It must be confessed that I am no unbiased observer. I began my life in the goodship Episcopal in the fall of 2002. Before that I had been a card caring evangelical. I had read my way into the church via books like Evangelical is not enough and Evangelicals on the Canterbury trail. Being from the south I had met a few weird Episcopal priests, but I had absolutely no idea how crazy we really were. I joined with the hope of reforming the church from within. Nothing is too hard for God right? I was in seminary and had only been confirmed for about eight months when Gene Robinson was confirmed in the summer of 2003…

Gene the Beginning…

Since Gene was elected within 120 days of general convention it was necessary to vote on his worthiness for the office at General Convention. In all the fog it has been forgotten that the vote to confirm Gene Robinson though theologically insane only passed by roughly 60-40 split. This was in the house of bishops. To read pronouncements from the left in the time that has followed you would think that Bishop Duncan and Bishop Iker were the only persons who strongly opposed this. I am not sure there shouldn’t be some kind of superextramajority rule when it comes to leaving the Christian faith. I also wonder sometimes what happened to those 37 + other bishops. About 10-12 would later join the Network. Did the others give up the game? How would the network or the Anglican Church worldwide have been different if it began with 30 dioceses instead of ten? I remember when I discovered that only ten dioceses would join the network I was a little disappointed. Surely the international church would step in and discipline the heretics and proclaim us the true Episcopal Church. I did not know much about Archbishop Rowan Williams, but heck England had given us all the good theologians anyway. After all wasn’t Carey who proceeded him an Evangelical. N.T. Wright was a bishop in the Church how bad could it be? Surely our Mother Church would step in and save us. Do you remember the hope we had in those days? Oh to be young and ignorant of the politics of church life!

To be cont….