This has been getting quite a bit of commentary on blogs and Facebook for a couple of days, so maybe you've already seen it. I generally avoid picking on the Episcopal Church: it feels a bit unsporting, because it's such a soft target if you're looking for heretical/apostate Christians, and because in spite of all that there are still a number of people in it who believe something close to the historical faith.
But a recent sermon by presiding bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori is too tempting. Surely her interpretation of Acts 16 is one of the strangest and most un- or anti-Christian ever advanced. In a nutshell, she asserts that Paul's exorcism of a young slave girl is an act of aggressive intolerance:
Paul is annoyed at the slave girl who keeps pursuing him, telling the
world that he and his companions are slaves of God. She is quite
right. She’s telling the same truth Paul and others claim for
themselves.
But Paul is annoyed, perhaps for being put in his place, and he
responds by depriving her of her gift of spiritual awareness. Paul
can’t abide something he won’t see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to
destroy it. It gets him thrown in prison. That’s pretty much where
he’s put himself by his own refusal to recognize that she, too, shares
in God’s nature, just as much as he does – maybe more so!
Read the whole thing, so you can't be accused of taking her out of context. This story is being circulated with titles such as "Presiding Bishop Says Diversity Saves, Not Jesus." That's not quite fair. But it's not all that unfair, either: apart from the Acts 16 analysis, most of what she says consists of banalities about openness that are at best half true from the Christian point of view.
I admit I have always found that exorcism story a bit puzzling, since the girl is testifying to the authority of Paul and his companions. Perhaps it was the relentless compulsive behavior, not the words themselves, that worried Paul.
Light On Dark Water 
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