Recently CBS did a story on the “religious left” (Religion Taking A Left Turn?) which resulted in a fair number of new visitors to my Religious Left site. I took that opportunity to update my blog to make it easier to find some things. So, if you missed any of the recent transcripts I’ve done–of interviews with the Presiding Bishop Elect of the Episcopal church, and of sermons by Bishop Michael Curry and Bishop Gene Robinson–you can go check them out here. Direct links available below the jump.
Here are the segments of the Katharine Jefferts Schori NPR interview that I transcribed:
Katharine Jefferts Schori discusses faith in action
KJS+ addresses the biblical prohibitions on same-sex relationships
KJS+ hopes to recover “an Anglican way of living with diversity”
More excerpts from Katharine Jefferts Schori’s NPR interview
KJS+ on the role of women in the church
KJS+ on the elevation of Bishop Gene Robinson
KJS+ on inclusiveness and diversity
Katharine Jefferts Shori responds to a caller on NPR
Here are links to the transcription I’ve done of +KJS on Oregon Public Broadcasting:
Katharine Jefferts Schori on OPB’s Oregon Territory
Katharine Jefferts Schori on the roots of the church
More from the Oregon Public Broadcasting interview
And finally, here are the parts of the Claiming the Blessing Voices of Witness video that I’ve transcribed so far:
The sermons by Bishop Robinson and Bishop Curry can be found in the sidebar on the right side of the page. And here are some links to older posts that were written before my recent focus on the General Convention.
http://realreligiousleft.blogspot.com
I don’t have time to follow all the links now, but I am interested in this topic and have bookmarked this diary. Thanks.
Renee, I ask you to please give me a response to the following post I made on June 18th, which responded to a previous diary of yours. If you don’t answer here, I won’t ask again, and I will assume you are refusing to think about the question.
*******
Posted here on June 18th–
Renee, I have always loved your posts, and I think you and I are in agreement about almost everything. You have often given me 4’s, at least back on DKos, and I appreciate that.
This is a beautiful post. Probably I should just leave it at that.
But since you are such a thoughtful, sensitive, and religious person, I would like to ask you one question about Gene Robinson that genuinely puzzles me.
I don’t have any problem with gay people being clerics. In fact, I think one could make an argument that God naturally made a certain percentage of people that way just because they’re meant to be clerics. And I also don’t have any problems with Gene Robinson’s alcoholism. I’m no stranger to that problem.
But when the debate was going on so noisily about whether he would be accepted as a bishop, I was always amazed that one question was never raised (or at least I never saw it raised): isn’t it a problem that he committed adultery (with a man) and divorced his wife and left his children? It is perfectly understandable that a person might do such things, and doing such things does not cast them away from humanity and dignity and from being deserving of compassion.
But doesn’t it plainly disqualify someone from being a BISHOP under canon law? Jesus never said anything about homosexuals or alcoholics, and judging from the company He kept, He probably would have greatly preferred such people over the prim and proper Pharisees (the Evangelicals of that day). But He DID denounce adultery and divorce, specifically and repeatedly, according to the Gospels.
I’m sure he [Robinson] is a very sincere and Godly man, and I’ve never met him or heard him speak. I’m not sure I would have opposed his elevation to Bishop if I had had a vote on that. I speak not from judgment.
But I’m really curious what you (and the Episcopalians generally) think about that. By the way, I write as a fairly pious Roman Catholic.