From an outsider's perspective it would seem to Rowan Williams' credit if he "demotes" the American Episcopal church to a lesser status. From a financial point of view, it seems the Anglicans have more need of the Episcopalians than the other way around and it's always inspiring to see money take a back seat to principle. By my reading, most of the liberal Episcopalian bloggers could give a flying fig about being in the Anglican Communion and that was certainly the message they tried to send at the General Convention. It was hard to watch - like an errant husband french-kissing his mistress in front of his wife in an effort to try to entice her to declare a divorce, as if it would be a bit unseemly to declare it himself because no one wants to be labeled the Protestant these days, not even Protestants.
Meanwhile, Bishop Gene Robinson is certainly comfortable in his skin: "Let's not forget that we have been given a foretaste of the heavenly banquet where the marginalized are given an honored seat at the table," he preaches to fellow gay and lesbians, and I don't doubt they will have the best seats at the banquet - that is, those gays who've chosen the harsh and narrow path by remaining chaste. Seeing the audacity of Robinson and the liberal bloggers has been fascinating if only for their self-certainty. No mealy-mouthing around; they exude confidence, their consciences clear as pure grain alcohol. There is about them the spirit of Martin Luther, who I can admire for his own astonishing bravery. Liberal Episcopalians are as sure their homosexual acts are not sins as Martin Luther was of his doctrines.
And what else do Martin Luther and gays have in common? Perhaps their childhoods. It's a cliche to say that children are cruel but children are infinitely crueler to children who are different, a group to which homosexuals belong. And of Martin Luther it was said, "Extreme simplicity and inflexible severity characterized their home life, so that the joys of childhood were virtually unknown to him. His father once beat him so mercilessly that he ran away from home and was so 'embittered against him that he had to win me to himself again.' His mother, 'on account of an insignificant nut, beat me till the blood flowed, and it was this harshness and severity of the life I led with them that forced me subsequently to run away to a monastery and become a monk.'"
Maybe a tough childhood leads one to that toughness born of victimhood, a toughness so pronounced that one can't even imagine oneself as being wrong. Having been wronged, you think the "Emperor has no clothes" and thus have confidence in your own rightness if only by comparison. (Of course, that's not limited to those with tough childhoods but...).
Update: One commenter on Ruth's blog is underwhelmed by the statement of Rowan Williams:
Further, it is NOT in any way an intense theological teaching as Ruth suggests - just the reverse - a continuing refusal to come to grips with Biblical and Christian sexual morality. As usual, the Archbishop cannot find it within himself to say what the Bible and Christ clearly do. An intense theological teaching would teach WHY chastity is required of Christians, outside the union between man and wife. Archbishop Williams is a million miles away from that. Other Christian churches are able to do that; the Church of England is not. One truthful statement from the Archbishop in his letter? - the Church of England is unsure about sexual morality. How useful that must be to a teenager in this world. How unimportant the Church of England must believe that is to the teenager's soul.If the C of E is unsure about sexual morality I would invite those seeking it to "swim that Tiber" (sing to tune "Catch that Tiger").
Finally, the Archbishop further revealed his weakness, and his fundamental inability to say no - by suggesting the creation of different levels of Anglicanism - as if there are different levels of God's truth. That is a disaster waiting to bloom - and it will.
The future? Intense arguments and rhetoric about what is needed to leave or be in 'associate' status.
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