Ignorance in Action

Snappy title for any advocacy group out there--you're welcome to take it. Came to mind after reading Episcopalians Against Equality by columnist Harold Meyerson:

On Sunday nine Episcopal parishes in Virginia, including the one where George Washington served as a vestryman, announced that they had voted to up and leave the U.S. Episcopal Church to protest its increasingly equal treatment of homosexuals....

Whether it was the thought of a woman [bishop Jefferts Schori] presiding over God's own country club or of gays snuggling under its eaves, it was all too much for a distinct minority of Episcopalians. The dissident parishes in the Virginia diocese contain only about 5 percent of the state's parishioners. But it's the church the defectors have latched on to that makes this schism news.

In slamming the door on their American co-religionists, the two largest parishes, which are in Fairfax City and Falls Church, also announced their affiliation with the Episcopal Church of Nigeria. The presiding Nigerian archbishop, Peter Akinola, promotes legislation in his country that would forbid gays and lesbians to form organizations or to eat together in restaurants and that would send them to jail for indulging in same-gender sexual activity. Akinola's agenda so touched the hearts of the Northern Virginia faithful that they anointed him, rather than Jefferts Schori, as their bishop.

There are so many misrepresentations in the column I won't bother to list them all. But those who have followed the issue for longer than Meyerson's apparent 15 minutes know that the conservative Episcopalians have been planning to affiliate with Akinola and the Anglican church of Nigeria long before that troubling legislation came along. And they did so, not to support sanctions in a bill that didn't yet exist, but because of support for the traditional foundational teachings of Anglicans. That includes placing Jesus Christ front and center as the only road to salvation, the need for salvation in the first place, clear prohibitions against sex outside of marriage, and yes, opposition to gay marriage as a result of being unable to find any sanction for it in Scripture or Anglican tradition. Rather the opposite. And of course Meyerson neglects to comment on the Episcopalian Church's rejection of the greater Anglican compromise--short version, a moratorium on actions like ordaining gay bishops, without defrocking any existing ones--which was endorsed by Ye Olde Canterbury as well as evil Nigeria.

Okay, one more:

In recent years Anglican churches have experienced their greatest growth in the developing world, which could tilt the entire global Anglican Communion toward more traditionalist norms.

That's not something we have to wait for. As a columnist named Harold Meyerson states one sentence later, without making the necessary connections:

Only 13 of the 38 national churches within the communion ordain women as priests; only three -- the United States, New Zealand and Canada -- ordain women as bishops.

So who, exactly, is tilting?

Comments

[The Don]

I agree with your comments. Meyerson always makes me sick when I read. I don't think there is any other op-ed writer in the Post that emanates more anger in his columns than Harold Meyerson.

I was very peeved about the comments that he made concerning 'fundamentalists' which apparently include John Paul II, various Rabbis in Jerusalem, and other various assorted clergymen who are against any kind of extra-marital sex (God forbid!)

So what this comes down to is what Harold Meyerson deems important. I guess it isn't free exercise of religion.

[DOTSONUrsula]

I opine that to receive the business loans from creditors you must present a great reason. Nevertheless, once I have received a car loan, because I was willing to buy a house.