And lo, in those days, the bishops of the Church of England spake unto their denomination saying: ‘There shalt be no change in our doctrine of marriage; there shalt be no blessing of same sex marriages; we shalt henceforth ask all ordinands (not just the gay ones) questions about their morality; and there shalt be, within that framework, maximum liberty, once we have worked out what that means.’
And behold, some of the party known as the evangelicals rejoiceth, saying: ‘This be alright, then, and much better than we had feared.’ But others of the evangelicals sayeth: ‘This is more unto us such as a curate’s egg, being pleasing in part greatly, but in other parts, it stinketh.’ And yet other evangelicals declareth: ‘The bishops faileth to teach clearly, and, verily, we trusteth not their trajectory.’
And some evangelicals bemoaneth the views of these other evangelicals, thinking unto themselves: ‘These others have hearts of concrete, and their manner towards us feels like as the Donald, namely Trump.’ And these in turn sayeth to the aforementioned: ‘Thou hast hearts of lily, but our exegesis is better than thine, so there.’ And verily there was much yah-ing and verily much boo-ing also. And some apologiseth, which was good; others not.
Some celebrateth and some not
And the different parties of the evangelicals could only agree that if the other evangelicals would just see-eth things with as much perspicuity and foresight as they themselves see-eth, then all would be well. And some didst celebrate the report, even as others declareth that the ship sinketh; and some secretly and not so secretly despiseth them whose minds were different unto their own. But are not these things more fully written in the Book of Face, and in the annals of the World Wide Web?
And thus were the words of Richard Baxter, he who was known as the Reformed Pastor, fulfilled: ‘Had the ministers of the gospel been men of peace, and of catholic, rather than factious spirits, the Church of Christ had not been in the case it is now.’
And some considereth the words of John Newton, also: ‘I cannot see it my duty, nay, I believe it would be my sin, to attempt to beat my notions into other people’s heads. Too often have I attempted it in the past; but now I judge that both my zeal and my weapons were carnal.’
Liberals laugheth
And the party known as the liberals laugh-eth at the disputational evangelicals quarrelling one unto another. And a Synod to discuss these matters was convened; and the people therein gathereth, but unfortunately they gathereth inconveniently after the deadline of this gazette, so we speaketh not of it now.
And some among the people said: ‘To whom shall we listen? Certainly not the scribe of this journal, for he is a feeble jester who worketh among the remnant of the rural wastelands, so what knoweth he?’
But the wise did listen to some others, such as LivingOut.org – for such as these spake with biblical faithfulness, courage, personal experience and the Fruit of the Spirit. Moreover, these were the very tribe the evangelicals purporteth to defend – albeit that they disputeth among themselves so vainglo-riously they seemeth often to forget this.
The wise also recalleth, yet again, the Taylor known as William, of the tribe of St Helen’s, who saith evangelicals may make different choices, but ‘we will have to learn to think more highly of others’. And still some heedeth him not.
But the wisest of all remembereth first of all the Lord Jesus Christ, and fell on their knees and repenteth.
