And when I heard the gospel at 11:15 (Giles Fraser was the gospeller) and I heard the familiar words:
"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my ccount."
I immediately pictured:
If you don't know why the words "utter all kinds of evil falsely against you" would conjure up The Right Reverend Barbara Harris then you must have missed the latest episode of "how low will they sink" in Anglican blogland ... wherein Greg Griffith over at Stand Firm erroneously identified a photo of a war protester as +Barbara and, well, the rest, as they say, is history. I will not revisit ALL the ugliness here but direct you to:
Bullies and Thugs for Jesus -- by Elizabeth Kaeton
When they are bad they are horrid -- by Mark Harris
A new low for Stand Firm and
When is an apology not an apology -- by Fr. Jake
A lie can get half way around the world before the truth can get its boots on -- by Katie Sherrod
The original offending post has been removed by Stand Firm and an apology offered by perpetrator, Greg Griffith, but a cached version lives here -- in case you're of a mind to see just what kind of evil was falsely leveled at Bishop Barbara.
But lest you think we're just "piling on" here's just a taste of what Brother Greg had to say:
"Barbara Harris, you have reached a new disgusting low. Presentment and defrocking would be too good for you. I'll restrain myself from describing what I think an appropriate punishment would be, but it would start with shipping you to Gaza or the West Bank and seeing how things go for a woman who tries to preach the Christian faith. I'd be very interested to hear from the rest of the Episcopal left about what they think of this."
Here's what I think:
"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account."
I also did a little forensic blog digging and found this photo on the website where the original photo Greg mistook for +Barbara was posted -- a photo gallery of an October 2007 anti-war rally in San Francisco:
It seems that Jews against the occupation of Palestine wear the keffiyeh as a sign of their solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinian people -- not just mis-identified Episcopal Bishops accused of being terrorist fellow travelers deserving presentment and defrocking.
As for Greg Griffith, I'm glad he's on record as saying he's very interested in hearing from the rest of the Episcopal left what they think of this because I don't think we've even BEGUN to give him what he asked for.
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1 comment:
I think that we need to start getting so-called Windsor bishops (who have enabled the far right in the church) to go on record on their thoughts on this attack on Bishop Harris. If these so-called "windsor" bishops had to do some explaining every time that the nuttos on the far right of the Episcopal Church said something off the wall or did something like this I am sure that we would see less trouble from that quarter.
If certain bishops start having to explain the comments of the far right, and start fearing "guilt by association" we will see less waffling and fence sitting and less maneuverability for the nutjobs.
Bishops need to hear from people in the pews - and the reason for the contact (in meetings, at council, in adult sunday forums) needs to be to get the bishops on the record re: their thoughts on this.
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