Episcopal dialogue isn't really

The Very Reverend Philip Turner is Dean and President of the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest. Recently he was at Nashotah House and gave what I thought an exacting and constructive assessment of the current Episcopal Hullaballoo.

I have perceived on multiple occasions that on both sides of the conflictagration there is an abusive appeal to the working of the Holy Spirit. Arguing God onto your side is very popular. And I find it upsetting since I don't think there is always careful discernment about making such claims.

During Q&A I asked Rev. Dr. Dr. Dr. Turner what he makes of this issue. I asked from a perspective of muddle but his answer was piercing. He said that Episcopalians, both lay and ordained, do not have any sort of training that facilitates a reasoned method of dialogue and debate. We are simply incapable of understanding each other because formal propositional discourse is impossible for the reparteers.

So, when people can't understand each other, the recourse is to emotional overture and appeal to power. In this context it is of course helpful to make sure that God is on your side. I think that insight is as perceptive as it is frightening.

I remember as a college freshman hearing a devotional before a class. The moral was that we should never seek to see if God is on our side, but rather if we are on God's side. Manipulating the supernatural for our own ends is witchcraft, and the professor averred that in our present day and age there are probably more Christian witches than any other kind. There's a thought to take penitently into Holy Week.

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