Pluriform Truths, Two Integrities and Double Think

"There are, as have been described, two integrities: those who believe that women should not be ordained at all and those who do believe that women can serve in ordained ministry– although within the latter group there are differing understandings as to whether this includes priesthood and extends to congregational oversight and serving as bishops...We will keep our promise to honor both integrities within CANA and fulfill our commitment to the full participation of women, in the life and leadership of the church."
Bishop Martyn Minns, Dec. 9, 2007

"As Anglicans we interpret and live the gospel in multiple contexts, and the circumstances of our lives can lead us to widely divergent understandings and points of view. My first reading shows the [Windsor] Report as having in mind the containment of differences in the service of reconciliation. However, unless we go beyond containment and move to some deeper place of acknowledging and making room for the differences that will doubtless continue to be present in our Communion, we will do disservice to our mission."
Former TEC Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, Oct. 18, 2004

Well, I suppose we are supposed to be delighted that Judge Bellows found in favor of the CANA churches in Virginia. I am partially delighted, because Katherine Jefferts-Schori has lost, for the time being. But, when I consider that Bishop Martyn Minns has been using the term "two integrities," I find it difficult to see a hopeful amount of difference between him and Jefferts-Schori's predecessor, Frank Griswold. He coined the term "pluriform truths" to smooth over the problem of hopelessly irreconcilable convictions by a method he considered quite clever, but that we may call psychosis, or split personality. George Orwell called it "Doublethink," an idea he owed to Saint James. "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8)

Try, just try, to convince the CANA people that if sex in one sacrament makes no difference, that is, if a woman can be a priest (bishop or deacon), then it matters not a whit in another sacrament, and Adam may marry Steve instead of Eve. In the new TEC heresy about Baptism, the sacrament is not a cause to reckon ourselves indeed dead unto sin, but rather to eat, drink and be merry; for tomorrow we die. To apply this reasoning to Holy Orders, but not to Matrimony, to think that there is no connection between women's "ordination" and blessing of same sex unions, is to miss a fact as basic as two plus two equals four. If the authority of the Church to teach the meaning of scripture is overturned about sexual identity and Holy Orders, no force on earth can prevent the gravity of logic that carries it all the way.

So, I would like to rejoice in the legal decision; but, I see plainly enough that it is only a matter of time before the supposed "good guys"of CANA are back to the very problem, Homosexualism, that has led them to seek refuge from TEC. Of course, by that time, TEC will be blessing inter-species Unions, and so the Reasserters, that is, the Neo-Orths, will be relatively orthodox. That is, by comparison (which is another way of saying, in a pig's eye).

In a 2003 meeting now infamous due to my widely read article, The Gay Divorce', I recall a speaker from that AAC organization in TEC (or, as we called it in those days, ECUSA) making this brilliant observation about what would save the Episcopal Church: "We need to take our church back to where we were before the vote to consecrate Gene Robinson." I stood up, and addressed those poor ECUSAns thus: "So, you think it would be a great victory to go from being the 'church' that has already done the deed to being the 'church' that is about to do the deed."

Of course, we all know, don't we? that the whole problem started with those nasty queers; there were no symptoms of any problems by which anybody could see it coming.

Yeah, the Reasserters impress the hell out of me.