Do they have the stomach for it?

We can now say Bishop Robinson of NH. He was confirmed yestereday by the Episcopalian House of Bishops, and now we get to see if the traditionalists have the guts to follow through on their threats of schism. They threatened when women were ordained, and stuck around. They threatened again when a new prayer book was adopted, and stuck around. Now let's see what they do with the legitimization of homosexuality.

The traditionalists have already called upon Canterbury to intervene, and Rowan Williams' July warning letter to the American bishops gives some hope. In it he backed the concerns of a July gathering of overseas bishops who told their American counterparts in Minneapolis not to "realign" the morality of the Church to their liking. So, the first step is to see what Williams does. If that fails, then the traditionalist bishops can go back to their parishes and see if the faithful want out. Separate North American province? Separate Church? Closer relationship with Rome (we'd love to have you)?

What gets me in all this is how anyone can reconcile homosexuality with Christianity. Last I looked, Christianity was in the sin business. Considering Scripture and historical revelation (what was it Chesterton said of history, "a hill or high point of vantage from which men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living"), some things are forbidden, will soil your soul and relationship with God, and cast you into Hell (GKC again, "the place where nothing can happen"), while other things are welcomed, will redeem your soul and relationship with God, and propel you into Heaven (GKC, "our native land"). Last I looked at Scripture and 2000 years of Christian history, homosexuality and sodomy were of the former category. It seems sin is no longer a reality for some Christians, that it represents hate, judgement, and intolerance, that love is all. Wrong. By the law of opposites, to know what to love is to know what to hate, and all Christians must love God and hate sin. Do the new Christians believe in sin? Is their any sin in their minds outside of some vague "intolerance?" If so, what do they base it on? It cannot be Scripture or history, because they quite obviously negate that.

Quite frustrating and perplexing. Perhaps I live in that happy world of C.S. Lewis and Chesterton, of firm truths, the reality of sin and redemption, of God's grace and the lack thereof, of Christian history and dogma. But the ground under my feet is solid, and I can feel and see it. The new Christians are walking on the clouds of their own wishful invention, a sinless world of total love, denying the efficacy of history, and reading Scripture as they like it.