Tuesday, October 06, 2009

La Lucha Continua ("The Struggle Continues")


Our friends over at Titusonenine call it "a battle." But whether battle or struggle, the saga of those who are determined to wreck the church they failed to re-create in their own image continues.

Here's a link to the press release from the St. James (Anglican) press release about this week's Supreme Court decision refusing to hear the suit of the Schismo-palians against the Diocese of Los Angeles. It includes their determination to keep on keepin' on by continuing to litigate, with the "spin:" In our diverse and freedom-loving land, no one should have their property confiscated over religious belief.

Couldn't agree with them more. The problem -- of course -- is that it isn't "their" property to begin with. Belongs to the Diocese of Los Angeles. They know it. They don't like it. And so they continue to use the deep pockets of those funding this whole Schismatagora to keep the lawsuits coming -- all the while blaming those who want to STAY in the Episcopal Church for the whole bloody mess.

(As you might be able to tell, I'm pretty much out of patience/on my last gay nerve with it all)

ANYWAY, I felt called to enter into comment land over at Titusonenine -- not something I do unadvisedly or lightly and something I absolutely ALWAYS strive to do in a respectful-of-differences kind of way. Since "the elves" chose to delete my comments, I'm choosing to post them here. Not because they're anything particularly brilliant or certainly not because they're anything new but because I said I was going to do.

So here you go ... my response to the St. James response to the refusal of the Supreme Court to hear their suit against the Diocese of Los Angeles:

1. Susan Russell wrote:
Not a surprise to anyone who's been following this story. The former St. Jamesians are just following the IRD playbook!

[Off topic slur deleted by Elf]

3. Susan Russell wrote:

Let me try that again ... and repost what I felt was profoundly "on topic" and not intended as a "slur."

My point is that this long, drawn out battle-in-the-courts over property issues between those leaving the Episcopal Church and those staying is not a surprise to those who have been following the story since long before New Hampshire elected +Gene Robinson in 2003.

There is -- readily available online -- an "Executive Summary" from the IRD (Institute on Religion & Democracy) outlining a stragegy for "returning mainline churches to 'biblical orthodoxy'" dated 2000 and reading like a corporate hostile takeover strategy -- a strategy that includes using litigation to bleed TEC dry of both financial resources and energy for ministry.

What the former Episcopalians currently occupying the St. James Newport Beach property are proposing is a radical revision of Episcopal polity that reinvents who we have been in communion with each other in a congregational model. The irony -- for many of us cradle Episcopalian -- is that we're being branded as "revisionists" for working to preserve what we inherited from those who dared to imagine a broadly inclusive church where there was room for both protestant and catholic and many inbetween.

[Sorry Susan Russell - in the narrow context of the topic of this particular thread we view your comment as off-topic. We do not always get it right but we do try. Do please feel free to contact Canon Harmon or us if you feel that your comment deserves a thread of its own - Elf]

6. Susan Russell wrote:
I’ll just blog on it myself. Thanks, anyway.

7 comments:

JimB said...

There you go again, telling the truth. Yup, that is off topic in some places.

FWIW
jimB

uffda51 said...

Being familiar with the multitude of off-topic snarky rants about rainbows, shoes, hairstyles and first names I've seen at their site, it hardly seems out of bounds to comment on the court decision when the topic is the court decision.

Elizabeth Kaeton said...

Brava!

Unknown said...

Don't throw pearls before swine.

SexyClassicist said...

Your reply was absolutely perfect. It made me laugh outloud and not in the over used internet sense.

Unknown said...

Seriously, though, how much longer are we going to put up with a bunch of trespassers occupying property they have no right to occupy? It seems to me that if we must, we can welcome the schismatics back into the Episcopal Church and we can make all the "big tent" noises we want to, but in point of fact, the clergy and staff who continue to occupy these church buildings and grounds simply have no right to do so and should be removed without additional delay.

This struggle will continue now ONLY if we let it.

Kurt said...

It's sad seeing your deleted comments labeled as a "off-topic slur."

The inability to talk with people or to hear an opposing viewpoint, without disparaging what people say, is one of the clearest signs of a failure to follow the teachings of Jesus...