Former Senator, Episcopal Priest Danforth Warns Episcopalians on Issues

WP/AP: Danforth Warns Episcopalians on Issues
By RACHEL ZOLL
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 15, 2006

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- John Danforth, an Episcopal priest and former U.S. senator, warned Thursday that the church risked irrelevancy by focusing on divisive issues such as gay clergy and same-gender couples.

Instead, Danforth said the denomination should turn away from the "inside baseball" of church politics and put its energy behind reconciling a world increasingly polarized by politics and religion.

"For 99 percent-plus of people, they really couldn't care less who the bishop of diocese `X' or `Z' is," Danforth said, during the church's national legislative meeting. "Nor could they care less whether a liturgy for blessing same-sex unions is available in a prayer book or over the Internet."

If the Episcopal Church breaks apart, "we'll be one more little splinter, one more tiny wedge in the world of wedges," he warned.

Danforth made the comments at the General Convention, where delegates are deciding whether they should stop electing gay bishops for now and put restrictions on same-sex blessing ceremonies to appease irate fellow-Anglicans around the world....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/15/AR2006061500176.html

He said he would leave a flock of 99 sheep to search for the one who is lost.

Jesus spent his life with the outcasts and the poor.

When the multitudes condemned him to die in place of a real murderer, he asked God to forgive them.

He was never concerned about popular opinion, but instead cared for virtue and love.

When the chief priests chided him for siding against them, he called them hypocrites.

Jesus chose the right path, even when everyone else sided against him.

Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.

I think "bishop" Danforth needs to spend a lot of time in prayer, reading his bible and practicing love and charity if he truly wants to be like Jesus.

You don't walk into a McDonalds and start arguing with the counter help that you want a Whopper. When someone walks into a church, there shouldn't be any question in their mind about who their denomination says they should hate.

People should be able to worship in any manner they choose, with people who share their own bigotries.

Churches should split and diversify as market forces dictate, according to who their constituents choose to hate.

You know... just like they did during The Civil War over the issue of slavery.

It's almost as if these churches are diversifying into various niches, descending with modification over time, and competing with one another-- with the most successful church-species being selected for more growth within the natural marketplace of religious ideas.

even if that change is consistent with principles and necessary. They will fight it every step of the way, no matter what it is. They can only deal with an unchanging world that gives them an illusion of control. That is how very fragile they are.

People who recognize that change needs to take place and will need to find a way to reassure these timid folks or they WILL pick up their marbles and go home, split a church, destroy a country.

Yes, the country/church/world would probably be better off without them, but they're really not going to go anywhere. They're going to dig in and insist the rest of us conform to THEIR need for predictability, uniformity and unworkable attitudes set into stone.

This is who they are. I have no idea how to get them to accept needed change. I have no idea how to keep them from ripping institutions apart by their utter refusal to adapt. I have a horrible suspicion it's a generational thing: much as Jim Crow became unacceptable to my generation, the stupid laws restricting gay civil rights will be unacceptable to the generations that follow.

If anybody out there has a quicker process, I'd like to hear it.

I tend to agree with him on this

The Communion is more important than whether a diocese has a gay bishop or not.

It is more important than any other issues.

We should move on!

liberal christians want to move on -- my little church is so active in helping rebuild mississippi it makes you dizzy.

we have gay folk in our congregation -- we support the ordination of women and gay folk -- and we never talk about this stuff -- except when conservatives make us.

and an Episcopalian

from a small Church In Arkansas

I commend you for your progressiveness in Mississippi

usually in Arkansas all we can say is that we're at least ahead of Mississippi! (kidding)


My church is very similar, and we have done some things to try to help the hurricane victims who came here.