Thursday, July 1, 2010

Head of Episcopal Church Says Reaction To Gay Bishops Based on Landed White Gentry Insecurity?

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has taken her road tour to New Zealand and made some interesting comments. MCJ has the link and a lot of comments at KATIE BAR THE DOOR.


This is some pretty incredible stuff:

Disagreement with The Episcopal Church about gay bishops is one thing: but why have those two ordinations provoked such intense antagonism?


Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told yesterday’s Q&A session at Te Hepara Pai that she figures that’s about loss of power.
I think it represents the pain and discomfort of people who used to be at the centre, and who are now finding themselves being moved to the margins.
In my context, 200 years ago the landed white gentry were in control of a monoculture. ‘Now all of these people have come along and messed with that: how dare they?’”
She told the Tikanga Maori hosted forum that wide swathes of US society were living in anxiety. People who’d once held down jobs for life had seen their employment being exported to China and India, they were enduring economic meltdown – and now the focus of their anxiety was shifting to immigrants from Central America
.


Wow so much wrong with all that!! I have to think that people in the TEC that want actively Gay Bishops and same sex union marriages/blessings if they are honest would have to recognize that this narrative is false.


Is the opposition to non celibate gay Bishops and related matters really related to issues of Globalization, and oh immigration from Latin America? Please this heated discussion has been going on for some time. People are angry because of the outsourcing of jobs?


Oh and about this white gentry!! Is she not more a representative of that than the people she is complaining about. Is it not the established white gentry that has ruled and been in position of power the ones leading the charge on gay marriage and gay Bishops in the TEC. I mean for goodness sake Newsweek basically was another arm of the TEC on these issues.


It seems the problem is that the current "white gentry" has a huge problem with the opinions and views of Africans and Asian Anglicans.


MCJ also makes this point:

Power? Please. Kate, that’s your stupidest idea since the last time you said something. The left and the Laodiceans been running this “church” since Pike and Episcopal conservatives haven’t had any influence at all so here’s an idea, Kate. STFU, as the kids say, and go play the victim someplace else.


Well is that not true?


The issues have really nothing to do with "power" or not at least in the way she views it. The issues include


-What does it mean to be Anglican?


-How does a Anglican Communion operate?


-What is the scriptural basis for approving homosexual conduct and this non celibate Gay Bishops?


-What is the basis in tradition for approving homosexual conduct?


-What is the basis at all for upsetting about 1,950 of constant Christian tradition


-If Scripture and Tradition can be ignored here what else is up for grabs under this new theological framework?


-in fact what is the theological framework for this at all


-How does a radical change on this subject affect other areas such as the teaching on marriage in general, human sexuality, and the place of scripture , Councils, and tradition in the Anglican Communion and how they interact with other Christian communions.




That and not immigration from Latin America is what has got people all upset.


Also are not the loudest voices of protest in Anglican circles coming from places outside the USA? What does a supposed White gentry losing power in the USA have to do with them?







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