The second view, maintained by those in the liberal North is that the Bible has been used to support oppressive social conditions and patterns of behavior and to justify the unjustifiable like slavery, and sexism and therefore is no longer a reliable guide and should be abandoned for its "imperialism". That being the case the Bible should also not be seen as a reliable guide for its views on sodomy.

In the words of Dr. Rowan Williams "The Churches of the North have been made aware of how much their life and work has been sustained in the past by insensitive and oppressive social patterns, with the Bible being used to justify great evils."

As an Affirming Catholic Dr. Williams has a great respect for Scripture but clearly he does not believe it is an infallible rule of faith in its utterances on sexuality and therefore authoritative on all matters of faith and practice.

His Affirming Catholic counterpart in the US one Frank Griswold, has gone a step further and said that the biblical writers have simply no comprehension of, and do not speak to the modern context of homosexuality and therefore should be written off, or at the very least, discounted.

Both Williams and Griswold believe that longevity or "commitment" by same-sex attracted persons justifies the behavior, but that raises the obvious question as to how promiscuous one night stands can suddenly morph into acceptability and cease to be sinful if you do it for 16 years with the same person! Ratification by longevity somehow equals acceptance?

This also raises the question at what point on the time continuum does God say, "Well done, you've passed the commitment test"...is that five, ten or fifteen years? This type of thinking completely undermines the Pauline understanding that sin is built into the very warp and woof of our humanity and that it needs to be rooted out if we are to be found acceptable to God. Sin committed once and then multiplied 5,000 times legitimizes it?

The Bible does not address emotional, psychological or sexually related time commitments, it looks only at actions that bespeak holiness or ungodliness, obedience or disobedience, faithfulness or unfaithfulness to His Word, it is - 'not my will but thine be done.' Self deception (which can go on longer than 16 years or V. Gene Robinson's relationship with his male lover) is one of the oldest sins in the book, and we all commit it.

It is like playing three card monte with the Almighty in the hope that if you play it long enough you will win a hand or two while completely overlooking the fact that the Omniscient One happens to know what the whole deck is at all times and the cards being dealt.

The other truth is that the debate over sexuality has totally drained the North American churches of their energy for mission, leaving hundreds of thousands of Episcopalians and Anglicans tired and confused, their evangelistic passion zapped to the point that it is killing their spiritual zeal.

And it is one reason why thousands are fleeing the ECUSA; they simply do not want to be preoccupied endlessly with talk of gay sex acceptance, especially mothers with young children growing up in a church; that is way too much of a threat to their sense and sensibility.

But the problem is often posed as one of interpretation. The Bible was used to justify slavery say the liberals and those who did that were wrong. However it should be noted that it was an English Evangelical Anglican politician, William Wilberforce who spent most of his life working for the eradication of slavery.

The Church of England and the ECUSA differ over what patterns of relationship are acceptable to ordained leaders. The C of E through its archbishop believes that the Church has not been persuaded that change was right, "And where there is a strong presumption against change, a long consensus of teaching in Christian history, and a widespread ecumenical agreement, it may well be thought that change would need an exceptionally strong critical mass to justify it."

What Dr. Williams is saying is that if the church should change its mind using his word "strong critical mass to justify it," then it would be acceptable and therefore justifiable!

His appeal then is not to Scripture as his primary source for truth but the community of the faithful. But why should that be trusted? Popes and councils have erred said Luther, and so have whole communities. The vast majority of the German Church rolled over to Hitler. It was a small band of confessing Christians under Dietrich Bonhoeffer that opposed Hitler and his co-opting of the church for state purposes.

If the archbishop is right then the case the Episcopal Church makes is right. For nearly 40 years the ECUSA has steadily advanced that notion, through successive General Conventions, that human sexual practices can be changed and now it believes that "strong critical mass" has been attained, therefore it is okay. And what Griswold says by implication, if he doesn't exactly come right out and say it, is if the Global South will just wait long enough and "listen" long enough they will see the [divine] light that has shone through ECUSA about homosexual acts, and say altogether "we have seen the light brothers." He also argues that he doesn't want other provinces interfering or intervening in his province's decision-making while hoping he can maintain those increasingly elusive "bonds of affection."

So procedure, resolutions, general convention resolutions and synods trump God's revealed will, and divine prohibitions on just about anything can be lifted if a lot of purple clad people say so.

The invitation to provinces to reconsider their actions was not to say that there were no issues to be resolved, it is to say that the mind of the church CAN be challenged if it fails to be inclusive, the Bible's prohibitions notwithstanding.

So what Western liberals are doing is stacking the various instruments of unity and committees in their favor so they can find the "mind of the church" and the Africans be damned. What was once a minority viewpoint has become a majority viewpoint by only a handful of handpicked appartiks thus making it possible for Robinson and his pals to be brokered into the club with all due solemnity.

In his speech the Archbishop of Canterbury warned of the dangers of passing judgement, of looking to others to repent, of "a deadly lack of self-knowledge", and of the constant danger of "the easiest religious technique of all, the search for the scapegoat".

Frankly this is to blame those who want to uphold biblical standards and accuse those of us who are orthodox of being homophobic! This is outrageous. No one is looking for scapegoats. Western pansexualists began this fight asking for the church to change its mind and received teaching on the subject and now it is us who are being unjustly accused! How about the "deadly lack of self knowledge" being aimed at homosexuals and their supporters. There is overwhelming evidence that change is possible, change that THEY don't want to accept in or believe.

An article in the Church Times put it well. "A learned and charming man, Williams is the archetype of the thoroughly bogus bishop, playing the pantomime role of a reluctant statesman with a kind of Gilbert & Sullivan recklessness. The hardest part of his job, as far as I can tell, is pretending that the intermediate pacifying measures really matter to him. He calls for unity, but seems to regard the divorce as inevitable, and acts as if his main concern is to avoid giving offense to those who will write the future article on him in the Oxford History of the Christian Church. Look at his roster of reprimands. The conservatives receive scoldings with real moral wallop (prejudiced, insensitive, oppressive, judgmental, eager for scapegoating). The liberals receive scoldings for failure to adhere to protocol. It's not hard to see where his heart is, yet it's sad to reflect that there are serious, believing, good-willed Christians out there who still think that he's playing for the same stakes that they are."

How very true.

If the church's final authority is its own councils and not Holy Scripture, then God help it and us. At the end the only thing we can cry out is "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy" and for that we don't need a "critical mass."

END