Pope Benedict and Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson In Perfect Agreement

Who would have guessed?

Here is Pope Benedict speaking in New York a couple of years ago Ecumenical Prayer Service at St Joseph's Parish in New York (April 18, 2008)

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).....

The ever controversial gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson ,who at the Washington Post's On Faith Page is doing a series of on homosexuality, appears to be in agreement. By the way I will be talking more about this today.

He says in his first article:
Understanding scripture in its contexts is no easy task, and it is fraught with potential misuse. All readers of scripture are subject to self-deception - that is, the temptation to interpret the scriptures in a way that satisfies our own selfish desires and biases, rather than hearing the truth of the passage which may challenge, condemn and call into question those desires and biases. That is why scripture must always be studied and understood in community. The temptation is too great to interpret scripture in our own image to attempt it alone. One must always be subject to the larger community's understandings to guard against only hearing what one wants to hear.

Part of the community whose voice needs to be considered, is that of the Tradition - that is, what has been said over the years about any given passage of scripture. We, in the present time, are not the only ones who have struggled with these passages, and our own understanding needs to be informed by the larger community of the faithful in the past.

Who knew? Now of course Bishop Gene Robinson's view of "community" is pretty limited relating to the issue he is discussing.

We know that it does not include the Catholic , Coptic, and Orthodox Churches whose Apostolic Succession one assumes he claims to be part and share.

We know it does not include some Protestant bodies of either the reformed or evangelical tradition.

We also know it in fact does not include a great bit of the Anglican Communion especially those Bishops in South America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

We also know it does not include a number of Episcopal Bishops in the USA .

But heck maybe it is progress!!

He talks about tradition and the community of believers in the past age.

Well we know again this does not include the early Church Fathers of the Catholic , Coptic, Orthodox whose succession we assume he claims he shares a part of no doubt. In fact in not one of his lectures have we seen one mention of a Church Father YET!!

We know that it does include the community of the believer that helped formulate the creeds of the reformed, evangelical ,and Anglican tradition.

We also know that this timeline Church of every age is pretty sort of limited in Gene Robinson's outlook. Pretty much the Church of every age appears to go back to the time of LBJ White House or perhaps Gerald Ford.

However besides that he is on the same page as Pope Benedict!!

Unity!!