Grant LeMarquand

Grant LeMarquand Loses All Credibility

We all knew that Grant LeMarquand was in sympathy with the reactionaries in the Episcopal Church. We knew he was a member of the committee that our House of Bishops commissioned to study the current sexuality issues, and we knew he was a partisan.

But even I did not expect him to cuddle up with the StandFirm crowd quite so snugly.

Today, when StandFirm noted Bishop Whalon’s essay, LeMarquand cut loose.

In this thread he writes:

Dear Ralph - the “double secret theology committee” (actually I think we are called a ‘theological panel’ for some reason) which, of course, is no longer secret, is nearing the completion of its work. We have met 3 times, we have produced 2 major papers and a response from each side to the other side’s paper. These are now ready to go to the House of Bishops of TEC (who commissioned our work) who will be discussing them at their next meeting. After that we may need to meet one more time to consider the Bishops’ responses to the work (of course neither side can be told by the H of B that our work needs to be edited - it remains our work, not theirs), but a face to face meeting may not be necessary. Following the March meeting and any last minute revisions/ clarifications, the work will be published.

Grant LeMarquand

Trinity School for Ministry

I can give thanks that LeMarquand is providing timetable information that our bishops are not. Still ... I am troubled that this guy is so clearly in bed with the StandFirm wackos.

Later in that thread, LeMarquand writes:

Dear Dick,

The panel’s membership was made public sometime last year after some lobbying by both sides. Come to think of it, the whole idea for this panel came from a motion by Bishop Whalen at a House of bishops meeting, I believe.

The membership of the panel was recommnded [sic] by the House of Bishops Theology Committee.

Bishop Parsley of Alabama was responsible for setting up the panel (he was also present at one of our meetings and was involved in a conference call during the other two).

Bishop Joe Burnett served as a facilitator [sic] durng [sic] all three meetings, and Dr Ellen Charry did a very capable job of moderating our discussion without taking sides.

The panel itself had four ‘liberals/revisionists’ and four 'conservatives/traditionalists’ (I’ll let you speculate as to who was on each ‘side’ (and there were clearly two sides in our discussions - not to say we don’t like each other - we do - but we disagree very strongly).

The eight are:

John Goldingay, Old Testament prof at Fuller Seminary

Deirdre Good, New Testament prof at General Seminary

Willis Jenkins, ethics prof at Yale

Cynthia Kittredge, New Testament prof at the Seminary of the Southwest

Grant LeMarquand, Academic Dean and prof of Biblical Studies and Mission at Trinity School for Ministry

Eugene Rogers, prof of systematics at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro

George Sumner, Principal and prof of systematics and mission at Wycliffe College, Toronto (who was ordained in TEC and retains his American citizenship)

Dan Westberg, prof of Ethics at Nashotah House

Unfortunately our work is not yet public - the house of Bishops commissioned it and so they will get the first crack at reading it. The project was scheduled to run from 2008-2012 so we are not doing too badly.

GL

What do you think, Bishops and members of the Theology Committee? Are your happy with his behavior? Is LeMarquand a scholar? Or is he a spokesman for those who make their home at StandFirm?