Our entire delegation to last year's national convention voted for the action that precipitated the impending worldwide split. Only one among them felt obliged to give any explanation. While admirable in its length and erudition, we heard lectures on social and cultural matters, with no substantive reference to the authority of scripture independent of the context-bound spirit of the age. And who is to say what that spirit of the age is? Spengler and Nietzsche and Heidegger said it was what made Nazism nearly the world conqueror, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao said it was what nearly made atheist communism the conqueror of all. I believe that, in our Diocese, it is therefore yet incumbent upon the faithful to return to the scriptures and the dialogue with each other and to seek guidance. Are we to suffer this schism from the Anglican communion gladly? Are we clearly pono and so may disregard the pleas from our more numerous Global South brothers & sisters that we repent?

For you, and for my many correspondents over the past year, both friend and friendly foe, I forward this Texas Monthly article, the best brief recap I've seen of the Episcopal persons and groups in conflict and, on pages 6 & 7, that briefly states the two typically expressed sides of the argument. This is a hint of the sort of clarity I sought in asking our Diocese last October to delegate the questions and get a thoughtful report. It is by an outsider, and, while focusing on the actions of the disagreeing minority, is fair to much of the popularly stated reasoning from both sides.

It's the first place yet that I've seen mentioned the important distinction, worked out in blood and travail through the many European and English religious struggles, between the RITES and CIVIL PRECEPTS of the Old Testament, and the MORAL Commandments. Our church agreed at its founding, in 1801, that the former two are not, but that the latter are, BINDING ON THE CHRISTIAN. That is to say, it is not the ancient social or political order, nor the particular forms of punishment, nor the food rituals, nor the master-slave relationships, nor any "ritual purity" precepts of the Hebrew Bible that we are to follow. But our church's founders agreed, in the Articles of Religion, that in our voluntary actions in our relation to others, we Christians are to follow the MORAL Commandments of the Hebrew Bible (Articles of Religion, VII, BCP p. 869, and in attachment to this e-mail). These articles, I believe, have never been officially rescinded.

Christ came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. His men, liked David's, plucked grain, and He Himself healed, on the Sabbath. This was His open disregard of certain CIVIL PRECEPTS, namely, what to do or not to do, on a certain day of the week. Christ saved an adulteress from a stoning: but he told her to "go and sin no more." He shamed the judges into withholding an awful, though scriptural, punishment. But He did not tell her that her MORAL sin was no more a sin! Yes, he disregarded the CIVIL PRECEPT that an adulteress should be stoned, yes he disregarded many of the cleanliness RITES, and associated with the unrighteous, but he drove the MORAL understanding of life to a deeper level: lusting in our heart is already adultery!

American Episcopalians, a tiny (and declining) minority of the world's Christians, are so confident that we honor and ordain an exemplar of the open practice of a specifically forbidden sin. This to many is in apparent defiance of the prior understanding of most Christians as to the faith once received, and in disregard of the leaders of millions of worldwide Anglicans who call us to repentance. Why then are we so timorous in our discussions about it? Do we despair of reason?

Can we be sure that to simply dispense with our anchor in scripture and to lead from the spirit of the age is not to be led by a deceiving spirit? Is tolerance to be tolerance of all things?

Of what do I speak? Leaders in our Diocese who insist that words cannot be relied upon to reliably communicate with each other: this is despair of reason. Assembled church lay & clerical representatives who refuse to even consider the issues at hand: this is despair of reason. A visiting Bishop of the church who freely calls the Bible a fairy tale and a myth, and proclaims a "non-theist" doctrine, yet is welcomed by some in the church: this is tolerance taken to the extreme. There are hundreds of millions of sincere and, most definitely, neither stupid nor socially retrograde Christians, who look upon our Episcopal quandary with wonder, as do I, and hundreds of thousands of our fellow Episcopalians who cannot understand the path our national church and Hawaii Diocese has taken.

Without the careful use of words, the study of pertinent holy scripture, our historic traditions, and the faithful use of our reason (in obedience to His will) how can we be sure we're pono?

What does our Church reliably rest upon? The constitution and canons alone will most certainly not be enough. The truths revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, per our catechism, are known to be of that Spirit when they are "in accord with scripture" (BCP, p. 852). This is not to call for any "bibliolatry", but for a comparison of new truths, if they be of the Holy Spirit, with God's Word. The passion with which views are held is no evidence per se that they are of the Holy Spirit. But to those who would disregard the plain sense of scripture and persist in calling newly honored erotic practices to be of the Holy Spirit, what are we, who follow the Book of Common Prayer, to say? Is it in accord or not? Many of us look the other way when words and contexts are twisted and parsed until the sin becomes not a sin anymore, but that seems not Jesus' way.

How about a challenge, to the new truth tellers to do the hard work to expurgate the objectionable books, to re-edit and re-write so as to create a new scripture that does no contradiction to the new-found pan-sexual path. And, with that task, can they, dare they try to convince the millions of fellow Christians in the world to join in the new adventure? If not up to such a task, how can this errant movement last? If not willing to persuade world Christianity that the new scripture is what Christ and the martyrs and all the saints have believed and would believe, how can we grant authority and honor to these novelties?

Christianity is a religion of the ages and the endless multitudes of saints, it is not a plaything of a temporary sociological subgroup that can, without real and earnest defense of its innovations on scriptural principles, simply disregard the accepted MORAL Commandments our founders agreed are binding. It can disregard them, but will risk breaking communion with a majority of all the orthodox. No mere rationalizing deference to temporary sociological trends can be ultimately persuasive to the faith of millions. There is a true Christian religion that is not the plaything of history's unreasoning whims, and it is attested by the blood of the martyrs and by the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ's shining life and memorable words. There is an orthodoxy that is not the arbitrary utterance of a single Pope or Council. Martyrs and sages have guided the saints to be persuaded by what is believed everywhere and at all times and by everyone. At our baptism we swear to continue in the apostles teaching, and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. That teaching is the orthodoxy we seek, and it is real and based on scripture, and it will defeat the heresies and schisms that rend the Body of Christ.

You cannot persuade millions of believers, many of whom are locked in a life and death struggle for survival, or who find themselves unavoidably subject to persecution and intimidation by Muslims and communists, that the latest pansexual pastimes, no matter how discretely and honorably practiced, among a few urban sophisticates, are the inevitable progressive wing of Christianity that all are destined to follow, without some better reasoning and deeper scriptural understanding than what has been made evident so far. Those who would vote for such things are obliged to explain the scriptural basis of the new pan-sexualism, not just to themselves, but to an audience of all Christians, the safe, the well-fed, the secure, but also the persecuted, the struggling, the hungry.

Love, when it finds a wound, binds it up, but may put a stinging antiseptic on it. The wounded who avoids antiseptic, may feel better for awhile, but will regret it, with much more pain, and the threat of death, as time goes on. Sin, like a wound, needs healing, not tolerance, and not rationalizations to avoid a bit of emotional pain.

To malama our mana will take some ho'opono'pono.

Faithfully,

Boyd Ready
Bishop's Warden
Holy Cross at Malaekahana