I love nuance when I respect it, and if that ain't one helluva condition I don't know what is. I have heard scholars balance perspectives in tension, offer shading and complexity, and stood in awe and admiration. Then there are times I suspect it all boils down to something rotten at its core.
Tobias is a holier man than I.
In the meantime, I find the document on the whole to be helpful. Read with care, you will see it is all about process and development of doctrine. While some are reading it as a "No" to same-sex marriage or ordination of bishops, it is rather a very well framed "Not Yet." There is a huge difference, and I think we all know the way the Wind is blowing -- where it wills, and not as we choose.It is certainly a "Not Yet."
Posted by: Tobias Haller on Monday, 27 July 2009 at 11:07pm BST
But it is also a lot of codswallop and an enormous amount of hypocrisy.
For my money, +Rowan Cantuar just told the LGBT portion of humanity, ever so academically, "Fuck you!" To which I say, ever so impolitically, "Back atya, Bristles!"
Then again, it has been years since I cared what he thought about anything except in terms of the damage it does. Rather as I think of the current pope. I think Rowan would be pleased by the comparison.
This bear is not in a charitable mood today.
I leave it to my friends in the blogosphere to ponder, debate, and analyze with greater precision and charity.
--the BB
10 comments:
Well, Paul, it's a good thing Jesus didn't say, 'not yet' to the kingdom, to wait for everyone else and all the power brokers to build consensus.... and for me, when it appears to be a Gospel imperative, like justice (and a few other thangs mixed in the mix), there can only be the example of Jesus for us to follow.
Dear one --the Kingdom is upon us. Right now.
Indeed, Jesus was not a consensus builder. Sometimes he commanded, sometimes he invited, sometimes he provoked, sometimes he consoled, he cast out evil and restored goodness, but he did not wait for consensus. And he DID say the reign of God was already in our midst.
I am having to engage in all sorts of mental and spiritual gyrations not to shout "I told you so!" to Dear Friend, who has been convinced that +Rowan was playing some masterful game of chess that would eventually make everything Hunky Dory for everyone. (He has a much-less jaded and cynical view of people than I do, which is one reason I love him so much.)
So thanks for giving me a space to say "Rowan is a putz!" without making my Beloved feel bad. ;-)
Love,
Doxy
Amen to this!
As I posted somewhere else: Do we get a separate water fountain with a label?
"Had Becket concurred with the King's wishes, we should have had an almost ideal State: a union of spiritual and temporal administration, under the central government....And what happened? The moment that Becket, at the King's instance, had been made Archbishop, he resigned the office of Chancellor, he became more priestly than the priests, he ostentatiously and offensively adopted an ascetic manner of life, he openly abandoned every policy that he had heretofore supported...."
--The Third Knight, Part II, "Murder in the Cathedral"
[But I do agree with you on the troubling timidity of Congress on health care.]
Rick, I admire Becket and am very unfond of a unified state-church situation. I do not support Henry's attempts there at all. I do not, however, admire Becket's current successor, as is rudely obvious, and am being exceedingly rude in alluding to a troublesome priest. Do I wish Rowan dead? Of course not. Do I want to slap him upside the head? Most certainly.
Personally, I'd like to "jerk him to Jesus"....as my former rector was fond of saying.
Pax,
Doxy
Paul, I know you wouldn't hurt a fly, and I hope I wouldn't either.
Your post prompted me to look at Eliot, and I was struck by the passage, the inexact but strange parallels, even to the phrase, "manner of life."
'Nuf said, don't mean to quibble or quarrel. And I signed the petition upthread. Thanks for putting it up.
Thanks, Rick. I appreciated your remarks. I have enjoyed Eliot's play and we did a reading of it at St Cuthbert's, Oakland, years ago. I love enriching discussion with wonderful sources.
I was oblivious to the clever inclusion of "manner of life" so thanks for coming back and pointing it out to me.
I have been known to swat flies and the earlier posts on tomato hornworms testify to my less-than-Buddhist practice. I don't really wish Rowan dead, but the phrase "will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest" keeps reverberating every time he invites us all to bow down to the golden calf of the AC. Maybe if I could just walk up to him and call him a heartless old fart to his face I could get it out of my system.
Post a Comment