Checking the Blogs ...

... I note that Kendall Harmon is "leading" (for the moment!) with a disappointing interview with Bishop Nathan Baxter [Central Pennsylvania] -- which included this Q & A between the reporter and Bishop Baxter::

Q: You said in New Orleans that “sometimes traveling as a body means slowing down the pace, in the hope that all can make the journey.” What should gay and lesbian Episcopalians understand when you say that?

A: I want them to hear that the commitment to the journey of full inclusion continues. We don’t know what it will ultimately look like. But we want them to know we’re still on the journey.

What I have found is that many gay and lesbian Christians are concerned not just about their sacramental inclusion, but about the church. Many have shared that they’re willing for us to pause and have that conversation. There are some who are pretty angry, and I understand that.

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How diasappointing.

Disappointing that the Bishop of Central Pennsylvania appears to have bought the "either/or" spin: that those who advocate for the full inclusion of all the baptized in the Body of Christ do so out of selfish desires for their own "sacramental inclusion" and not out of a deep commitment to the health and wholeness of the church AS the Body of Christ.

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The Anglican Communion has been committed to "the conversation" since 1978. What I don't understand is why the bishop isn't angry about that!

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What I DO understand is that there's never been a better time for the remedial reading of Martin Luther King, Jr's LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL -- which I commend in whole at the link above and in part in this quote below:

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Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action Campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.

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For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost Always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

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