Flip Wilson's Geraldine character said "the Devil made me do it." It is what modern ECUSAns have been saying about the Holy Spirit. "The Holy Spirit" has made them do all sorts of things, from "ordaining" women to blessing the "union" of man and husband, and of woman and wife. Soon, the Holy Spirit will be blamed when they bless the union of a man and his horse. And, the "wedding" will be beautiful, full of warm and fuzzy things that bring tears to the eyes of animal lovers everywhere. Some ECUSAn conservatives who embrace "Biblical doctrine" will approve of the union as long as the horse and the human are of the opposite sex. As Fr. Thomas Hopko of the Orthodox Church said to my brother David (sorry to say, in a conversation you cannot google up on your computer), "the Holy Spirit does all sorts of things that the Holy Ghost would never do."
The problem with those who are "led by the Spirit" is that they must re-imagine the Bible and disregard Tradition. To do this, they must first invent little fictions. Did you know, for example, that New Testament approves of and endorses slavery? This would have come as no small surprise to the American Abolitionists who based their movement on their Christian Faith and scripture. But, now we have the generally accepted consensus of the Revisionists. I suppose that Saint Paul, instead of teaching the right way of life to Christians who were slaves under the pagan system of Rome, should have urged a Spartacus style revolution, no doubt with the same results, instead of carrying out his mission. His failure to do so must be read as approval of slavery, if not endorsement. And, why must it be so read? To make the Revisionist argument, that's why. Obviously, these Revisionists have never read Deuteronomy 23:15, 16: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him." The abolitionists, however, had read it.
These allegedly Spirit led innovations teach us that God is capricious, but at least he is growing in his understanding, and so leading us to follow him in his own search for enlightenment. It took him quite a while, by another of their fictions, to figure out what to do with Gentiles in the Church (it seems that their Holy Spirit, unlike the One we know, never plans ahead). Once again, a little passage of scripture the Revisionists seem never to have read is Acts 11:17, 18. "[Peter said] Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." They confuse Peter's later flaw, as recorded in the Epistle to the Galatians when he was corrected by St. Paul, with the heresy of the "Judaizers" that sprung up even later still. They miss the fact that Paul corrected his fellow apostle on the basis of settled, revealed, doctrine already established, and that the Council in Jerusalem (Acts 15) defended and upheld that same established doctrine. But, by inventing this period of doctrinal confusion, this historical "fact" of their collective imagination, they show once again, by using scripture (in clear "Jehovah's Witness" style) that their God takes a while to figure these things out, and then leads them into the newest discovery of his limited, finite understanding, His never-ending search for truth.
So, their Holy Spirit takes them into new and unsettled territory as he matures and learns. Our Holy Ghost, however young He was on the Day of Pentecost, has become old and set in His ways. He does not approve of women's "ordination" anymore than He did when Christ bestowed Him on the Apostles. And, He does not bless same sex unions, no matter how many clergy persons do. The Revisionists have used the same arguments for women's "ordination" that they now use for Homosexualism because, they walk in the same spirit, and in the same steps. And, no, it is not the Holy Spirit.
If they are going to quote Flip Wilson, they ought to quote him verbatim.
Wonderful! And so true. One almost feels pity for such poorly informed people. Unfortunately, many of these same people are educating the next generation in their politically correct lies.
ReplyDeleteToday I was a substitute teacher at a local public school. When I passed by the library, I noticed a huge stack of books on a table outside the door with a sign that said "Free". The library was giving away books to make room for more up-to-date books. Here are some of the books they were tossing out:
Harry Neal's "The Mystery of Time". Harry Neal was a Christian, a scholar, and a former Assistant Chief of the US Secret Service. This is one of the best books ever written on time and calendars. I wonder what current book was so important that it deserved to replace this classic?
Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek", a winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
"Issac Asimov On Numbers", a volume containing his best essays on infinity, the importance of zero and the story of pi. I could forgive the library staff if it had left Tobias Dantzig's "Number: The Language of Science" on the shelves, but no! (That volumne now mine also.) Dantzig's book was regarded by Albert Einstein as "beyond doubt the most interesting book on the evolution of mathematics" that he had ever read.
They tossed out Edward P. Clancy's supurb book "The Tides: Pulse of the Earth". Dr. Clancy was a well known physicist and Chairman of the Physics Department at Mount Holyoke College.
Sir Fred Hoyle's marvelous little volume "On Stonehenge" and Chester Starr's "Early Man: Prehistory and the Civilizations of the Ancient Near East" were also deemd to be no longer relevant.
I feel old and irrelevant myself after seeing that stack, but my personal library is greatly enhanced.
I read the thread on another blog which became the matrix of these comments. I was again filled with dismay, observing several "reasserters" denying, with an ostentatious parade of pseudo- erudition, any link between WO and
ReplyDeletethe SS takeover. Fr Hart and others plainly made them angry and uncomfortable, as they retired from the debate harrumphing "I have already spent too much time on this." People who have won a debate do not end on such a note.
Two observations:
First, it takes an extreme case of tunnel vision not to see the link.
One does not have to delve into philosophical esoterica to grasp this. It is really quite simple. When ECUSA decided, through a legally dubious process, to begin "ordaining" ladies, ECUSA was led not by Scripture, or tradition, or reason, or any combination thereof, but purely and simply by submission to the Zeitgeist. "Holy Spirit" had come to mean the Spirit of the Age, not the Third Person of the Trinity. Once the authority of the Zeitgeist was established, the whole SS movement was not only possible but inevitable. It was not a coincidence that one of the original illegal Philadelphia Eleven included the notorious lesbian Carter Heyward, furiously at work from the time of her "ordination" to advance the SS revolution.
Second, let's not buy into the jargon of the pseudo-orthodox who replace the traditional terms orthodox and heretical with the precious inoffensive cant of "reasserters" and "reappraisers."
This bit of new-speak was contrived to avoid confrontation with the radically modernist wing of ECUSA.
Contrast the more direct approach of J. Gresham Machen in his epochal book "Christianity and Liberalism" who stated bluntly: there is no such thing as liberal Christianity; Christianity and liberalism are mutually exclusive. The term reasserter is good only for mealy-mouthed Laodiceans who differ from their liberal co-religionists only in their dislike for the SS agenda. In other words, a reasserter is a moderate reappraiser.
What became obvious (once again) in the T19 thread is that the reasserter party truly BELIEVES in WO. They do not just approve it or accept it; they believe in WO, devoutly, fervently, intensely, and polemically. They believe in WO far more staunchly than they disapprove of SS bishops or SS blessings. At the end of the day, the reasserter gurus will turn their backs on the truly orthodox and make their peace with the new homosexual regime.
Laurence K. Wells+
It does seem the Holy Spirit gets blamed for all sorts of things nowadays, doesn't it.
ReplyDeleteThey believe in women's ordination because they see it as a civil rights issue and that's how these folks think. I read an excellent essay some years ago titled "Civil Rights: A Christian Heresey?" I wish I could find it, because it made several excellent points.
ReplyDeleteFather Wells, I'm glad that catholic Christians are keeping this matter front and center because in breaking catholic orders, ECUSA departed from the historic Faith. I have come to believe that this was indeed a pivotal moment. It is one thing to be "liberal" in one's theology, but quite another thing to destroy the Tradition and call it holy or prophetic.
SS and WO are clearly connected because they both represent the same problem: confusion about God's design for male and female and ignorance of how this design benefits all humanity.
Fr. Wells is correct in his assessment of the 'reasserters'. I live in Rochester NH, which has been a battleground for two decades. My parish (ACA) was founded by folks driven from ECUSA twenty years ago. The latest event was the effective hounding out of existence of the ECUSA parish by Gene Robinson. The last group to leave founded a Network parish. Some of their members refuse even to visit our services, primarily because they take umbrage at our refusal to ordain women. Sad.
ReplyDeleteed
Of course, there are Romanizing clergy who insist on saying 'Holy Spirit' because they regard the Latinate form 'Spirit' as 'more Catholic' than the good old Teutonic form 'Ghost'. If the Germans can have their Heiliger Geist, I don't see why we can't have the Holy Ghost. Unless, of course, it's simply not possible to be German(ic) and Catholic. (Hmmmm, I vunder vot ze Man in Vite vould say about zat . . .)
ReplyDeleteAnd would he say it in German? But surely he would!
ReplyDelete