Month: October 2004

Blogopotamus! on Another Episcopalian Scandal

Blogopotamus! discusses a brouhaha and its disappointing aftermath that arose after Christianity Today noticed and went completely nuts over an Episcopalian liturgy someone had written honoring the Divine Feminine.

See, here’s the trick though — they were attempting to “reclaim suppressed voices” of Scripture. Specifically the voices of the syncretistic Israelites who were inveighed against by idol polemicists in the OT.

There’s two levels on which this causes a scandal.

  • First, the notion of “reclaiming suppressed voices” in Scripture. That’s something which is unthinkable to a Biblical literalist, or even a milder inerrantist (or whatever the technical term is) — the idea that there might be multiple disagreeing voices in Scripture worth listening to, and some voices worth disputing, is very problematic from an even mildly Evangelical point of view.

  • Second, the notion that God can be imaged and approached as feminine or female. I have a feeling that this is part of the scandal: if the point of this “reclaiming suppressed voices” thing were something which the Christianity Today writers didn’t find objectionable on its face, they might have cut them more slack. But the end was offensive, so the means was offensive too.

Anyway, obviously one of the most liberal bishops in one of the most liberal American denominations stuck up for this liturgy in the face of criticism from Evangelicals, right?

No, sorry. One of the most liberal bishops in one of the most liberal American denominations instantly removed the offending liturgy and disavowed it and basically completely caved in and apologized to the conservative Evangelical magazine for his denomination being so terribly liberal. He is going to “investigate” whether this old piece of liturgy still represents the views of the people involved, taking absolutely for granted that it is a bad thing which, if it really does represent their views, deserves censure.

The key factor here is that the legitimacy of the outrage was never questioned. Nobody stopped to say “I notice your outrage is based on some principles that we may or may not share. Shall we stop to consider whether it is appropriate and whether we should share it and act on it, or whether it represents a difference of opinion?” The inerrantist and anti-Divine-Feminine assumptions which underlay the criticism passed completely unchallenged.

Opportunity for dialogue: lost.

Assumption that evangelical and fundamentalist voices represent the only true Christianity: unchallenged.

Liberal Christianity: assumed unquestioningly to be apostate and vicious, even by the bishop involved..

Nice job, Christianity Today. Nice job, Bishop Bennison.

The Anti-Kerry FUD

Lots of people have decided they dislike Kerry, but when you ask them why, it always seems to be some vague and bogus generalization that sounds like it came straight off an official memo of talking points from the desk of Roger Ailes.

This is the kind of nonsense that gets passed off as damning evidence against Kerry’s competence or integrity. “He hasn’t had time to be briefed on terrorist attacks! He just doesn’t care!” but if you check out the facts, it turns out that the span of time involved was a few hours. (And of course, all of the “terror warnings” have been transparent political ploys anyway, so it’s kind of moot…)

And then there are the outright hoaxes, which sometimes border on the ridiculous.

It’s just sad and desperate, but apparently it works for some people.

Polytropos: The OBL Tape

Polytropos: The OBL Tape makes a very good point:

If Osama Bin Laden knew about an Al Qaeda attack in the works between now and Tuesday, he wouldn’t have released the tape he did. He would have remained silent, or he would have tried to spread fear by hinting at what was to come. Instead, we get this: a rambling message, at times incoherent, all in all, rather pathetic. More than anything else, it seems to me like a desperate political move — trying to make his voice heard, though he nothing to say.

In other words, the only importance of the tape, as far as I’m concerned, is that it means there’s not going to be an election-related terrorist attack. So get out there and vote.

Wow. Good point.