Eclectic Amateur

Time to live up to the blog name

It was not my intent to turn Eclectic Amateur into the “All Gene Robinson,

all the time” channel. It’s done (<a

href=”http://mcj.bloghorn.com/74″>dissembling by Frank Griswold to the

contrary), and there’s nothing to do but mourn. And wait to see

what the October meetings bring, but that probably won’t matter to me,

no matter what the Primates decide or what happens to ECUSA.

On to other topics!

Yes, I was here when The Lights Went Out™. Minor adventures,

finally got my generator working but not in time to save most of the

freezer items. Nothing serious. Detroit did not spontaneously

combust or otherwise descend into chaos, much to the chagrin of

newshounds worldwide.

NOAA has a very nice page with <a

href=”http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s2015.htm”>images of the

blackout from space. Here’s an annotated view:

<img

src=”http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/nightlights/blackout081503-7hrsafter-text.jpg”

alt=”big dark sky image”>

I’m impressed at the lights in Albany; must be from the generator that

Senator Clinton had running.

Also, I found an <a

href=”http://www.ewashtenaw.org/government/departments/emergency_management/em_05052003wallcloud”>article

and online picture of the <a

href=”http://www.zfrey.com/blog/030505.html”>wall cloud sighting

that I blogged back in May:

<img

src=”http://www.ewashtenaw.org/government/departments/emergency_management/assets/em_05052003wallcloud”

alt=”not a tornado, but it sure looks like one”>

Comments have been eliminated, because (a) I never got Haloscan

properly integrated with Blogmax anyway, and (b) I never got any

comments anyhow. I’ll hope that’s because of (a) and not because I’ve

never written anything comment-worthy.

Well, they did it. General Convention confirmed the election of Canon Gene “New Easter” Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. Along with approval of the development of rites for blessing same-sex “unions” and urging more embryonic stem-cell research. About the only thing that didn’t happen was the appointment of our first openly-Muslim bishop. (Give it time, give it time …)

Whoever granted Wendy Griffith her press pass to anything remotely Episcopalian must be kicking themselves right now. She’s hit two grand slams in the last week. First, she gets Frank Griswold to do his best deer in the headlights impression:

Wendy Griffith, a reporter with the Christian Broadcasting Network, asked presiding Episcopal Bishop Frank Griswold about Bishop-elect V. Gene Robinson, who was confirmed Tuesday as the first openly homosexual Episcopal bishop. He is divorced and lives with his male partner.

If, the reporter asked, a divorced male bishop could live with a man to whom he was not married, what about a divorced heterosexual male bishop living with a female lover?

“Or,” she added, “is being outside marriage only OK if you are gay?”

“The Episcopal Church honors holy matrimony,” Bishop Griswold said, “and certainly if a male were elected bishop and was living with a woman without benefit of clergy, that would be a significant problem.”

“So there’s a double standard, then?” Miss Griffith asked, at which point church spokesman Jim Solheim abruptly ended the press conference.

I’ll just bet he did.

Then, she gets to do her special reporter jujutsu on V. Gene himself (via MCJ):

CBN reporter Wendy Griffith asked Robinson how he reconciles the gay lifestyle with the Bible.

Griffith asked, “How would you interpret Romans 1:26-‘For even the women exchange the natural use for what is against nature, likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the women, burn in their lust for one another; man with man committing what is shameful.’ How do you reconcile that?”

Robinson suggested that the Scriptures are out of date.

“Uh, when those Scriptures were written in both the Old and New Testaments, everyone was presumed to be heterosexual, so to act in any other manner would be against one’s natural inclinations. The whole notion of sexual orientation is only about a hundred years old. So to take the concept of homosexuality as a sexual orientation and to read it back into an ancient text, uh-is very shaky ground to be on.”

Proving that not only is V. Gene ignorant of Scripture, he doesn’t care to know squat about history, either.

But Griffith isn’t done with V. Gene just yet —

Reporter Wendy Griffith asked him,

“Is Jesus Christ the only way, as Jesus says, ‘I am the Way, the Truth
and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except by me?'”

Robinson’s reply: “I would be the last person in the world to try to put God in some kind of a box.”

I don’t care if V. Gene was laser-beam straight. If he can’t answer that question with a simple “yes”, he has no business as a bishop. Or priest. Or Sunday-school teacher. Janitor or mechanic, maybe. At least then he’d be doing some honest work.

Welcome to everyone following Mark Shea’s link to my little screed on “tolerance” and “respect for diversity.” Oh, and on behalf of the citizens of the great State of Michigan (and my mortally offended wife), I’d like to offer an apology to the delegate from Holy Cross who was so “tolerated” by the delegates from Michigan. (Really! Not everyone from Michigan is rude!)

Also, thanks to Dale Price and CaNN for their links.

I don’t have much more to offer today. While I am glad that the Bishops have put off their final vote on the election of Gene Robinson, the allegations
against Gene Robinson are extremely troubling. My semi-random thoughts:

• Of course, this will be chalked up to a “smear campaign.”
• I fully expect that hagiographies of “Gene Robinson, Slandered
  Saint” are already in the writing.
• I almost hope this is a smear, because the alternative is
  too awful.
• I almost hope this is not a smear, because if it is, no voice
  for sexual orthodoxy and sanity will get a hearing in the ECUSA for as
  long as it continues to exist (or until 2008, whichever comes first).
• The pathetic thing is that it would take this to make the
  bishops reconsider confirming this man as a successor to the
  Apostles. Apparantly, breaking your vows before God to be faithful to
  your “marriage partner” (or can we stills say “wife”?) and claiming
  that God called him to do this is not enough to disqualify him
  utterly.

David Mills has a fine essay: Be
Fair to the Liberals: How Worldview Affects Communion It’s not
written specifically about the current General Convention, but it’s (sadly) still quite relevant. (Linked from Episcopalian.org.)

“No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”

–Gideon J. Tucker

“To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in
the making.”

–Otto von Bismarck

The Episcopal Church of the United States of America’s General Convention is in session. Even more so than usual, it’s impossible to watch if I want to retain respect.

Apparantly, some Michigan
delegates decides to share some “tolerance for diversity” with a South
Carolina delegate on the way. God bless us all, isn’t it great
how we’re honoring the dignity of every man, woman, and transgendered
muddle, as long as they’re not “intolerant”?

This goes, for me, into the category of those who natter about racism (and make the claim that anyone who believes that Jesus means what He said might as well be a cross-burning sheet wearer), yet entirely disrespect the opinions of real, live Africans as “ignorant” and “superstitious”. (You listening, Bishop Spong?)