carolina (ret.)

Katherine Grieb's column can be read here: http://tinyurl.com/yqkmp6