What Did You do in Your Bedroom Last Night?

Let's be honest: This is about sex

By Lauren R. Stanley

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

(MCT)

So what did you do in your bedroom last night?

For all the wrong reasons, that question seems to be at the heart of the disputes that are threatening to tear apart not just the Episcopal Church of the United States, but also the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a part.

Anglican leaders from around the world met last week in Tanzania, and their final communique signals a huge, continuing fight over, yes, sadly, what people are doing in their bedrooms.

Of course, the communique certainly doesn't ask that question; its focus is on power and authority and who can tell whom what and, most confusing of all, claims about respecting traditions and defending orthodoxy.

Many of us in the Communion are confused, and we want to ask two questions of our leaders:

Exactly WHICH tradition are you defending?

Exactly WHICH orthodoxy do you wish to uphold?

The more conservative Anglican leaders claim that homosexuality is sinful, specifically anathemized in the Bible, and that anyone who engages in homosexual activity is a sinner of such great import that he or she can not be either a priest or a bishop of the Church. This, these leaders say, is so important that it is worth breaking up the centuries-old Anglican Communion.

But which doctrine, which principle that forms the basis of our belief in and understanding of God, is challenged by sexual orientation? The Church has no doctrine on sexuality because we do not know God through God's sexual orientation or God's sexual activity. So to make sexuality a primary reason for breaking up the Episcopal Church in this country, or the worldwide Communion, makes no sense to many of us; for us, sexuality is NOT a doctrinal issue, it is a CULTURAL issue. And if sexuality is not a doctrinal issue, it cannot represent orthodoxy, so what is being defended?

Some congregations and dioceses in the United States have said that the argument over sexuality is so important that they no longer wish to be under the authority of bishops in this country with whom they disagree on this issue. Those congregations and dioceses have asked for, and in some cases received, different leadership from outside the United States.

Those actions also are confusing. It has been the recognized tradition throughout Christianity since the 4th century that bishops are limited by their own geographical boundaries. This limit was so important in the early Church that bishops at first the Council of Nicea (325 AD) and then the Council of Constantinople (381 AD) said that "bishops are not to go beyond their diocese to churches lying outside their bounds, nor bring confusion on the churches; ... and let not bishops go beyond their diocese for ordination or any other ecclesiastical ministrations, unless they be invited." That last part, about invitation, is important, because it has been understood since those two Councils that the invitations could come ONLY from the area bishop, and not from any other leaders.

Again, many of us are confused: If the communique truly represents tradition and orthodoxy, how is it that both tradition and orthodoxy can be overturned so easily? Respect for geographic boundaries is one of the oldest tenets of the Church; overturning it now seems arbitrary at best.

Then there is the issue of communion, of the Lord's Supper, which Anglicans call Eucharist, meaning "thanksgiving."

One-fifth of the primates, the provincial leaders, present at the Tanzania meetings refused to share in the Eucharist with American Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, claiming that to do so "would be a violation of Scriptural teaching and the traditional Anglican understanding."

In refusing to share the bread and wine together in the service, those seven primates actually BROKE traditional Anglican understanding, which says that the efficacy, the effectiveness, of the sacrament does not depend on either the person administering it or the person receiving it. That understanding began with Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century and was refined by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. The former wrote that the sacrament does not depend on the righteousness of the person distributing it. The latter wrote that the sacrament "is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God."

Which is why so many of us are confused. By refusing to take communion together, the primates overturned centuries of tradition as well as doctrine.

Leaving many of us to ask, again: What is being defended here?

And finally, many in the American church are wondering about the ultimatum that has been issued by the primates, an ultimatum that basically orders American bishops to reject gays and lesbians, as well as orders congregations and dioceses in dispute over property issues to end all litigation.

The confusion here has nothing to do with the sexuality dispute. Our confusion is over those geographic boundaries, the ones that have been so important to the historic Church for 16 centuries (well preceding the founding of the Anglican Communion). When bishops from other dioceses and provinces tell bishops here that the latter must do what the former says, it breaks all traditions, all doctrines and all orthodoxy.

The ultimatum also presents the American Church with a huge problem: By demanding that American bishops make these decisions, the primates ignore the fact that the American Church is governed NOT by the bishops but by the General Convention, which is made up of laity, deacons, priests AND bishops. The latter cannot decide unilaterally for the rest of the Church. For the primates to ignore this fact is to ignore, once again, the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople, which proclaimed that "it is evident that the synod of every province will administer the affairs of that particular province."

This is why so many of us are confused: Everything we have been taught over the centuries about tradition and orthodoxy and doctrine is being overturned by this worldwide dispute. We no longer know WHICH tradition to follow, WHICH orthodoxy to defend, WHICH doctrine to believe. Our international leaders are offering us conflicting instructions, and we in the pews are left to figure it out on our own.

That this dispute within the Anglican Communion is huge and of great importance is obvious. The issue of sexuality looms large over all that we do, and there is severe disagreement on what God wants us to do, because sexuality, with all its permutations, goes to the very heart of who we are as human beings.

But if we are going to argue over it, could we at least be honest and admit that the real question here is not about the orthodoxy of the faith, it is not about the tradition of the faith, it is not about the doctrines of the faith?

Could we at least admit that this is, indeed, a cultural dispute? This is about some people who believe there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, and some who believe that it is a sin. This is about who will lead a Communion that for centuries was dominated by Westerners, who tend to be seen as liberal, and non-Westerners, who tend to be seen as conservative. This is about territory, history, culture and personal beliefs.

It is not, in the eyes of many of us, both in the United States and overseas, a dispute about God or our faith.

When spiritual leaders get together and focus almost exclusively on issues of sexuality, practically ignoring the needs of the millions in this world who are starving spiritually, physically and emotionally, it is obvious to the rest of us that our leaders really only have one question in mind:

What exactly did you do in your bedroom last night?

Copyright 2007, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Is Rehab Replacing Jesus as America's Favorite Vehicle for Instant Forgiveness?

A note from Ms. Betty Bowers, America's Most Fabulous Christian

Is Rehab Replacing Jesus as America's Favorite Vehicle for Instantaneous Forgiveness?

This hasn't been a particularly good week for crazy people and their malodorous fluids, has it? First, Astronaut Lisa Nowak is found diapered in her own filth trying to end a life. Next, Space Cadet Anna Nicole Smith is found covered in her own vomit after ending her own.

According to the 4,598 breathlessly urgent news reports last night, Anna Nicole's nurse found her employer unconscious. How she was able to tell is anyone's guess. Truly, it makes one despair for the state of health care in this country when a 39 year-old traveling with her own private nurse can't get a simple heroin dosage right. But we shouldn't be too quick to impugn the no doubt frazzled nurse's skills. After all, it must have taken a trained eye to discern that Anna was actually unconscious instead of just giving another cataleptic interview to Entertainment Tonight.

Between a baby-talking Anna in Hollywood and a diaper-wearing astronaut in Orlando , Florida has, once again, shown its knack for taking an unfair share of the available crazy. As my dear Sister-in-Christ Mrs. Patsy Ramsey, formerly of Boulder, CO., once authoritatively opined:

"A smart killer will take that extra effort to dress up and run a brush through her hair, lest someone recognize the handwriting on the ransom note and she winds up stuck with an unflattering mug shot on SmokingGun.com. That's the type of heat of passion that can make you regret the whole thing."

I realize that lady astronauts don't tend to dress any snappier than lady golf pros, but Lisa Nowak (verily the Capt. Alex Forrest of NASA) inexplicably completed her stalker/killer ensemble with a very-hard-to-pull-off pair of government-issued diapers. Frankly, I would never have confronted a younger rival with such an unseemly panty line!

As Laura "Pickles" Bush remarked to me at breakfast this morning:

"The killing? Now, that I can understand. Trust me. But the not stopping five minutes for a poop and a ciggy? Why, that's a big ole batch of bug-eyed crazy!"

I find myself reveling in the novelty of agreeing with our First Lady. While the bathrooms at Texaco stations tend to look like something you might encounter upstairs at one of Whitney Houston's repossessed homes, you'd nevertheless think a woman used to peeing in zero gravity would be adroit enough to navigate her lower lady parts to hover without actually docking with the filthy cigarette-burned, yellowed-plastic of a public toilet seat. Instead of even trying such acrobatics, familiar to any Christian lady who has ever used facilities available to strangers, she wore diapers all the way from Houston to Orlando . Frankly, outside of Iraq , it's difficult to imagine a more unnecessary, stinking mess!

After all, if Lisa Nowak had simply sprung for the drugs, cash and constant media attention it apparently takes to engage the resourceful services of Howard K. Stern, her rival would now be slumped over a steering wheel in the cheap parking at Orlando Airport . And Lisa would have been sitting pretty in her lovely home in Texas instead of sitting soggy in a jail cell in Florida .

In fact, I told President Bush this morning:

"Instead of sending tens of thousands of new troops to Iraq to kill time -- and, well, them -- until you are out of office, why not just send Howard K. Stern, the Dr. Kevorkian of the Bar Association? Just tell Howard that he stands to inherit every mullah's moolah and Muqtada al-Sadr's will be found on a sidewalk with a needle up his arm by weekend. Besides, what better way to put a perky spin on a losing war than have Mary Hart giddily reporting on Howard's latest victim each day from Baghdad ?"

Helpful Howard probably needs a new purpose in life anyway -- especially since he is the only person left in his circle of friends who still has one. After all, he can't be feeling too secure right now. He must be rather cognizant of the Ed McMahon Rule of Celebrity: Parasites are at risk once the host dies. And I'm sure Howard will be no exception. Yes, he might be able to assuage his grief in that quintessentially 21st century American way -- by selling video of his loved one's dead body to the tabloids -- but with Anna Nicole gone, he must feel like a ship without a rudder. Or, rather, a pimp without a whore. At least he can take comfort in the wholly coincidental convenience of having the only witness to what Howard did moments before Anna Nicole's son died now gone. But how long before even the fawning Mark Steines finally asks: Who was supplying these dead people with their narcotics?

The thing that strikes both Jesus and me about this whole sad mess is this: Why are all the people who don't need rehab taking up spaces that Anna Nicole Smith could have used?

Frankly, I'm beginning to think that there is no room left in rehab for people who actually need it. Mark Foley. Isaiah Washington . Miss USA , Tara Conner. The Mayor of San Francisco . With press releases replacing Catholic confessional booths as America 's most painless form of pardon, everyone who gets caught doing something embarrassing makes a perfunctory pilgrimage to a rehab facility. These are really just lushly landscaped, deluxe resorts for celebrities who've found yet one more excuse to gather and talk about themselves. How long before "Rehab!" is the standard reply to the question: "You've just won the Super Bowl, what are you going to do now?"

Television's smarmy entertainment hosts nod hosannas when celebrities and politicians use a quick stay at rehab as a cheap, insincere ploy for secular absolution, but don't even suggest an involuntary trip to rehab when a drugged-out celebrity they want to retain access to nods off in the middle of an interview.

E! and the producers of the voyeuristically enabling "The Anna Nicole Show" knew Anna Nicole had a drug problem. But it made for good television to watch her slur her words and be so out of it she hired Bobby Trendy to festoon her bedroom with tufted pink satin until it looked like the inside of Barbie's coffin. Similarly, Fox currently knows that Paula Abdul gobbles down enough OxyContins before each broadcast to make Rush Limbaugh twitch with covetous envy. But a messy Paula makes for more entertaining American Idol than an overweight geek atonally caterwauling Barry Manilow. And judging from the coverage last night, a dead Anna Nicole is a bigger ratings winner than even the almost-dead one.

Here is an idea: Why don't culpability-avoiding public figures like Isaiah Washington skip the expensively scripted pantomimes of penance and rehabilitation to clear up space for people who really need it? Like Paula Abdul. Or Britney Spears. And the next new surrogate for Anna Nicole Smith that US Weekly, et al, creates and destroys.

Oh, and save a spot for Reverend Ted Haggard. After the quickest rehab on record, he's supposedly now "completely heterosexual." But, between us, I fear he is only a lingering handshake away from a meth-fueled relapse and a weekend in a sling.

Your Christian Friend,

Betty Bowers