Imagine a story like this
A group of Bishops gather together to discuss a topic over which they have moral authority, but little understanding. In this discussion, gay people are compared to dogs. Homosexuality is equated with necrophilia and bestiality. As the discussion progresses, this group of heirophants begin feeding off each other's anger and resentment, questioning the integrity of the another, smaller, progressive, richer, and less organized group. Only one bishop, a woman, has the strength to ask how it is possible that civility has so easily been discarded as the toher bishops spew forth their arrogant ignorance.
Liberal bishops are startled at the amount of resentment addressed against them. Clearly, as the conversation unfolds, the archbishop has no power, authority or charisma to focus the conversation prayerfully. Instead of seeking mutal understanding, a vote is taken hastily, not upon the moderate, truly Anglican proposal carefully crafted by a commission that had been addressing the issue for years, but upon a punishing, intemperate and fearful one drafted by a self-selected, yet popular, few. It wins the day. The progressive bishops shake their heads, outmaneuvered and outshouted by the angry and afraid, those who stand in fear of perpetual judgement. Obviously, God does not always work through voting.
After the vote, one man is startled, confused, and worried about the amount of hate in the room. He leaves after the debate quietly. The colleagues from his country have discarded him and will say nothing to him for weeks after the conference, and surely not now. They have been caught up by the collective hysteria homosexuality has wrought. For he is the only single bishop in the house, and for his former friends he is a liability and a threat, in some vague, undefined, and malicious sense.
For the first time, now, he finds himself suddenly angry, afraid and alone. And he knows hat how easily he could be strung up by this collective, tyrannical mind, a group of men - and men they are - of such self-import that they could justify any murderous action based upon their certainty that they know of how God works.
With this mob, he knows that in another, less liberal, age, he would be burned at the stake. Noone knows, of course, who he is, and what he is made of, nor would they care that he did his job faithfully, truthfully, and worked with men of less integrity and talent. He has been called, and he has served.
He is the only single man there. And like most of his life, he is quiet about this. He's simply tried to serve. To be righteous.
Later, The Archbishop of Wales finds him walking alone, shell-shocked by the meeting. Rowan comes up to this purple shirted prysbyter, and puts a long, agile arm around his shoulder. Rowan towers over this modestly sized heirarch, and says, "my friend, I want you to know that I was thinking of you this whole time. Are you holding up?"
The bishop says, "Yes your grace," But for the first time during that long week, where he'd been strong, diplomatic, friendly, cooperative and as loving as possible to a group of men who neither knew him, his faith, but found it easy to damn him to hell,
he wept. "I'm alright. I'm just feeling a bit, lost and upset right now."
"Yes, I understand. You've been in my prayers."
"thank you, your grace."
Purely apocryphal....
Who ARE these murderous men with the authority to damn others to hell?
Posted by: SamIam | Oct 10, 2004 at 06:12 PM
"In this discussion, gay people are compared to dogs."
While many of their comparisons seem modern, this particular metaphor is not some original vitriol of recent conferences. "Dogs" is a code word for male homosexuals in Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. See, for example, the last chapter of the Revelation to Saint John the Divine.
Posted by: Christopher Culver | Oct 11, 2004 at 02:33 PM
John, I too was troubled (and remain so) by depth of the anger and by the profound misunderstandings that surfaced during those debates at the Lambeth Conference in 1998.
However, it is nothing less than outrageous calumny to assert that these bishops - a mob, as you casually name them - would have burnt someone at the stake.
The "purely apocryphal" byline is no excuse, given the title by which you clept this entry.
Posted by: Todd Granger | Oct 11, 2004 at 03:54 PM
Not in this age, thank God. But in another age, it has happened.
Yet, knowing enough about human nature, I think it entirely possible that I also, sadly, might have been a part of such a mob. And from the perspect of the bishop, it [would have] felt like such.
Posted by: John wilkins | Oct 12, 2004 at 06:09 AM