This week, the General Convention (GC) of the Episcopal sect will be wrapping up. There were a number of resolutions which if passed would lead to a revision of the Prayer Book with the proviso that gender neutral language be used as much as possible. At the time of this posting, full Prayer Book revision is looking unlikely until the next General Convention rolls around in three years. These progressive ideas never die, they just come back with a new strategy for each GC until they succeed.
The focus of most discussion about these resolutions has focused on the effects of altering references to God as "Father" or Jesus as "Son". Those with a long enough memory will recall that the word "Brothers" or "Brethren" was changed to "Brothers and Sisters" in the readings from Scripture in an effort to appear more inclusive years ago. The current focus on the Godhead is an slip down the slope of revisionism because if the language of the Prayer Book is changed, the readings from scripture will have to be changed to use a "translation" that is equally inclusive.
But changing the Bible is not really what is behind the push for gender neutral language in the Prayer Book.
What is behind all of this is the desire to create an all inclusive marriage rite that will cover any possible gender combination one can make out of the LGBTQRS soup the zeitgeist has been cooking up over the past 50 years.
You see, to progressive Episcopalians, the march towards same-sex marriage rites has been painfully slow. Yes, they got "Blessings" of same-sex couples passed, but that is not enough in their eyes. They want their relationships to be deemed marriages, and their ceremonies must be totally equivalent and never leave the impression of a "separate but equal" type of marriage. The only way to do this is to re-write the marriage rite so that it includes every possible permutation and then, by virtue of being in the Prayer Book, same sex marriage becomes part of the "core doctrine" of the Episcopal Sect.
If it comes down to a floor fight at this or future General Conventions, the LGBTQRS will abandon their feminist allies in a heartbeat and let God continue to be called "Father", Jesus "Son", and the Holy Spirit can be called whatever they want in order to get the marriage rite changed so that there will full, in your face inclusion of their couplings for visitors coming to weddings held in Episcopal buildings to see and witness as they see the pronoun optional rubrics written in the Prayer Book, or on the screens, or in the service bulletins for the next fifty years... which is about as long as the Episcopal sect is expected to be around.
The focus of most discussion about these resolutions has focused on the effects of altering references to God as "Father" or Jesus as "Son". Those with a long enough memory will recall that the word "Brothers" or "Brethren" was changed to "Brothers and Sisters" in the readings from Scripture in an effort to appear more inclusive years ago. The current focus on the Godhead is an slip down the slope of revisionism because if the language of the Prayer Book is changed, the readings from scripture will have to be changed to use a "translation" that is equally inclusive.
But changing the Bible is not really what is behind the push for gender neutral language in the Prayer Book.
What is behind all of this is the desire to create an all inclusive marriage rite that will cover any possible gender combination one can make out of the LGBTQRS soup the zeitgeist has been cooking up over the past 50 years.
You see, to progressive Episcopalians, the march towards same-sex marriage rites has been painfully slow. Yes, they got "Blessings" of same-sex couples passed, but that is not enough in their eyes. They want their relationships to be deemed marriages, and their ceremonies must be totally equivalent and never leave the impression of a "separate but equal" type of marriage. The only way to do this is to re-write the marriage rite so that it includes every possible permutation and then, by virtue of being in the Prayer Book, same sex marriage becomes part of the "core doctrine" of the Episcopal Sect.
If it comes down to a floor fight at this or future General Conventions, the LGBTQRS will abandon their feminist allies in a heartbeat and let God continue to be called "Father", Jesus "Son", and the Holy Spirit can be called whatever they want in order to get the marriage rite changed so that there will full, in your face inclusion of their couplings for visitors coming to weddings held in Episcopal buildings to see and witness as they see the pronoun optional rubrics written in the Prayer Book, or on the screens, or in the service bulletins for the next fifty years... which is about as long as the Episcopal sect is expected to be around.
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It certainly is about avoiding the icky truth that some people are male and some are female. The whole transgender thing is anti-female, if you think about it. We are required to accept that a man is a woman just because he thinks so. So I think the opposition to using scriptural terms for God is part of the plan. In some churches, I hear, they already say "Mother/Father god." Nothing is going to stop this, even if there isn't a Prayer Book revision. Lots of the parishes don't use the PB much, anyhow.
ReplyDeleteThe development of multiple authorized alternative services defeats the purpose of a Book of "Common" Prayer. By trying to please everyone with their own favorite liturgy, the denomination becomes splintered as people find they have less and less in common with their fellow Episcopalians.
DeleteYes! They might as well just go to the generic Protestant "pastoral prayer" and give up on liturgy entirely. The liturgy, you know, is too heavily weighted with scripture for them.
ReplyDeleteThe BCP will no longer be a centripetal force for TEC.
ReplyDeleteThe strings have been cut by many parishes.
ReplyDeleteAccording to a post and comments at Anglican Ink, the TEC bishops declined to go for PB revision. Instead, they went for a free-flowing process wherein parishes experiment with their own rites, and those rites get collated for use in other parishes and dioceses, and the bishops of said dioceses will have no say in what parishes may and may not do. They're not even pretending any more about the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.
ReplyDeleteI think all of the conservative bishops already left, were deposed or died. Talk is cheap.
DeleteIt is not about a gender neutral prayer book. It is about homosexuality being seen as normal.
ReplyDelete