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BILL: OK. Well, we have three more minutes from each participant of a
final summation, and then some closing comments and we will close. So we
are looking at about ten more minutes. Can you hang in there for ten more?
You've been a great audience. I appreciate your cooperation and your
politeness tonight. So would you like to use the microphone here?
CARL: Sure.
BILL: OK.
CARL: Do I go
first?
BILL: If you like, yeah.
CARL: I knew you'd get the
last word. [laughter] Seriously, John, thank you again for the invitation.
And thank you to all of you for listening and participating. And I
apologize to those who didn't get to have your questions addressed. I'd be
happy to hang around for a little while if you'd like to speak to me
personally, or call me or write to the Herald and ask me a question for
the column.
I had some misgivings when I came. I think they've
been pretty much confirmed. I know we haven't changed very many people's
minds. I hope that we have touched some hearts. I hope we've built a
greater sense of community and the desire to continue to continue to
explore these issues further.
Frankly I think it's irresponsible
to appeal to the use of Scripture when you are interpreting Scripture on
this issue constantly. My questions have not been answered as to why this
particular part of Scripture is held as being so much in concrete while
other parts of Scripture seem to be quite easily ignored by the rest of
us. Not only did the Bible come out of the experience of the people of God
struggling with their identity and their relationship with others, which
we can see was a very rocky road and one that Jesus came to challenge in
terms of the conclusions that had been made by a very strong and long
tradition of people struggling with these issues very seriously, some of
which is reflected in the creation narrative. What's in the Bible was
approved some three hundred twenty-five years later at the Council of
Nicea by a group of bishops leading the church, all men, who decided what
was going to be the Word of God, what was inspired and what isn't.
See, we can't avoid the responsibility of deciding what is truth
and what isn't. We have the Bible to use as our common text, but we always
interpret. And simply to say this is what the Bible says when you're
simply reinforcing your own opinions is not legitimate. And we have to
pick and choose depending on a lot of other things. And those come into
play. Community, rationality, our experience, the tradition of the church
and so forth. We're ordaining women in the church today, violating a
tradition that existed, hard to believe, for almost two thousand years.
Sometimes we do things that fly in the face of what the Bible is purported
to say based on the creation narratives, even based on the practice of
Jesus, who called only male disciples. There are some in this room I'm
sure, I know there are many Episcopalians, some of them bishops, who
believe that God is a man because Jesus was a man. What does that do to
the women in the room who feel second to what it is to be made in the
image of God? And so on and so forth.
We have the responsibility
to struggle with these issues. And that's what I try to do in a loving,
responsible way based on my education and my own experience of the people
of God. For each of us to do that humbly and be open to the possibility of
growing, and not hide behind the Bible and blinding selecting what we
choose to enforce and what we don't is the responsibility that we all have
as Christians. And that's what Jesus came to tell us. We are the scribes
and the Pharisees whom he is confronting. We are the church today. We are
the people he is speaking to when we read the stories in Scripture about
his going into their hearts and into their souls and asking them to look
in the mirror. Thank you. And again thank you. Thank you very much.
[applause]
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