BISHOP GRISWOLD'S VERSION OF THE COMPASSION OF THE HOLY SPIRITBelow is an excerpt of Episcopal Bishop Griswold's latest sermon which if have highlighted in bold print from an article called "Archbishop Is Facing Lost Cause As He Tries To Prevent Split In World Church" at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/21/nchur121.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/02/21/ixnewstop.html with my remarks in blue print.
"Bishop Griswold, the liberal Primate of the American Episcopal Church that triggered the row by consecrating Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop, has refused to comply with the recommendations of the Windsor report. The report, which Dr Williams sees as the only hope for the worldwide Church, urged the liberal leadership of the American Church to repent for consecrating the Rt Rev Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. The Americans have merely apologised for upsetting the vast majority of the Church, rather than for the actions themselves, and Bishop Griswold has indicated that they are unlikely to go much further."
"In his sermon yesterday, he used the coded theological language of the Holy Spirit to defend the American decision to act unilaterally. He told the congregation: "We find ourselves overtaken by a compassion, which because it is of the Spirit and not the result of our effort or imagination, knows no bounds and can enfold all persons and all things."
(The compassion of the Holy Spirit is to convict sinners of their sins so that they repent and don't end up in the lake of fire. The Holy Spirit does not condone and embrace sin.)
"It is a compassion which, in the words of St Isaac of Syria, embraces not only humankind but the birds and the beasts, the enemies of truth, those who wish to do us harm and, he adds, `even the reptiles,' which may be seen as representing those slithery aspects of our own humanity which we are loath to admit to the company of our `better' selves and therefore often displace on to others as evil."
(The enemies of truth are those who deny the truth contained in the scripture which would include those who deny that homosexuality is a sin.)