Barack Obama: Katherine Jeffords Schori: The Episcopal Church

Dammit. I am confused!


I have a high regard for our President, Barack Obama. I would vote for him again in a heartbeat.

But there are days on which I wish that he were not so much of a Saul Alinsky type community organizer.

I wish that he could get down and dirty with the Congress. I’d rather that he drew inspiration from Lyndon Baines Johnson than from Saul Alinsky.

I have a very high regard for the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Revd. Katherine Jeffords Schori.

I know that she is bright.

I wish that she were more passionate.

(Today I watched her Press Briefing at the Episcopal Church General Convention, and even though I agreed with her views, I missed some passion).

[To be fair, perhaps our world cannot deal with passionate female leaders.]

I am happy that my beloved Episcopal Church is ever more welcoming of gay and lesbian Christians.

But I wish that my Church would not only speak of “welcome”, but also of repentance and faith.

I am a gay Christian, but that does not give me automatic rights and privileges in the Church. With all other Christians I am called to daily repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Even as I rejoice in the “big tent” which is the Episcopal Church, I am disturbed by the apparent triumphalism of some of my allies “on the left”.

We dare not rejoice whilst more conservative Christians feel excluded or marginalized.

See from I Corinthians 12 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."

My welcoming Church should not be inferring that we have no need of more conservative Christians. Nor should it act to exclude them.

So there is my confusion.


And since what I say may be enticing to the right (and I am not on the right), or provocative to the left (my home country), I will not accept anonymous comments to this particular blog entry.




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