Homosexuality A Response by Metropolitan Maximos, Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh, to the Episcopal Church's General Convention Election of "openly gay" Rev. Gene Robinson as Episcopalian Bishop of New Hampshire. August 2003.

"THIS BODY HAS DENIED THE PLAIN TEACHING OF SCRIPTURE…"
(Episcopalian Bishop, Robert Duncan)

All conservative Christians, better yet, all Christians who believe in the Bible as the eternal, unchangeable Word of God, agree with the Anglican (Episcopalian) Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, Pa., and the 19 conservative Anglican (Episcopalian) Bishops who rejected the decision of the recent Anglican (Episcopalian) General Convention in Minneapolis, Minn., to elect an openly "gay" clergyman to become an Anglican Bishop. In the words of Bishop Duncan, "This body has denied the plain teaching of scripture and the moral consensus of the church throughout the ages. This body has divided itself from millions of Anglican Christians throughout the world."

Bishop Duncan reflects the reaction of not only the conservative Anglicans (Episcopalian) in the U.S.A., but also the reaction of all Christians who believe in the infallible message of the Holy Word of God treasured in the Bible and preserved in the Holy Tradition of the Church for the past over two thousand years. In the statement of the 19 conservative Anglican (Episcopalian) Bishops which Bishop Duncan read to the convention following the election by the Bishops, Bishop Duncan said: "With grief too deep for words, the Bishops who stand before you must reject this action. We are calling upon the primates of the Anglican Communion, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury… to intervene in the pastoral emergency that has overtaken us."

In response, Rowan Williams, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, issued a statement in England, saying "difficult days lie ahead for the Anglican Church." The strange thing is that the gay Anglican (Episcopalian) clergyman, Gene Robinson, agrees that his opponents are right that his election "was contrary to the church's traditional teaching against homosexuality." But, he added: "Just simply to say that it goes against tradition and the teaching of the church and scripture does not necessarily make it wrong. We worship a living God, and God leads us into the truth."

Unfortunately, for Rev. Robinson and his like-minded Anglicans, this statement is a betrayal of the only One Truth, which is that of the Bible, kept and perennially taught by the Holy Tradition of the Church, led by God's Holy Spirit. In his responses to the CNN interviewers, Rev. Robinson called upon the Spirit Who, Rev. Robinson alleged, reveals "new" truths, and he expressed pridefully that he was created gay by God. The Holy Spirit, according to Holy Orthodoxy and the sound teaching of all Christians who follow the Bible, reveals only One Truth, the Truth of Christ.

"He will lead you into the whole truth" (John 16:13), are the words of the Lord Jesus regarding the Holy Spirit. However, the Holy Spirit does not "reveal new truths", which oppose the teaching of Christ. This is what is called betrayal of the Truth of Christ. Also, to say that God created people gay, is to say that God created people sinful. Sin is rejection of God and His Holy Will. For the Bible and the Holy Tradition of the Church, which are the source of Christian Truth according to Holy Orthodoxy and conservative Christians, to say that God created "sin" (that is rejection of God) is tantamount to blasphemy. God created sinners, who oppose Him by their sin; but He did not create His own rejection!

The problem with this mentality of some Anglican thinkers is that they have, alas, created a false "source" of truth, which is, actually, fallacy, counteracting the true and only one source of Truth, the Bible in the Holy Tradition of the Church. This "new" but false, "source of truth" is called, in the language of these thinkers, "experience."

Orthodox members in the now defunct Orthodox-Anglican Consultation in the U.S.A. remember Anglican thinkers calling upon this "source" of Experience: the reason why the sacrament of Holy Chrismation or Confirmation, in the contemporary Anglican perception of those thinkers, is not a sacrament anymore, is that this sacrament is not part of today's Anglican experience. The real reason that the dialogue between Orthodox and Anglicans (Episcopalian) in the U.S.A. stopped, was not as much the unilateral action of the "ordination" of women to the Holy Priesthood, or the unfounded accusation of Anglican people like Bishop Spong that St. Paul was a homosexual, or the Anglican liberalism regarding human sexuality, same-sex "marriages" and the like, but because of this appeal to "experience" as a rationale for doctrinal and dogmatic assertions, putting it on an equal level with the sacred Scriptures and Holy Tradition.

For the Anglicans engaged in our dialogue, it was expected that openly gay clergymen will be promoted to "bishops", and lesbians will not only become "priests", but also "bishops." It was their belief that, if today's "experience" is such, then, allegedly, the "Spirit" of God blesses it! Do these Anglican thinkers realize that an evil spirit may be behind all these things?

What the Orthodox denounce in these false practices and teachings is that, they are the practices and teachings which oppose the Will of God as taught by the Bible, thus, being the result of our fallen, sinful, human "experience!" The Archbishop of Canterbury is right: "difficult days lie ahead for the Anglican Church." Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh gave the reason for it: the recent Anglican (Episcopalian) Convention of Minneapolis, and all like-minded Anglicans, have "denied the plain teaching of scripture and the moral consensus of the church throughout the ages."

Nothing can replace this teaching, which is the teaching of the Spirit of God promised and given by Christ to the Christian Church. As far as the "teaching" of "experience," advocated by the Anglican modernists, let us listen to the infallible words of Saint Paul: "even if an angel from heaven teaches you a different Gospel from the one I have taught you, let him be anathema!" (Galatians 1:8).

 

© 2003 Greek Orthodox Diocese of Pitsburgh -- used with permission (slightly edited for this site)

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