From the verso of the document:

The Chicago Consultation, a group of Episcopal and Anglican bishops, clergy and lay people, supports the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion. We believe that our baptismal covenant requires this.

Yes, but you had to completely rewrite the baptismal covenant in order for the inclusion you have in mind to become requisite—according to your beliefs.  Compare the baptismal rite in the 1928 BCP to the Rite II version in the BCP 1979. 

Once you’ve stacked the deck, you can then proceed to deal from the bottom.

And since when has any progressive Episcopalian ever minded what some covenant or book “required”?  Isn’t the only requirement to be a progressive is that you ignore requirements and boldly go where no person-thing has gove before?

How can you brazenly disregard requirements that have been in place for centuries, change all the rules, rewrite the liturgy, reinterpret the scriptures and then turn around and expect everyone else to adhere to your new “requirements”?

Last one out, turn off the lights.

Correction to second sentence, third paragraph:
Isn’t there just one requirement to be a progressive, namely that you ignore all previous requirements and boldly go where no person-thing has gone before?

With all due respect to Gary Hall’s argument in this article, he shows an utter lack of comprehension in regards to ecclesiology. A priest is a priest for the whole church, and a bishop is a bishop for the whole church, not just to the local church or diocese that he or she is going to serve.

Therefore, the call to simply follow the canonical consent process is not valid. If someone or some diocese does not believe that the person called can be a priest or bishop for the whole church, then simply “following orders” is not a valid theological position in this instance.

I am also astounded at the lack of theology in the second essay, which begins with the quote, “What are we doing when we ordain someone to Christian ministry?”

We do not ordain anyone. God has ordained them. The actual ordination is the final confirmation by the community and the bishop of God’s work already in process. The ordination process is the community’s discerning of God’s will.

The Baptismal Covenant also includes a promise in response to this question:

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?

Where in the teaching of the apostles is an active partnered gay or lesbian lifestyle endorsed as holy?  Is ordination a ‘right’ or the recognition of God’s call?

Right on, Brian (#5).  The appeal to the Baptismal Covenant is as blatant a misreading of the BCP or the classic liturgical tradition as the left’s reading of Scripture is.  It’s a classic case of “eisegesis,” or imposing a false meaning onto a text by reading into it whatever you want.

I’ve only read the first two essays so far, but they sure haven’t whet my appetite to read further.  But before evaluating a document like this, you have to ask, who is the target audience and what is the intended purpose of this thing?

Now the Chicago consultation hasn’t explicitly told us who it’s for, but given the timing of its release after the election of lesbian Mary Glasspool in LA recently, we’re left to assume that this is a propaganda piece designed to increase her chances of being confirmed by providing at least some semblance of a rationale for those bishops or standing committee members who might be wavering on the fence.

But if so, this sort of vapid, shallow trash won’t persuade anyone except those who are already convinced and have previously bought into the pro-gay agenda.  It certainly will do NOTHING to allay the concerns of conservative Anglicans, whether in the Global South or in this country.

It’s really embarrassing that a bunch of seminary profs couldn’t do a better job of making their case.  It suggests that Gary Hall and Ruth Meyer fully deserved to lose their jobs at Seabury-Western.

David Handy+

Oops, that should be Ruth A. Meyers, of course.  And unfortunately, she landed at CDSP, where she can continue to poison minds of seminarians with this sort of nonsense.

David Handy+

Well, +Hall pretty much sums up the vapidity of progressive Anglican (and progressive Protestant) “theology” by this in his introductory remarks:

We are a church that determines membership and status by behavior rather than by belief.

In other words, one can believe, or not believe, pretty darn much anything and still qualify as an Anglican/Episcopalian.  Just so long as one’s behavior conforms to whatever is permissable.