Jan. 21, 2007

By Harry T. Cook
Luke 4: 14-21

The Episcopal Church in the United States of America, as a British friend of mine would say, has its knickers in a twist over what the Bible says about this and that, what correct belief is, etc., etc. Dozens of parishes are forsaking their bishops and dioceses to follow a Nigerian prelate who believes God would never knowingly touch, much less break bread with a gay or lesbian person. That’s why they follow him.

The concept is offensive on the face of it, but what its says about how far off the mark these people are is nothing short of breathtaking. They say we, the continuing Episcopal Church in our embrace of a gay bishop and a woman Presiding Bishop, have departed from biblical authority and Anglican tradition.

So Luke got it wrong, I guess. On the visit to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus did not, after all, say: The Spirit of God . . . has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. No, no. Luke got it all wrong. This is what Jesus said in the synagogue:

The Spirit of God is upon me because he has anointed me to bring bad news to the gay and lesbian community and, as well, to uppity women. He has sent me to proclaim captivity to them and to make the world blind to their humanity. He has sent me to oppress the free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s exclusion of the unclean.

Oh, ye 21st Century Christians, His Grace the bishop from Nigeria and his American cohort want you to ignore all that cockeyed business about grace and favor and good news. Piffle. What did Jesus know anyway? The real gospel, the actual will of God is to be found in a few obscure verses of Leviticus and in some of the profoundly misunderstood words of St. Paul, which not incidentally enable people in their homophobia and hatred of those who are different from themselves.

You’ve got it all wrong, you liberal Episcopalians. Your God is a god of judgment and discrimination. There may be billions of people who are poor – but the poor you have always with you. There may be millions more who are oppressed, captive to one awful thing or another. But that is not your first concern. You are here to obey what the Bible says – or what such people as the Nigerian bishop says it says. You are here to save souls by shunning and ostracizing those who find love outside some arbitrary norm.

Pay no attention to the young Galilean troublemaker up there on the bima of your synagogue preaching all that good-news nonsense to the poor. Your job is to preach against things and people. And, by the way, do not touch or be touched by a gay or lesbian person. This is the real gospel of the real Episcopal Church. PRAISE TO YOU, LORD JESUS CHRIST.

The American sycophants of His Grace of Nigeria are welcome to leave the Episcopal Church, not letting the door hit them in the backside on the way out. They don’t want to be associated with our accepting liberality? Likewise, I don’t want to be associated with their exclusivist meanness, with their close-minded hardness of heart.

I’ll stay with the liberal and liberating Sage of Nazareth and his gospel of freedom, with his good news to the poor, with his wondrous ability to take the scales from human eyes so they may see what’s really important. I want to hear and share in the proclamation of grace, favor and acceptance.

“But schism, Father Cook?” Do you want the church to be divided?” – It already is, and moreover it’s a free country. People are entitled to be ignorant and unloving. I just want them to go somewhere else with it, out of my sight and hearing. Who needs it? Life is too short to live that way. – I will choose love, freedom and inclusion. Their opposites are death. I will choose to live. Will you?

© Copyright 2007, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.