Questions to Frank Griswold

The Anglican Communion Think-Tank has come up with some questions for the Presiding bishop. They are all leading questions. They are not meant to help people understand the liberal perspective. They are meant, solely, to divide. Here is one progressive atttempt to answer them.

1. Do you not agree that the primary basis of Anglican theology is the teaching of Holy Scripture and that half a century of reappraising scholarship has failed to overthrow the classical view that scripture consistently views homosexual activity as sinful?

No.

The primary basis of any theology the ability to reflect. The subject of Christian Theology is witnessing to God's Word, the Logos of God, the Christ. The guide for orienting Christian Theology and the Christian community is the Holy Bible, used for inspiration and teaching, and especially the bible as describing the living Jesus. Without reflection upon the culture, reading scripture is both impossible and irrelevant, an example of mindless chattering.

Reappraising scholarship has only recently considered sexual ethics under its purview. Other problems that arose from the discovery of other Jesus oriented texts, further scholarship on the religions of the Mediterranean, and the insights of other analytical methods were more important. Insofar as the NT points to the living Jesus, it is true that scripture has authority, and the Old Testament documents the presuppositions of NT authority. This we can agree.

2. Do you not also agree that Anglican theology has historically always taken seriously the witness of the Christian tradition as a guide to its reading of Scripture and that reappraising scholarship has likewise failed to overthrow the view that this tradition has also consistently viewed homosexual activity as sinful?

Personally, I hate leading questions. It's also very long one.

Anglican theology, as a Christian tradition, has always read scripture in light of historical, political, and cultural developments. But that's historical theology. It asks, "How has Christian Witness been decisive in the past?" Lollardy, Wyclif, English Humanism, the debates between the Puritans and the Cavaliers, and the rise of empiricism informed the debates of the English church. There is a lack of evidence that homosexuality was even considered in the same way it is considered today.

And is it Anglican if Anglicans do it? What of Maurice, Countryman and Tanner?

3. Is it not also the case that there is no agreement about the cause(s) of homosexuality and that even if there was this would not of itself mean that homosexuality was morally acceptable?

First "is it not the case" is a terrible way to start a question. Obviously the interrogator knows that the answer is "yes." As the question assumes, only once we solve the nature/nurture debate we might begin to answer - or even understand - the first part of the question.

But homosexuality is not really a proper object of moral reflection. The second part of the question removes all context from any particular act. Shooting a gun, having a drink, eating blue cheese, defecating, greeting someone in the hall, offering a gift, are all, outside of a context, morally neutral. Shooting a gun at someone, drinking too much, eating food sacrificed to idols, etc, have a context that allows moral reflection. Scripture is always in context. It always has a particular audience. It always has and is a reader. This question demonstrates the confusion of "homosexuality" with "homosexual acts."

4. In the light of the above what reason does ECUSA have for changing its traditional stance on sexual morality? Given the widespread evidence that exists about the harmful social and medical effects of homosexual practice, and given that Scripture warns that those engage in homosexual practice and who do not repent will be excluded from the kingdom of God, is not ECUSA encouraging people to live in a manner that will harm them in this life and cut them off from God in the next?

Plenty of Episcopal writers have tried to answer this with varying degrees of success. It doesn't matter if it were successful, because the criteria of success have not been laid out. Most arguments are possibly inadequate, but the main reason for the change - and admittedly, it is not a reason - derives from the theological reflection upon the pastoral care to many people in the church by priests. Episcopal priests have defined themselves, by and large, against the rigorous and abusive teachings and actions of other churches, which deny that questions of sexuality are worthy of being asked.

The question also overestimates the cultural influence of the church in this age. ECUSA is merely responding honestly and directly to the way people live their sexuality, both straight and gay, since the birth control pill, the ordination of women, and other challenges to authority [except economic - wealth still has plenty of authority]. Orthodox Christian teaching in the current marketplace of religion environment has little to say to people outside of marriage except "no" and leaves people choose other churches, or no church at all, given the lack of cultural incentives to resist the market of desire.

Why use extra-biblical foundations to discern the ethics of homosexual practice?

Homosexual acts do not exist in a magical nonexistent vacuum. The question mischaracterizes how the church can know who is truly included and excluded, and who knows the content of the human heart, or the immediate nature of repentance. An alternative reading of scripture might say that exclusion is not based on acts, but upon faith. Might repentance might not merely be demanded of homosexual persons, but upon a church that persecuted gay people? It is impossible to divorce the criteria repentance from the living persons, and from the living God.

A better question " What is the cultural context of the Episcopal Church that these questions arise? How do they help us consider the questions and answers of the biblical writers?" or even "what do sexual acts communicate?"

5. Is it consistent for ECUSA to say that it wants to be part of the Anglican Communion and yet to take no notice of the Communion when what it wants to do is called into question?

Ok, I agree, ECUSA is rich, privileged, and a bit intellectually arrogant sometimes. It might have answered questions a bit better. It might have been a bit more patient.

Part of being in the family is being able to put hard questions to others. ECUSA should listen, learn, and reconsider. It must acknowledge that it may be wrong. It should admit that it could have been hasty. But it may also, after reflection, decide that it has witnessed to the realities that it knows as best, and as best as it can, trust in God. But in any such conversation, reconciliation must be considered possible from the outset. If we say we want to live in the same house, then with God's grace we can simply do it, and trust that God can give us that strength. Instead ask, "what does it mean to be in communion, and what are communion's mechanics, requirements and outcomes?" To live in the same house will require immense care and charity.

6. Can the consecration of Gene Robinson be seen as the consecration of a Catholic bishop given that consent from other bishops is an integral part of such a consecration and that the Primates Meeting had made it clear that such consent would be lacking from a large part of the Anglican Communion? Was this consecration not in fact an un-Catholic act and as such invalid?

Yes it may be considered "catholic" in the reformed sense, because I don't buy what is given. Ask, what are the requirements to be a Catholic bishop [well, contra scripture, the tradition seems to insist that a bishop should be unmarried, period].

This question assumes that there is considered agreement on the mechanics of determining catholicity. Do primates regularly ask other primates for recommendations to the episcopacy? And Agreement" would only skirt over the consequences of the present state of the church - if, for example, +Robinson had chosen to remain secretive or quiet about his sexuality, there would be no place for agreement of disagreement. It would be as is. Also, there must be a better word than "un-Catholic", and just becomes something is reformed, democratic, or arises merely from the popular consent of the people, doesn't make it invalid. My question, Doesn't the affirmation of the great majority of Episcopalian Christians in the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Calling of Gene to the Episcopacy demonstrate the best evidence of his call? And what will you do with the broken hearts of those who have called him to be their pastor?

The club called "Catholic Teaching" is, often merely used to beat good thinkers into submission. Anglicans understand that what has often been considered "Catholic Teaching" has been undermined since movable type, the telescope, Darwin and birth control.

Insofar as scripture assumes Bishops are married, some direct inheritors of the so-called "Catholic" tradition, both the Orthodox and the Roman, alternately rely on synods, and not on scripture. With God's grace, Anglicanism, by rejecting easy answers and recognizing the broad and amazing ways God continues to work in the lives of people everywhere, will live into an even deeper understanding of what is universal and hence, truly catholic. But that may not be found in those who consider themselves catholicism's protectors. The task of protecting this mysterious and sanctified catholic "tradition" remains, as always, with the Almighty. May he bless us.

Comments

[Mark Andrews]

SV's answers are redolent of the odor of the late Jacques Derrida's tripe. Its amazing how direct questions from the ACT can be "re-contextualized" in such a way that direct answers are wanting.

[John Wilkins]

Mark, your answer is, sadly, predictable. The questions were, in themselves, laden with assumptions and lacked any understanding of what is truly at stake. As far as Derrida goes, my training was strictly in the analytical school. And you didn't respond to any part of my critique. Bless you Mark, but I think you can do better.

My view was that noone should be allowed to read Derrida, who had not read Plato in Greek, and Nietszche in German.

Wittgestein is much more interesting.

[Mark Andrews]

To be fair, I first have to answer the questions myself, which I'll do this evening.

In the meantime, the Venn Diagram of triliterati - Derrida in French, Plato in Greek and Nietszche in German - must awfully small.

[linda mcmillan]

Do we know the causes of hetrosexuality?

Just wondering.

Linda McMillan
Austin, Texas
(But, not a member of the Diocese of Texas)

Is it not also the case that there is no agreement about the cause(s) of homosexuality and that even if there was this would not of itself mean that homosexuality was morally acceptable?

[Mark Andrews]

John, I want to publically apoligize for my first post here. I was inconsiderate and intemperate towards you without cause. And, by the way, there could never BE a cause, either.

[J. Collins Fisher]

I'm confused: I thought these questions were from the Windsor Report (before I noticed the date of the entry), but they're not. Where do they come from? (Link please?)

[I agree that they are appalling---after the fashion of "When did you stop beating your wife?"---but I want to know exactly where they come from, before I can comment on them]