Justice in the Episcopal Church

I am Episcopalian, and I have been since my confirmation in the church thirty-four years ago, minus a few years when I didn’t go to church because my faith was weak or I was “too busy,” ridiculously enough.
As many may know, three years ago my church, officially the Episcopal Church USA, or ECUSA for short, approved the ordination of an openly-practicing homosexual bishop. Vicki Gene Robinson, a male priest, was approved by the national body in a triennial ECUSA convention to lead the Diocese of New Hampshire six years ago. His selection and ordination was highly, and rightly, controversial. The next convention shied away from the controversy, and other issues associated with homosexuality and its relationship(s) with and to the ECUSA. That all changed this year.
In the midst of this maelstrom over the past six years were efforts by conservative, biblically-based congregations, and then dioceses, to secede from the ECUSA and join the more conservative and traditional Anglican church in North America, and Episcopal dioceses in South America, specifically that of the Southern Cone.
Unfortunately for these congregations, the ECUSA’s laws state that all parishes within the Church are the property of the Church’s diocese, and diocesan property is owned by the national body. This intrigues me, as my church is still encumbered by a mortgage that we, the congregation, are responsible to pay. The church law has been challenged in state and Federal courts, with mixed results.
In the meantime, the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the ECUSA is a member, has seen a number of national dioceses pushing to expel the ECUSA from the communion, citing biblical references, and claiming blasphemy by the ECUSA.
Then, just last month, the ECUSA voted to allow bishops to bless homosexual unions, though it did not move to write and include services in the Episcopal prayer book. In the wake of the convention at least three openly homosexual clergy have been nominated for the bishopric.
With this in mind, I joked with my parish priest recently that perhaps we should secede from the local diocese, turn over the parish AND its mortgage to the diocese, and then re-purchase the property at the fire sale for a much lower price, saving the congregation potentially a great deal of money! It was all completely tongue-in-cheek, but it did get me to thinking on the state of the ECUSA.
During the most recent convention, a prospective clergy stated that upon his ordination he hoped to be able to bless the union of a homosexual couple he knew because it was “about justice.” Now, I could argue for days that anything that is clearly non- or anti-biblical, or potentially blasphemous, could never be just. Justice from a cultural or secular point of view not based in biblical fact or teaching, is just, well, not just.
Anyway, I then thought of all those congregations, and the justice behind seizing property that was purchased, not by the greater Church, or by the diocese, but by the parishioners within the congregation, or their family or predecessors.
It occurs to me that the ECUSA has become more worried about the secular world and less about its flock, and that what is right by society in America has become more important than biblical teaching. How can the ECUSA proclaim that it is right to ordain openly-practicing homosexuals to the priesthood or bishopric, in spite of the biblical restrictions, and then seize property that a diocese or the Church has no real financial interest?

Is THAT just?

She Blinded Me With Science

“She blinded me with science!” It’s a line from British musician Thomas Dolby’s 1982 song of that same title. I love the song – it’s catchy, fun, and has that great catch phrase. And it so reminds me of the world today.

One of the great ruses used by the modern neo-atheist is to use science to prove that God, religion and the supernatural do not exist. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, et al., have been trying to use logic to point out that there is no scientific laws, rules, definition or reason justifying the existence of God. I can accept that.

I do know, though, that the hand of God has been guiding me, and that those people I know who have given their lives to God and his service are the happiest I’ve ever encountered. I KNOW these things. I see these things. I also know that many have given themselves over to IDEOLOGY, and are violent, miserable, sad or just frustrated. These latter people are the true fodder of the books of the atheists.

What is far more unfortunate is the tendency of people in our culture to want science to prove their faith, or whatever belief they may have. And this is where things can get dangerous.

We are all born with certain strengths and weaknesses, talents and foibles, desires and urges, that we have to deal with and handle in our lives. I know, as I’ve had to handle a few. I have a violent temper that has gotten me very close to serious trouble in the past. I am also a VERY sexual animal, with quite a powerful libido. Yet, I have been able to control these things, mostly through the realization that to lose control of them is to commit sin and to do wrong.

God challenges us all with various things. Some of us are born with an urge to drink way too much. It can kill us eventually. I’ve known at least two people who have died from destroying their internal organs with alcohol.

I’ve known people who have destroyed promising lives with drugs. A close friend in college did just that. A classic image of a Preppie – penny loafers, khakis and button-down shirts were all that occupied his closet – he left after our freshman year with a 0.0 GPA and a habit that included marijuana, pills, acid and cocaine.

Still others suffer from kleptomania. This is a disease that makes people totally incapable of not being a thief. They MUST steal to satisfy their urges. I had a soldier some years back who was jailed and discharged because he had an insatiable desire to steal. He was an excellent soldier otherwise, technically and tactically one of our best. But he was convicted of theft, jailed, and eventually kicked out of the army. Tragically, he had a wife and children, but his moral compass had been crushed.

We now know from modern science that in almost all these cases, there is a genetic or chemical reason for these illegal and immoral actions. It is the same with homosexuality.

But, in our society, we justify homosexuality’s ‘morality’ by using science and genetics. By this logic, we should scrap Alcoholics Anonymous, get rid of all laws concerning drugs and narcotics, toss out DUI and DWI laws, and make stealing legal. Why? Because these ARE lifestyle issues. And since these issues are illegal or immoral, we are causing these people great suffering by making them feel as though they are wrong. It hurts their feelings to find out that what they desire is immoral.

Some people get satisfaction from hurting others. They enjoy torturing animals or people. It gives them a sense of power and well-being. Being homosexual does the same for those who a predisposed as such, despite the obvious fact that homosexuality is a practice that has caused many deaths due to disease. What, really, is the difference?

We have embarked in our society on a wave of empowerment that uses science to usurp morality. We grey in the areas that some groups have been able to convince us are white and aren’t, or vice versa (no pun intended). Seriously? Why are drugs and alcohol illegal in some or all cases? Because, first, they are immoral, and second, they are dangerous. Stealing is immoral as it hurts us all as a society. Homosexuality should still be immoral because every society in history that adopted homosexuality as ‘normal’ soon found itself destroyed. Not because of homosexuality, per se, but because the idea that what is wrong is actually right destroyed those nations’ moral compasses. And they were then destroyed.

Now, illegalizing homosexuality is not what I advocate. But allowing homosexuals to take over the nation’s moral compass is wrong. Homosexuality is and always has been wrong in moral societies. Using science to justify immoral behavior is at once perverse, and is aberrant and abhorrent. Science is NOT morality, though morality IS based in logic and science. Don’t let us be fooled.