Where Will It All End Up? David Grizzle

From David Grizzle:

It is too early by far to predict where all of this is going to end up. I observe contradictory indications.  On one hand, in voting yesterday to set Church priorities, efforts to move either youth or evangelism and ministry to the number-one position ahead of peace and justice were soundly defeated by significant margins.  This would seem to show strength for the political activists.  On the other hand, an effort today to add the word “autonomous” to a list of defining attributes of the Episcopal Church’s relationship with the Anglican Communion (which would have given more solid ground to activists to give a hearty no-thank-you to the request by the Anglicans for an apology on Gene Robinson), was surprisingly defeated.

My fear, if we end up with a big fight and an apparent defeat for the conservatives, is that many of my fellow conservers (as Bob Duncan called us) will conclude that they have been dealt a theological defeat, and that they are at doctrinal odds with many other people in the denomination.  My observation is that, more than theological defeat, the conservers will have become the victims of superior political organization.  Each hour I see evidence of a massive disconnect between conservatives who see conclusions in the penumbra around Gene Robinson in the same way as the Council of Nicea experienced Arius and Eusebius; while the revisionists and activists see this as simply item next on a well-conceived political agenda and that Bishop Robinson merely shares subset membership with global warming and foreign debt relief.

To a whole list of theologically laden terms: sin, justice, mission, redemption, I envision members of the two sides sitting cross-legged across from each other uttering the immortal words of Iniga Montoya in “The Princess Bride”:   “You keep using that word. I do not think it means, what you think it means.”