03/15/2004: "Are sub-Saharan Africans not black?"

Episcopal Bishop William Swing is from San Francisco, which probably already tells you all you need to know about him. But he reveals a bit more in a letter to clergy, in a piece that Christopher Johnson at MCJ thoroughly roasts. I only have one thing to add to Chris' treatment. Bishop Swing is playing "let's pretend" as a not-so-clever way of attacking those who don't cotton to Gene Robinson in purple, and throws in this line about the new conservative Network:

"Let�s pretend that even though the newest separating scheme, entitled Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Congregations, is not headed by any women or black bishops, the Network�s genius is not tainted by sexism or racism."

The accusation of sexism is nonsense, of course�there are no theologically conservative women bishops in ECUSA, so the lack of them is a matter of self-selection (that and the fact that conservative women priests tend to go nowhere career-wise). The accusation of racism, however, is positively slanderous. Who does Swing think are the biggest supporters of NACDC, Swedes? The fact that American evangelical and Anglo-Catholic bishops have been working hand-in-glove with bishops from Africa, Latin America, and Asia, men who support them unequivocally, and who are joined in joyful service with them�that fact just simply doesn't exist for Swing. It's as though a little bell goes off in his head�they don't agree with me, must be racist, must be racist�and the rhetorical impulse just operates on automatic.

Oh, but wait�I forgot. For folks like Swing, African bishops are just primitives, still wallowing in the superstitions that Christ is humanity's savior, that He calls us to holiness, and that homosexuality is not the greatest gift God has ever given to humanity. Their support doesn't count.