Merle Haggard got it right when he asked the question in the title of his hit song: “Are the Good Times Really Over?” The haunting query of that song is: “Are the good times really over? Are we rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell?” Merle must be an Episcopalian.
If one happens to be a traditional Anglican, these are singularly bad days. I do not mean a modern American Episcopalian. There have been decades of bad days for them. I mean a Bible-believing Anglican Christian — a person of historic faith who has not blotted out by bad living and bad thinking the universal moral sense of humanity presupposed in Holy Scripture — the law of the nature of the matter.
Tuesday night, in a vote of 62-45 the Protestant Episcopal Church USA voted to confirm the first openly homosexual bishop in history. Two cowardly bishops abstained from voting, but their ballots under church rules were counted as “no” votes. Thus, they accidentally cast “principled” votes.
After the vote, with his daughter and homosexual partner standing nearby, the newly-confirmed bishop expressed his love for the church and said: “God has once again brought an Easter out of Good Friday.” Not one person in the whole auditorium wailed aloud and tore his clothes at such shameless blasphemy. Nineteen Episcopal bishops did manage to sign a protest statement closing with a request that “God have mercy on his church.” As of today, none of those bishops, however, have withdrawn from the church. “Mercy” indeed.
How does one arrive at the point that he denies what he cannot not know — that the very moral behavior he celebrates as good is manifestly contrary to nature? He does so in two ways. First, he suppresses in unrighteousness the truth about the nature of human sexuality. Second, he redefines what is true about sexuality based on his own private judgment — a judgment already in the process of blotting out the universal moral sense by bad living and bad thinking. If he does this long enough, he holds morally incoherent positions and may even celebrate the fact. He denies what he cannot not know.
But, how does a whole church — the Episcopal Church USA to be exact — arrive at the point that it exalts to highest ecclesiastical office a person who denies what he cannot not know? The answer is simple. It allows to increase, quietly at first, numbers of persons within its ranks who deny what they cannot not know. Instead of leaders who declare “what must not be done may not be done,” they tolerate what they eventually embrace. Ultimately, the church becomes a haven for such people. They may not all initially deny the same universal moral sense on the same subjects at the same time to the same degree. But, the ranks are growing with people who suppress truth in unrighteousness, even while total membership is shrinking, and their leaders are indistinguishable in this regard. At a minimum, the leaders are compromised because they have lost the moral courage to confront error with the truth of Scripture.
These are extraordinary times. Confusion reigns about basic norms. But we are confused because we want to be, not because we do not know better. As political philosopher J. Budziszewski cogently states: “…the quarrel is not between sinners and innocents, but between sinners who confess the moral facts which accuse us all, and the sinners who deny them.” Sinners who deny the universal moral sense — those foundational moral principles that are “the same for all, both as to rectitude and as to knowledge” — make up their moral principles as they go along. All ad hoc private definitions are illicit, but they are popular. To think, however, that the growth in popularity of private definitions is evidence of their truth is a grave error — one the Episcopal Church is apparently incapable of avoiding.
This is a new age for the Episcopal Church USA. It has had problems for quite some time, but never before in history has vice formally held the high moral ground. To oppose the confirmation of the bishop-elect was considered “intolerant” and “judgmental.” That view was formally ratified last night. In other words, to affirm Biblical morality in the face of homosexual advocacy has been judged and will not be tolerated.
Make no mistake about it, however, the Episcopal Church has cut itself off from the historic Church no less violently than a gardener would lop off a rotten branch from an otherwise healthy shrub. It has marginalized itself from all Christians who love truth, whatever their religious tradition may be. “Ichabod” has been written over the door. The “glory of the Lord has departed.” The good times are over. The Episcopal Church is rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell.
Bruce W. Green is dean of the Liberty University School of Law (law@liberty.edu) in Lynchburg, Virginia. Prior to his position as dean, he practiced constitutional law with the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy in Tupelo, Mississippi.
