You write:

"Whether or not this this signals the end of the Anglican Communion will be clear soon enough"

Unfortunately it is already clear. Episcopalians are generally nice people and generally smart. And this means that like all the adherents to the mainstream churches they have a problem - they actually believe that religion is a matter of theology.

Theology is like the playground debate among boys as to who's comic book hero is best. It's fun, but a little silly. It tells a great deal about the boy - what hero he picked and how - what aspirations or insecurities that hero helps him along with. Pre-monotheistic theological debates were similar, but a loss let fun as they generally included hitting with both sharp and blunt instruments. When clans or tribe - rather than individual boys - "debated" the merits of the deity with which they identified. The genius of monotheism was the realization that it was not a comic-book-god with any particular powers that people needed, but the willing suspension of disbelief itself.

Because humans are story-seekers. To persuade each other, we must tell each other stories. And to accept a story that is new and different, your disbelief must be suspended - if only to let the other person get to the punch-line. And the punch line of a joke, for example, is a terrific reward for suspension of disbelief. We know a platypus, a Rabbi and Bill Clinton did not walk into a bar together - but wait till you hear this one.

And so what do we have here? We have people seeking and indentifying with a story on a personal basis and, more importantly, on a larger, social basis. We have the comic-book gods and heros of these stories. We have "theological" arguments over these comic-book deities. We have the willing suspension of disbelief which allows us to accept a story.

Remove the comic-book Gods. We have people seeking and indentifying with a story on a personal basis and, more importantly, on a larger, social basis. We have the willing suspension of disbelief which allows us to accept a story. But all stories - even the most general, nebulous story of all: the One, True, Invisible, Ineffable God - cannot stray too far from social reality - unless they're funny. But religious people just never tell a funny story and finally the story there's nobody in the pews and the gay-bashing sermons are received with the sound of crickets. It becomes a show that can only play way out of town.

Soon, you can't even sell the story. You've got to give it away. And, soon people will probably realize that the Gideons are a perfectly sexist organization, who don't believe, it seems, that women are equal to even physically carrying and distributing the "Word" and that's going to be that.

Dlaw

What a long tortured, obscuring, and ultimately meaningless argument.

What you actually have is an American “leadership” rewriting 2000 years of settled religious observance for the flavor of the month, and rather larger American and worldwide congregations suggesting that they stop.

The simple true is: If you don’t like the tenets of a religion, go find another one. This religion believes that God gave them some instructions in a book, and that those instructions should be followed. You don’t get to dismiss large passages in that book because you claim to have divine insight into how you believe the spiritual savior would react in today’s moral climate.

"You don't get to dismiss large passages in that book because you claim to have divine insight into how you believe the spiritual savior would react in today's moral climate."

No, but you can dismiss them because they are inaccurate, imprecise, untrue, foul, and/or evil. We have methods of determining later additions, forgeries, and mash-ups of multiple traditions. We can derive meaning by comparing a text's style to its contemporaries.

A religion which has spent 1300+ years hunting and killing those who find fault with the orthodox viewpoint more likely requires a reexamination (which is not the same as a rejection) of its sacred texts than a thoughtless reaffirmation.

So, Michael, your argument seems to be that because some Christians have behaved poorly in the past, we should dismiss swaths of the Bible?

Religion for you must be a much different concept than it is for me.

I hesitate to respond to any of dlaw's ridiculous comment, but I will point out that just because the Gideons are a men's ministry does not imply that they regard women as inferior in any way, just as the many women's ministries out there do not regard men as inferior. Since the beginning of civilization, people have enjoyed the unique aspects of socializing in single-gender groups.

A hermeneutic of "my fathers' sins" is quite foreign to Christianity, even if it does not lead to a rejection of the text, but a mere reexamination or quiet dismissal. We all know that this is the sort of tactic The Episcopal Church has engaged in now for nearly 40 years as they progress through their "listening process." This is also the name of the game for the Jesus Seminar, at least in Harold Atridge's mind (dean of Yale Div School and Jesus Seminar "Fellow") when he gives a rationale for the higher criticism of the last century.

If it indeed is the case that the canon of Scripture is Divine, then it simply is impossible (Christ as Logos; "I am the way, the Truth," etc.) that Christ's words would be "untrue" or "foul," etc. Perhaps, through prayer and considered reflection, we might reexamine His rather nasty comments of sheep and goats or His relation to the Father, but the conclusion that such utterances are foul and/or untrue would lead us to a Christianity that is at great variance with the normative, orthodox Faith of the centuries - something the Episcopal Church appears unwilling to admit.

Seth,

Well said, you were subtle and effective making your point, with which I agree.

"So, Michael, your argument seems to be that because some Christians have behaved poorly in the past, we should dismiss swaths of the Bible?"

You've created two strawmen. You and I both know that we're talking about much more than mere bad behavior, unless you're attempting to pull the no true Scotsman fallacy on us all. You also know (unless you utterly failed to read my comment) that I said no such thing about dimissal; in fact, I went out of my way to make clear that I did not mean that.

However, yes, when a person engages in bad behavior, and they claim justification for that behavior in their religion--particularly through their holy book--we must be willing to examine the text they claim initiates their behavior.

If their reading is unfair to the text, then you can dismiss the person. If the reading is fair, but is one reading among others, then one must decide the reading to accept and go from there. If the reading is fair, and that is the most fair reading (or the only one), then one must either dismiss the text or accept the behavior.

pull the no true Scotsman fallacy

I am fully willing to assert that saved Christians participated in acts of barbarism in the name of the faith. I'm also not saying that their deeds were in harmony with Scripture, no matter what they said about it (nor am I necessarily denying it without getting more specific). I would be pulling the "no true Scotsman fallacy" if I were denying the existence of true Christians who engaged in barbarism.

bad behavior...reading is unfair...reading is fair...

So I suppose you reject the idea that the Bible itself is the normative source for determining badness and goodness, as well as fairness and unfairness?

After all, you seem to be saying that you are going to sit down and re-examine these things in some new light (different than that used in the dark, evil past)? What is the source of this new light?

Dave,

First, please forgive the mistrust. I've seen the no true Scotsman pulled often in this context and I jumped too quickly in that direction here.

I do reject the idea that the Bible is the source of determining moral and ethical behavior. Don't get me wrong, I can get behind most (if not all) of Jesus's moral message, but I don't think anything he said was particularly original.

That people who outright reject the bible, as well as those who were not or could not have been exposed to the bible were capable and did in fact live moral and ethical lives is sufficient reason for me to believe that the bible is not the moral or ethical source.

I would even take it a step further: if a Christian said to me that their faith and the bible were the only thing keeping them from being a terrible and immoral person, I would never let them near any person I cared for.

As to how a reexamination today would work, I don't know. I do know that if God created us as we are now, it seems a shame that we don't use the tools we were given when it comes to our communion with Him. I'm reminded of something Malcolm X mentions in his autobiography (I'm paraphrasing, as I don't have the book nearby): When you have faith in a thing, that faith should be expressed strongly; however, if you determine that you were incorrect, abandon faith in that thing, and do not hold on to it merely out of sentimentality.

Every study of the Bible ought to be, at some level, a reexamination of the text and a willingness to abandon it (in whole or in part) if you find it to be wrong. Anything less than that demonstrates, to me, a rather weak faith.

One can avoid the No True Scotsman fallacy is one is careful to distinguish between the Christian philosophy and Christian individual and institutions. It is valid to say that true Christianity (meaning the former) says that we should love enemies, just as true constitutionality says that the right to free assembly may not be infringed by Congress, but one cannot assume that all true Christians or true constitutionalists are fully consistent with their respective defining documents.