A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Eventually, liberalism leads to total apostasy May 22, 2013

Although I am no longer an episcopal, I still see the continuing demise of that sect as something of a tragic, if inevitable, event. Certainly, there are souls who were brought up in that particular protestant ideology who have never known anything else, and are terribly pained, scandalized, and bewildered by episcopalianism’s transformation into just another group of radical leftist ideologues.  The transformation into neo-unitarianism is not quite complete, but is certainly very well advanced.  And the process appears to be accelerating.  Witness the recent comments by the current head of the Episcopal Church USA, “Bishop” Katherine Jefferts Schori, regarding the Apostle St. Paul, bashing him for having the audacity to make plain what all of Judeo-Christian Tradition has constantly believed, that homosexual acts are profoundly depraved, and the lifestyle itself highly disordered (I add comments and emphasis):

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has denounced the  Apostle Paul as mean-spirited and bigoted for having released a slave  girl from demonic bondage as reported in Acts 16:16-34 .

In her sermon delivered at All Saints Church in Curaçao in the diocese of Venezuela, Bishop  Katharine Jefferts Schori condemned those who did not share her views as enemies of the Holy Spirit.

The presiding bishop opened her remarks with an observation on the  Dutch slave past. “The history of this place tells some tragic stories  about the inability of some to see the beauty in other skin colors or  the treasure of cultures they didn’t value or understand,” she said.[And here begins the error, conflating an endemic characteristic like race with a behavior like homosexuality.  In spite of decades of attempts to prove some genetic cause for homosexuality, the data does anything but confirm such a causality, and in fact argues in favor of environment and behavioral causes.  But Schori is doing little but spouting talking points from the homosexual lobby machine]

She continued stating: “Human beings have a long history of  discounting and devaluing difference, finding it offensive or even  evil.  That kind of blindness is what leads to oppression, slavery, and  often, war.  Yet there remains a holier impulse in human life toward  freedom, dignity, and the full flourishing of those who have been kept  apart or on the margins of human communities.” [Do I even have to address this?  She just jettisoned 2000 years of constant belief, in favor of the revolutionary “rights of man” claptrap that has afflicted mankind since the French Revolution]

We live with the continuing tension between holier impulses that  encourage us to see the image of God in all human beings and the reality that some of us choose not to see that glimpse of the divine, and  instead use other people as means to an end.  We’re seeing something  similar right now in the changing attitudes and laws about same-sex  relationships, as many people come to recognize that different is not the same thing as wrong.  For many people, it can be difficult to see God at work in the world  around us, particularly if God is doing something unexpected.  [So, it’s “god” behind the drive to encourage hedonistic depravity?  Well, that’s very interesting……]

As you can see, rhetorically, Schori has walked herself into a corner. She’s now proclaimed that it is the very Will of God that what has always been viewed as the gravest of sins, is now holy and enlightened and so very wonderful we all must stand up and publicly acknowledge its holy wonderfulness.  Her problem is that Sacred Scripture completely repudiates her modernist views. So, what to do?  Change your thinking and submit to the Truth Christ has revealed through His Church?  None of that for the most reverend Katherine Jefferts Schori!  No, attack Scripture, and especially that misanthropic homophobe, St. Paul!

There begins a truly execrable and even laughable exegesis on the errors of St. Paul, relating how he brutally persecuted those who opposed him and made many mistakes, ending with a tearful confession and begging of forgiveness in a jail cell.  The only problem is, as Carl Olsen at Catholic World Report points out, none of it is true, and she has to butcher Scripture, completely changing its meaning, in order to try to make her point. At which she fails, and massively.  Any first year theology student (assuming they are not formed in modernism, which, umm……..yeah…..) should be able to brutalize her “argument,” which is nothing more than the usual protestant exercise in manipulating Scripture to serve a worldly end, with a heaping dose of special pleading thrown on top.  If this was a serious effort, it is truly remarkable at how pathetic it is.

I don’t think there is any question that the current leadership of the Episcopal Church USA is radically opposed to orthodox Christianity, has made itself beholden to modernist revisionism and left wing ideologies, and is falling all over itself to prostrate itself before the god of hedonist sexular paganism.  It is a troubling spectacle, to be sure, but one that reaffirms for me, at least, that in spite of the many failings of Her members, the Catholic Church is the only Church Christ established and which He protects and guides through the Holy Spirit. All else are doomed to the same fate as the episcopals, unless they repent and convert.

But  such is reserved for the work of the Holy Spirit.  We must pray and evangelize and do all we can to convert those in errant sects, but in the end, it all comes down to Grace, and cooperating with it.

Look at me, I’m a pretend bishop!