While I’ve been doing some data-mining at the Church Medical Trust this past week, I’ve had time to catch up on some of the House of Bishops/House of Deputies Listserv posts that keeps piling up on me. Through those posts, a couple of new ideas have come through that I find interesting.
First, one person asked whether those in the forefront of the opposition to the two controversial decisions at General Convention 2003 and those most stringent in demanding all of Anglicanism bend to their particular social and theological positions, are in fact going down the old warn path of the old Rigorists. This thought really struck me! Yes, in many ways, if not most ways, they are “Neo-Rigorists!” The person then went on to posit that they will come to the same fate as the old Rigorists – schism and then disappearance.
Second, the following excerpt comes from a comment to a post on the weblog The Propaganda Box.

“What strikes me is that we used to brag about how diverse we were…but it wasn’t real diversity. It was purposeful, if benign, avoidance. What would a truly diverse Church look like? I’d sure like to find out.”
The person who wrote the above commented that the liberals cannot accommodate “traditionalists,” but demand the traditionalists bend to the liberals’ demands. The same accusation many liberals are making against the present-day conservatives/reactionaries. He is right – this can be seen in political and social liberal circles as well. A good many liberals claim to be all welcoming of diverse opinion until the opinions disagree with their own, especially conservative opinions. I worked at Kent State University where political-correctness runs amuck – all one has to do is read what goes on at our universities to see this kind of thing happening. It always amazes me when I read about demonstrations among self-identified liberal students demanding a university keep certain people off their campus because they espouse a conservative perspective!
Anyway, the traditionalists and conservatives within the Episcopal Church have been on the short-end-of-the-stick for a long time now. While I do not agree with current tactics of many of the conservatives, they have a point. Yet, what would our church look like if we had true diversity? We don’t now, really, we just ignore one another as much as possible – Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic, liberal and conservative, etc.
I hope for and will for work for such a day. Their must be room in our church, within Anglicanism, for time honored and hard-fought positions: a male only priesthood, partnered gays receiving Holy Orders, open communion, lay presidency, the position and authority of Scripture, etc.