From the New Yorker Online

The full article is posted on Orthony. This piece is interesting to me:

One of the wonderful things about the Episcopal Church, and about any liturgical church, where you sit and follow a program, is that it is possible for parishioners to go to a church and not know where its politics lie. But in the marketplace of faith it does seem that there’s no contest between the liberal view and the theologically conservative view. The liberal, mainline churches are losing parishioners across the board. The conservative churches are not only growing but growing by leaps and bounds. To me, the reason seems obvious: if you’re shopping for faith, faith is the thing you want, not a watered-down version of a civics lesson. That’s not to say that the evangelical or more orthodox view is just a marketing tool, but people who get up on Sunday morning and say “I think I’ll go to church today” tend to want the genuine article, rather than a speculative “maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not true, we’re all on this journey together” exploration. Because it’s a lot easier, frankly, to stay in bed and get up in time for the first football game.

Comment: One of the regular comments that I have heard from members of other Episcopal congregations in our area is that their priests don't keep them informed about what is going on in the national Episcopal Church or the worldwide Anglican Communion. That's because on both fronts the liberals (of which all but two of our local church are) are getting their heads handed to them. Not only is membership and attendance taken a sharp downturn since the election and consecration of an actively homosexual bishop in New Hampshire, the actions of the Episcopal Church have been repudiated nationally and internationally. As liberal ecusa shrinks and the evangelical churches gain strength the liberals still will not admit, even to themselves, that they are on the wrong track. It's about truth, and liberals don't want to hear that, and they will not believe that God has given us truth in the Holy Scriptures.