American Theological Exceptionalism Goes On a World Wide Tour- Episcopal Church USA

Pope Benedict when he in New York at the Ecumenical Prayer Service at St Joseph's Parish in New York (April 18, 2008) said this:

Too often those who are not Christians, as they observe the splintering of Christian communities, are understandably confused about the Gospel message itself. Fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called “prophetic actions” that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition. Communities consequently give up the attempt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of “local options”. Somewhere in this process the need for diachronic koinonia – communion with the Church in every age – is lost, just at the time when the world is losing its bearings and needs a persuasive common witness to the saving power of the Gospel (cf. Rom 1:18-23).

I have always thought that Benedict was directing these comments in particular to one group of people in the room. That is Episcopal Church USA. I was not alone. See from the Anglican side Exclusives : The Pope, the Presiding Bishop and the Episcopal Bishop of New York.

Which brings us to this Huff Post article Katharine Jefferts Schori, Embattled Episcopal Bishop, Seeks Allies Overseas .

Schori is a big huge advocate of “prophetic actions” since she believes that God himself is using the American Anglicans AKA Episcopal Church USA as a part of the big plan.

Recently it was brought to the attention of people that in the TEC that if there were going to be gay marriages someone perhaps needed to get around and do the theology of it. This was coming from people in the TEC that even supported the concept. The fact that it had not been done was a source of embarrassment to many.

Last year a significant document was produced with the TEC. That is Same-Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church offered by The Theology Committee of the House of Bishops a panel of eight who were evenly divided between traditionalists and liberals.

The liberal side show in their arguments these "prohetic actions or what I call American theological exceptionalism.


The full name of the Episcopal Church is "The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America." Our polity and ethos still reflect the character of a missionary society, and our theological tensions arise, in part, from different senses of how our church should bear witness. Arguments over theology and Scripture in the context of mission are hardly new ...


As a "Domestic" Missionary Society, the Episcopal Church must seek to proclaim the gospel to its neighbors in its cultural context. Those neighbors include same-sex couples in a culture obsessed with sex and confused about marriage. The Song of Songs has long been interpreted as a parable of the love between God and God’s people, and Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son" (Mt 22:2). Yet proclaiming the love of God for God's people in this culture has pressed the Episcopal Church to attend, with pastoral care and evangelical attentiveness, to the testimony of same-sex couples.There it has discovered, in those couples who desire to give their lives in self-donation to one another, movements of the Spirit within same-sex relationships. "God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit" (Acts 15:8). So, while the Episcopal Church was considering how to offer the work of God to non-heterosexual persons, it has found itself standing witness to the Spirit already making community, already on mission beyond the bounds. While we have equivocated, the Spirit has been expanding the church......


In North America, social and political changes have reshaped gender roles and identities, permitting more opportunities for work and leadership by women as well as by sexual minorities. Women and sexual minorities have won greater freedom to participate in public, economic, and religious life. In some states, civil rights laws offer legal protections to same-sex partnerships. Christian efforts for social justice have inspired and supported some of these changes.
We do not argue that those changes represent the progress of enlightenment over ignorance, western values over lesser ones, or Christian values over worldly ones. That would be simplistic, for at the same time social practices of marriage and divorce have suffered from shallow and mistaken notions of freedom. Sex fascinates, confuses, and sometimes tyrannizes our culture. Within our consumer society the question of same-sex marriage can seem just one more lifestyle option within a marketplace of sexual, reproductive, and familial options. Sometimes the ethos of consumer choices creates commodification, violence, and other dehumanizing forms of relationship.
While the question of same-sex marriage arises within those wider social changes, our church's situation is hardly one of simply accepting or rejecting a surrounding culture. We seek to bear witness to Christ within a society that supports historical movements for freedom and justice, yet struggles to understand sexuality and marriage and seems baffled by desire and love. How the church receives the question of same-sex marriage therefore shapes how it will bear witness to God's justice, to God's marriage with God's people, to God's desire for the world.
Amidst these cultural changes, supported by broader currents of social justice, lesbian and gay members of churches have come out of hiding. They have known themselves as beloved children of God, and have begun to interpret their lives and relationships in light of God's companionship, and to understand their sense of identity and their struggles within the mission of the church. Others in the church have listened and tried to understand this testimony corporately in light of Christian tradition. Christians who know themselves to be gay receive calls to ordination and leadership in the community. Parents teach the gospel to their lesbian and gay children. Adolescent young women and men look to the church for patterns of holy living. As the Spirit has contrived with social change to deepen our church's community, the company of readers interpreting Scripture and bearing witness to God's mission has expanded. Some of us have offered lives as logoi in the Logos, or words in the Word, "which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made manifest to us" (1 John 1:1-2). ....

In other words God has used the United States perhaps to show that certain views on homosexuality held by Christians for 2000 years are wrong. Thus the TEC that has embraced this "Spirit" has an obligation to others in the Anglican communion and beyond to be missionaries to them.

Thus we see the issue and the power struggle that is lurking behind the Huff post article.

What is also at stake is the the so called "Orthodox" like nature of the TEC. Some Episcopals and Anglicans think of themselves as very much Eastern Orthodox like in their inter relationships among the Communion.

The problem is the actions of the USA Church are about to blast that notion to bits. Episcopal Liberals and Progressives are doing their best to make this BAD OLE CANTERBURY and others wanting to be become a mini Vatican. See for instance this typical article from a Canada Anglican Priest Saying no to the Anglican Covenant .

Now that article is a fine bit of misdirection. The problem is if one wishes to think one has a Orthodox structure one has to act like it. Here the TEC and other bodies have now made a major revolutionary change to Christian doctrine as to same sex relationships without it appears thinking they need to have the world wide Anglican assent. The Greek Orthodox would never in their wildest dreams consider lets say something like female priests without consulting the other communions.

The Anglican Covenant is a response to having the informal agreement and understanding broken.

That is what is at stake here and the stakes are high indeed.