[Dialogue] Right On! Good Bishop

[KroegerD@aol.com]

April 6, 2005 
The Anglican Communion's  Orwellian Odyssey 
To my readers:  
I want to express my condolences through this column, especially to my Roman  
Catholic friends, at the passing of their leader John Paul II. He was a major 
 force in the world of religion for over a quarter of a century. I have 
chosen  not to write about his career today, for this is a time of prayer and 
mourning.  Besides that every media outlet is running an almost minute by minute 
commentary  on his life. After some time has passed an assessment of the 
positive and  negative aspects of his career and an analysis of his impact on his own 
church  and all other parts of Christianity will certainly be in order. Our 
sister  church will also by then have indicated what its new direction will be 
in the  choice of his successor. That will be, in my opinion, the proper time 
seek to  interpret the significance of his pontificate. Until then my prayer 
is this:  'May his soul rest in peace and may light perpetual shine upon him.'  
There are times when I feel that my church is living in a kind of Orwellian  
world, in which the meaning of words no longer makes rational sense. The 
content  around which this surreal experience swirls is the issue of homosexuality. 
It is  a subject, which elicits strange and irrational behavior revealing 
that  sub-conscious data is clearly in play. In this debate the word 'unity' has 
come  to stand for the suppression of almost any new idea, if it happens to 
challenge  a pre-modern status quo. The word 'conflict,' which has marked the 
church's  debate for centuries in its search for truth, has become something 
that can no  longer be tolerated. 'Conformity' has become the new value. The word 
'integrity'  has been replaced by a hypocrisy that is now perceived as 
virtuous. The  undoubted fact is that the church has had gay and lesbian people in 
leadership  positions for centuries. What we have not had are open and honest 
gay people.  Honesty has now become something not to be celebrated. The word 
'leadership' has  been redefined as 'institutional management.' They are not the 
same. Only in a  world in which words have had their meaning so freely 
altered would it be  possible for one part of a church to attack another part for 
acting in a way  that strikes a blow against a debilitating prejudice. Harriet 
Beecher Stowe and  Martin Luther King, Jr. could not possibly be heroes in this 
environment.  Bigotry has become acceptable, since it has been identified 
with valuing the  prejudices found in uninformed and underdeveloped cultures. An 
attitude that  reveals that one is wedded to a 16th century level of biblical 
literalism is now  referred to as 'being faithful to the scriptures.' Church 
leaders do not take  second place to any politicians as spin artists.  
This once great world church today has leaders who remind this observer of  
chickens flailing away after their heads have just been chopped off. They 
appear  to believe that unity can be achieved only by forcing conformity on issues 
of  human sexuality about which the church has no special expertise. Parts of 
this  church still discriminate against women, allow polygamy and practice 
female  genital mutilation. In other parts women serve as its bishops. Parts of 
this  church consider homosexuality a crime worthy of persecution. In other 
parts  homosexual persons are warmly welcomed, and their gifts gratefully 
received.  Parts of this church regard this conflict as a moral battle between the 
true  believers of the southern hemisphere and decadent, non-religious humanists 
of  the northern hemisphere. Hence they seek to solve it by quoting biblical 
texts.  Given these diverse ways of looking at the same issue, only someone 
out of touch  with reality or living in an Orwellian ghetto somewhere, could 
suggest that  agreement on these matters is to constitute the ultimate basis of 
unity for the  entire Anglican Communion. To force reality into this debate for 
a moment, allow  me to suggest that this is not a battle between morality and 
immorality, as the  fundamentalists like to frame it. Rather it is a conflict 
pitting new knowledge,  coming to us from the world of science, medicine and 
psychology that creates a  new consciousness, against an old definition that 
is beginning to die. People  who reflect this knowledge view the debate as not 
unlike the ones over evolution  or the flatness of the earth. People unaware 
of this knowledge, however, view  opposition to their old definitions as 
deriving from overt evil. In many ways  watching this debate reach the present 
levels is like watching the mentality  that gave us the Salem witch hunts or the 
horrors of the Inquisition reemerge.  
Two recent catalytic events have brought this debate to the surface. The  
first came when the Anglican bishop of the diocese of New Westminster  
(Vancouver) authorized the blessing of same sex unions after being requested to  do so 
by large majorities of his Provincial Synod in three separate votes over a  
period of years. The second came when the clergy and people of the Diocese of  
New Hampshire elected V. Gene Robinson; an openly gay man living in a long-term  
partnership of mutual commitment, to be their bishop and the Episcopal Church 
 confirmed that election. Some members of this world wide church, including  
conservative voices that had been in the minority on these issues in both 
Canada  and the United States, reacted to these decisions with overt hostility.  
Immediately the old definitions out of which these critics are operating became 
 obvious. First, they assume that homosexuality is something people choose  
because they are either mentally sick or morally depraved. Second, they assume  
that their own attitudes are both righteous and of God because in their minds 
 homosexuality is universally condemned in the Bible. Given these assumptions 
 they proclaim that any accommodation with homosexuality is an affront to  
Christianity itself as well as to 'biblical morality.' They employ two weapons,  
both of which are quite familiar in church circles even though they 
constitute  blackmail. First they try to force conformity to their point of view by  
withholding financial support with the object of bankrupting the church. When  
that fails, as it almost always does, they seek to split the church so that 
they  are no longer yoked with 'infidels.' The price of unity on their terms is 
either  an apology from or repentance by those who have offended them. If 
neither is  forthcoming, the only option is removal by surgical incision of the 
'cancerous  modernists' from the body of believers. It never seems to occur to 
these people,  or to their hand wringing ecclesiastical acolytes, to examine 
their own  underlying assumptions.  
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury who is brighter than he acts,  
panicked publicly when parts of this church began to rid themselves of their  
ancient prejudices. He called the primates of each national branch of this  
communion together to take council on how the unity of the church could be  
preserved, as if that were the issue. Next, in typical ecclesiastical fashion,  he 
appointed a task force to study this tension that threatens to disrupt church  
life. Seeking to buy time he urged patience on the part of the enraged ones  
until this task force made its report. The members of the task force, chaired 
by  Robin Eames, the Archbishop of Ireland, fell right in line with the way 
the  issue had been posed. Unable or unwilling to confront the ignorance or the  
prejudice of those who had had their point of view challenged, they proceeded 
to  produce the strangest report in ecclesiastical history. It dealt with 
symptoms,  never with causes. It invited the American and the Canadian branches 
of this  church, both corporately and individually, to consider apologizing to 
those  parts of the Communion that had been offended by their actions. It 
validated the  church's latent and overt homophobia. It never once suggested that 
the attitude,  on the part of those whose hostile reactions to homosexuality 
precipitated this  crisis, might be inaccurate or sinful. It assumed that if 
some people were  upset, something must have been done to them that was either 
wrong or  inappropriate. It was like asking people, who had come to the 
conclusion that  slavery or segregation was wrong and had acted to end those 
practices, now to  apologize to the upset slaveholders or the unreconstructed 
segregationists of  the world for challenging their immoral practices. No one has yet 
said 'why  don't we examine the premises on the basis of which each side is 
operating? Why  don't we look honestly at such issues as whether or not 
homosexuality is a  choice; whether or not it is changeable; and whether or not unity 
based on  either prejudice or ignorance is ever desirable?  
The leaders of the Anglican Communion either do not understand what is at  
stake, or they do not know how to deal creatively with the conflict that  
inevitably arises when new knowledge forms a new definition that collides with  
ancient prejudices.  
To quote the Bible is hardly a winning tactic in such a debate, as a look at  
western history will quickly reveal. The Bible achieved its written form 
between  1000 BCE. and 150 CE, when people still believed that mental illness and  
epilepsy were caused by demon possession and that deaf muteness was caused by 
 the devil tying the tongue of the victim. The Bible was quoted to undergird 
the  divine right of kings, to justify slavery, to support the idea that the 
earth  was the center of the universe, to condemn first Galileo and later 
Charles  Darwin, to undergird segregation and apartheid, to demonstrate that women 
are  inferior and thus not fit subjects for voting, for education, for entry 
into the  professions or for ordination. Why do they now think that quoting the 
Bible in  the service of an ill-informed homophobia will fare any better?  
Preferring not to face these issues, this church's leaders have chosen rather 
 to hide from reality inside the body armor of a cliché known as the 'Unity 
of  the Church.' Since when, we might ask, has unity taken precedence over 
truth?  What is the proper way to use sacred scripture? If one wants to appeal to 
the  Bible for authority, perhaps we ought to begin with Jesus' concern for 
the  outcasts, the marginalized and the victims of prejudice. Perhaps we ought 
to  read Paul's words proclaiming that God's purpose in Christ was to reconcile 
the  world to God, not to ease the tensions between competing Anglicans. The  
irrationality of the present stance of my church makes it quite obvious that 
one  cannot cover prejudice with piety. If the purpose of church leadership is 
only  to salve the wounds of those whose dated prejudices have been 
disturbed, then  irrelevance has become our reality. If that has in fact become our 
fate then we  should withdraw from any attempt at leadership and content 
ourselves with the  role of presiding over state weddings and funerals where 
ecclesiastical pomp  adds dignity to the occasion. A church united in homophobia is no 
longer a  source of meaning for anyone.  
I, for one, am not willing to sacrifice on the shallow altar of unity, the  
heroic gay and lesbian Christians whose public witness has helped this church 
to  overturn centuries of killing prejudice. My part of the Anglican Communion, 
the  Episcopal Church in the USA, by refusing to compromise truth for the 
sake of  unity, has done a bold and audacious thing. We must not now tremble at 
our own  audacity.
-- John Shelby Spong 
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Comments from my E-Mailbox on the Schiavo Case:  
Dear Friends,  
The following are excerpts from the voluminous mail I received on the two  
columns dealing with the issues around the Terri Schiavo case. Thank you. I will 
 in the future to print responses from my readers when the volume of mail 
merits  it.  
-- John Shelby Spong 
John Ripley from Beamsville, Ontario, Canada, writes:
I agree  with much of what Harry Cook writes though I find the tone of his 
article very  strident. In February I took a trip to Florida and listened to my 
car radio. The  vitriol I heard on the airwaves was appalling. Hates seem to 
run very deep.  There is no room for intelligent debate, just the emotional 
tirade of the  radical right. Cook's article comes close to a liberal rant in my 
book. Its  aggressive tone does not speak to me in the spirit of Christian 
love. There are  too many shades in gray in human intercourse to have simplistic 
solutions to our  problems.  
Jack Olsen, via the Internet, writes:
Why are we wasting precious  resources? We're keeping her from "God's 
Kingdom" artificially at huge cost  while we're denying basic services to abused and 
neglected children because we  "can't afford it." Put the money into the 
abused kids and give them the things  that will break the cycle of hopelessness. 
Don't keep me on some feeding tube  when my mind is already gone and divert 
resources away from my son, who has this  wonderful life ahead of him and may need 
some help along the way with the ghosts  of his past.  
Ed Spire of Houston, Texas, writes:
As to knowing what God wants  - I feel that Harry Cook sidestepped that 
question. The point is that anybody  can think they have been told by God what God 
wants and who is to say who's  credible and who isn't? Stating that brain 
death ends life can carry no weight  for those who believe in an eternal soul and 
its attachment to a living body. To  say that we are being unmerciful to Terri 
by "denying food and water" in this  case is just silly. No one denies Terri 
food or water - she can have all she  wants. But she cannot eat by herself. 
She can't even ask for help. By anyone's  standards, opening a hole in the body 
and piping in pre-chewed food is an  extreme measure and not taking such an 
extreme measure would only be  characterized as "withholding food and water" by 
extreme people who are out of  touch with reality.  
Anne Dawson, a clinical social worker, from Birmingham, Alabama,  writes:
Terri is not starving to death...she cannot swallow at all and  would drown 
if offered water or an ice cube...the feeding tube is not putting  food in her 
stomach, only electrolytes and nutrients, she can't enjoy the taste  of food 
or even chew it. Her cerebral cortex is gone and with it her cognitive  
abilities...meaning that she cannot think at all.  
It's a sad day for America for Congress to vote for us to allow them to walk  
into our front door and tell us what is and is not good for us. This has  
happened because those people who have agendas wanted to get that "on the  
record" as they say in the congress and by a president who espouses less  government 
involvement in our lives.  
Ann Reed on the Internet writes:
I find the essay by Harry Cook  admirable and generally believable. However, 
I wish that he (and many others)  would stop mis-quoting Emerson and I also 
wish that he had not equated PVS with  brain-dead. Still I thank him for his 
enlightened and well-put convictions.  
Zaheer from Karachi, Pakistan, writes:
I am a non-Christian  subscriber with an immense interest in Religious 
Philosophy. As a staunch  supporter of euthanasia, my own take on the Schiavo matter 
is that the tube  removal will lead to a prolonged and, probably painful 
dying process, while  euthanasia's purpose, to my mind, has always been to allow a 
quick death to end  the suffering of the patient. I cannot seem to equate the 
process being  suggested with the philosophy. By linking and blurring the 
issue to seem like a  clear euthanasia decision when, in reality, a political 
agenda is the  over-riding factor.  
Paula Zurcher via the Internet writes:
Wonderfully inspiring  article by Harry Cook. Suppose Terri is still alive 
when her parents die, do  they think the tube should be removed then? A friend 
of mine near the end of her  life said to me, "I love death!" I asked her why? 
She answered, "It's so  democratic."  
E. Sauer from Plymouth Meeting, Pa, writes:
As Roman Catholics I  suspect that Terri's parents not only love her, believe 
she is "in there" and  may fear her immortal soul is in danger of 
damnation...even the Pope was quoted  as commenting that removing the feeding tube is 
tantamount to artificially  taking her life without anyone commenting that 
inserting the tube in the first  place could be ascertained as artificially 
interfering with "God's will" and  "the time to die."  
Mark Boyd from Michigan writes:
Could you please tell me where  Harry T. Cook's church is located? I hope he 
is close to where we live. I have  my fingers crossed. -- Harry is Rector of 
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, 340 N.  Main Street, Clawson, Michigan, 48017. 
JSS  
Aaron H. Schechtman of North Miami Beach, Florida, writes: 
The  fanatics look at the scenes presented by the family on videotape and 
weep. A  chief weeper is the physician, who is interpreter-in-chief of the videos 
(never  having examined the woman in question) Dr. Bill Frist, who seems to 
be thinking  ahead to run for the presidency when GWB leaves his second term. 
The fanatics  are swarming over the scene and a lot of evidence is 
contaminated, ignored or  deliberately missed.  
Jeffrey Parton, DVM writes:
I am a veterinarian, own my own  animal hospital, and practice high quality 
small companion animal medicine. As  someone who has the legal ability to 
euthanize my patients that are suffering  and have no hope for recovery, I feel I 
can address this topic with some  understanding. Compassion knows no species 
boundaries. There is indeed a "time  to die." I have comforted clients wrestling 
with the painful choice of when that  time is. When I have no doubt in my 
mind that the time has come but the client  is hesitant, sometimes all I have to 
do is ask one simple question, "Are you  keeping your pet alive for THEIR sake 
or for YOUR sake because it is too painful  to let go?" To me that seems to 
be a prolonging of a grieving process that has  already been going on for 15 
years.  
A nurse who asked that her name not be posted writes:
I am a  nurse who many times has had to deal with life and death issues. I 
myself do not  want intervention when my time comes. I am not afraid to enter 
the next life. I  hope my family will let me go and not try to keep me alive 
with machines. It is  a tragedy that we keep individuals alive for the sake of 
the family. Medicine is  a wonderful thing but there must be limits. Today's 
medicine is also money  motivated with no regard for the individual's right to 
die. Even if we put in  writing that we do not want extraordinary means used to 
keep us alive, the  family can overturn this desire. In many ways physicians 
are to blame. They many  times give false hope. I wonder sometimes if people 
keep their family members  alive out of some sort of guilt.  
Dawn, via the Internet writes:
Amen to Harry Cook's guest column.  When modern medicine first began, these 
same folk who are clamoring for Ms.  Schiavo to be forced to continue to live, 
opposed modern medicine as against  God's wishes and accused the practitioners 
of idol worship, i.e. of playing God.  When prisoners refuse to eat, forced 
feeding through methods similar to those  employed for Terri are regarded as 
"cruel and unusual punishment." It isn't God  keeping her alive, but selfish 
parents who won't let her move on to the next  higher form of existence, just to 
satisfy their own needs. Most people are not  afraid of death, they are merely 
afraid of the dying process.  
Maria Evans, via the Internet, writes:
Harry Cook has managed to  express exactly how I feel about all this from a 
spiritual side. When people are  on the journey from this world to the next, 
"light and the tunnel" seem to be  common themes. For 15 years this poor woman 
could have been trapped in the  "tunnel" with the light at the other end but no 
way to get to it because they  won't let her go. I am a physician and 
unconscious people who "return" talk  about this feeling of being trapped while they 
were unconscious, of alternating  dark and light, fueled by a variety of 
medications which also promote  hallucinations. If I were this poor woman and my 
family loved me they would  joyfully let me go to the light so I can fulfill my 
"next mission."  
Karen Morgan from Canton, New York, writes:
I sent an e-mail out  this week with the direction to please "respong" to me 
as soon as possible. I  like to think that I did this subconsciously. I enjoy 
your weekly "letters"  enormously. The message from Harry Cook was very 
helpful to me. I was beginning  to think I was some sort of monster when I shared my 
feelings with others, as  their look of horror and their response indicated 
they thought I was some sort  of uncaring person. I can now be assured that my 
thoughts and feelings are  neither cruel nor unchristian.  
Royce Riley from Texas writes:
I'm a retired United Methodist  minister. I'm in agreement with Harry Cook 
that this is nothing but a smoke  screen. It takes the heat off of Tom DeLay for 
a few days; helps the Social  Security issue to cool; keeps us from talking 
so much about Iraq. It is  certainly a ploy to appease the right wing 
Christians and their pro-life  position. I wondered why Bush could rush back to 
Washington to sign this bill  when we had more people put to death in Texas prisons 
during his term than at  any other time. Also, how can he sign that bill while 
he's sending thousands of  young men and women to war and the threat of death? 
 
Don George from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, writes:
There is a  fundamental misconception about life that has dominated our 
thinking for over  two thousand years. This is the belief that life consists of a 
body containing a  "soul" which leaves when the body dies. Therefore, we must 
do all we can to keep  the body "alive" as long as possible. The Oriental 
concept that we are primarily  "souls" which periodically need to occupy physical 
bodies in order to function  in a physical environment is a more reasonable 
view than our Western Christian  idolatry of the body. When a body is no longer a 
viable vehicle, it is discarded  so the "soul" can move on. They destroy the 
non-functional physical body with  fire and release the "soul." We preserve 
and idealize the body.  
In the case of Terri Schiavo, she has been forcibly kept in the "prison" of a 
 body that is no longer viable. I can imagine Terri crying out for 15 years, 
"Let  me go, let me go, I don't want to stay here," but nobody heard her. That 
is  spiritual torture.  
Linda Byrd, via the Internet, writes:
If I put myself in Terri  Schiavo's place, what would I want? I've thought 
about it a lot since visiting  the nursing homes as a lay Eucharistic visitor 
for my church. I don't want to be  a forgotten person with no control over my 
life. With no children to "look after  me in my old age" that's exactly what 
will happen.  
Mervyn Scott of Oshawa, Ontario and Karen Scott of Bensheim, Germany  write: 
While we support some of Harry Cook's arguments, we find them  problematic. 
Reports in the press and on TV have stated that Ms. Schiavo is  neither brain 
dead nor on life support systems. Furthermore, we cannot justify  starvation as 
a way to terminate her life.  
Brent Weinert, via the Internet, writes:
Thank you for this  article. I am glad I am not alone. I am tired of being 
called anti-Christian for  believing that this is the humane thing to do.  
Rob Hirschman from Saginaw, Michigan, writes:
It felt so good to  have someone tell the truth about this whole fiasco. The 
politicians that have  involved themselves in this were shown to be first 
class hypocrites. Harry  Cook's comments about God and our ability to understand 
God without any absolute  proof were exactly what I have always felt.