Mark Harris on his blog, Preludium, reflects a bit more on General Convention ’06. He comments on the aftermath of the votes by the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops on resolution B033 – the last ditch statement concerning the Windsor Report. It is worth reading: here.
The backdrop for his comments is Matt. 5:37 – let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no,” no. He comments on the two groups of bishops who for the most part repudiated the passed resolution as soon as voting was completed. One group he refered to as the disassociating bishops and the other group as the dissenter bishops.
This paragraph struck me:
“Disassociating is a meanness, the meanness of the embarrassed or the loser. But the greatest of these acts of meanness is the meanness of the ones who hoped for the worse in order to prove that they are the best. Disassociation, as practiced by dissemblers, is merely a way to further a cause that can’t carry its own weight in a democratic fashion.”
Perhaps, it is endemic within Anglicanism to resist dogmatic “yes’s” and/or dogmatic “no’s.” Perhaps, these dissenters and disassociationists are attempting to live into more fully Matthew’s command, even if by using illegitimate or spurious methods. Perhaps.