He argued for "tolerance", "compassion", "concern for boundaries", "classic Anglicanism" or Anglican comprehensiveness, the "new realities" and "following the Holy Spirit", presuming of course that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth is willing to be "stretched" (another Griswoldianism) to accommodate himself, yet again, to the post modern mind of Frank Griswold.

There is a certain amount of irony that the American leader delivered his paean of theological nonsense in this illustrious historic Wren cathedral. The Church of England's orthodox wing, already outraged at the church's acquiescence to sodomy, doubled their outrage that Griswold should have been permitted to preach at the cathedral at all and told Dr. Williams so.

For the most part, the cathedral today is little more than a tourist center for camera-driven Japanese and other tourists, and when last I visited the place they were charging six pounds (about $12.00) for a conducted tour. Embalmed bishops cost serious money to maintain these days.

The history of St. Paul's makes for interesting reading. The first church was erected in 604 AD by King Ethelbert of Kent and then destroyed by fire and rebuilt by St. Erkenwald in 675-85. The Vikings destroyed the second St. Paul's in 962 during on one of their periodic invasions. Fire again destroyed the church in 1087. The new Norman building, now called Old St. Paul's, took over 150 years to complete. In 1549 preachers incited a mob to sack the cathedral and they rampaged through the interior, destroying the high altar and ravaging the tombs, wall-hangings, and tombs. St. Paul's bad luck continued. The spire was struck by lightning (not too surprising, considering how it towered over the city) and during the English Civil War, Parliamentary troops commandeered the cathedral and used the nave as cavalry barracks. The fortunes of Old St. Paul's briefly took a turn for the better with the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. Charles II appointed Christopher Wren to undertake major repairs to the building, but then on September 4, 1666, fire broke out in a bakehouse in Pudding Lane. Fanned by a fierce wind, the fire spread through the close-packed streets of London and old St. Paul's was nothing but charred timbers and rubble. It was rebuilt again.

The only marvel is that the church was not struck by lightning, yet again, with the appearance in the pulpit of the fey leader of North American Episcopalians.

A choice Griswoldian line went thus: "Anglicanism is torn between those who have a "concern for boundaries" and those who follow the Holy Spirit wherever it leads them."

How ironic. Those "boundaries", doctrinal and moral, have kept the church from straying into Gnosticism, Arianism, Apollinarism and Nestorianism so ably exposed by Dr. C. FitzSimons Allison in his book The Cruelty of Heresy: An Affirmation of Christian orthodoxy.

Now we can add a fifth heresy, Griswoldianism.

In his sermon Griswold appealed for tolerance and said that the Spirit had a habit of "stretching" the Church to make room for "new realities".

The question must be asked, how many heresies can you squeeze into one sentence?

Latter day Episcopal "tolerance" is something to behold. It is about tolerating every form of lunatic sexuality summed up in one word lesbitransgay, (you can count four here), while the orthodox are getting beaten up in almost every diocese in the ECUSA, with nary a word being spoken by the Inclusive Ones about tolerating them.

The Spirit is being stretched like so much spandex in Griswold's sweat suit.

Furthermore there are so many "new realities" in the ECUSA that keeping abreast of them has become a virtual full time job for this writer.

The latest "new reality" is Bishop Robinson's lover Mark Andrew being named as a "spouse" and is now included in the official Episcopal Prayer Calendar along with Ruth T. Counsell, (NJ), Virginia O'Neill, (Colorado) and Sue Hollingsworth, (Ohio) to name but a few; and the state of New Hampshire has not even approved of same-sex marriages! This "new reality" has the divine stamp of approval of the Holy Spirit? Who are we kidding? The Holy Ghost approves of Mark Andrew's sexual relationship with Vickie Gene?

Griswold said in a later radio interview broadcast that he hoped that the commission would not recommend a "juridical" solution, and that the worldwide Church would remain "broad and inclusive". "If scripture can only be read literally, classical Anglicanism is dead," he said.

Question, how much rubbish can be spoken in the space of two sentences?

"Broad and inclusive" never included sodomy. Never. That is a post 20th Century invention, now spilling over into the 21st Century brought on by a bunch of coercive gay psychologists screaming homophobia at anyone who opposed the behavior, and then it spilled over into the Church where the same refrain was picked up first by Louie Crew and swept forward on a tide of "feel my pain" and "I'll change how you think about sodomy." Scripture was totally abandoned or twisted to make it mean what they wanted it to mean.

"There has always been a willingness to read the scripture in the light of one's immediate understanding of the Gospel, but also to read the scripture critically in terms of the context in which various books were written," said Griswold.

Really. Which serious theologian ever said that? The truth is either we conform ourselves to God's will or expect God to confirm Himself to our will. The latter will get you a one way ticket to hell.

"Compassion is God's very nature writ large in the person of Jesus, who is the embodiment of mercy, and calls us to be merciful, just as our heavenly Father is merciful," Griswold told the congregation. "The divine compassion may, on occasion, play havoc with the limits and boundaries we set, albeit in God's name. My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, says the Lord."

This is an absolute perversion of the word "compassion" and the omniscience of God. To turn sodomy into a need for "compassion" is like asking my two 3-year old grandchildren to play in an open sewer in the hope that they won't get infected. It is the most misplaced misunderstanding of compassion that has ever been uttered...and for millions of homosexuals, fatal.

"If scripture can only be read literally, classical Anglicanism is dead," he said. "There has always been a willingness to read the scripture in the light of one's immediate understanding of the Gospel, but also to read the scripture critically in terms of the context in which various books were written."

"Literal" means understanding the plain meaning of the text. "Jesus rose from the dead." Literally true. "Jesus is the door". True but if you take it literally you will get whacked on the head. A 15-year old can figure out the difference.

Anglican comprehensiveness meant holding together churchmen who were Anglo-Catholic, Latitudinarian and Evangelical, with shades in between and from very high church to very low church in terms of ceremony, but it never meant changing the church's teaching about human sexual behavior, that is a fiction in Frank's mind.

Classical Anglicanism demands at a minimum a common body of truth found in Scripture, the Ordinal, Book of Common Prayer, the 39 Articles and the Lambeth Quadrilateral. It has never endorsed homosexual partnerships as approved by God and then demand they be suitable candidates for ordinations and consecration.

Furthermore the vast majority of Primates are still smarting over Griswold's duplicity when he told them he would not consecrate an avowed homosexual to the episcopacy at Lambeth Palace in London and then goes ahead a does it two weeks later in New Hampshire. That is not Anglican comprehensiveness; it is non-Anglican duplicity and lies.

And the orthodox Primates won't put up with it anymore.

If Frank Griswold and the Episcopal Church are not disciplined by the Archbishop of Canterbury following the Lambeth/Eames Commission report you can be sure that all hell (if you'll pardon the expression) will break loose, but if he is, the Episcopal Church, as we now know it will be no more. Wheels, already in motion, will move into a higher gear, the legal niceties of property ownership notwithstanding. The realignment will get the major boost it needs, and the Network and Bishop Robert Duncan can look forward to a whole new future.

Bring it on.

END