Before reading this, make yourself a cup of coffee or tea and maybe a little snack to go with it. Or pour yourself a really good whiskey or bourbon, something you can savor for a while. Then enjoy the ride.
Christianity in the west is in a persistent state of decline (this includes England and the United States), losing spiritual market share in favor of other religions and atheism. Why? Some of the loss is due to the fact that most western people find Christianity boring and hypocritical–sentiments that the spiritual head of the Church of England underlined by Mitregate.
The world is facing global warming, an economic meltdown, massive immigration crises, continued international terrorism, interreligious tensions and warfare, nuclear escalation in the Middle East, poverty, the abuse of women and children, human trafficking, genocide, oppression of LGBT persons, and a massive environmental cataclysm in the Gulf of Mexico–and the Archbishop of Canterbury is worried about a woman’s hat?
In case the Church of England hasn’t noticed, this is why people are rejecting Christianity. It isn’t because some Christians chose women to lead their churches, ask questions about traditional renderings of theology and the Bible, doubt God’s existence, or want their gay and lesbian friends and relatives to be part of their church communities. Canterbury, please know that western people are rejecting Christianity because–as noted in a recent survey of young Americans–Christians are “out of touch with reality.”
Quick observation, D. The Catholics are rocking, what, a billion and change worldwide? Pentecostal numbers are way up pretty much everywhere. So I don’t think people are “rejecting Christianity” as much as they are rejecting weak, spineless, quasi-secular imitations of Christianity.
The Episcopalians, say.
Here’s the problem I have, D. The Episcopal Organization is pretty much everything the modern young person could want. They ordain women, they don’t seriously believe much of anything and they’re wildly enthusiastic about homosexuals to the point of basically allowing them to run the place.
Yet TEO has been hemorrhaging members for at least the last 30 years and their decline has picked up dramatically since, oh, 2003, give or take. You’d think Episcopal barns would be bursting at the seams with young people and liberals and people who “reject Christianity” and gays and stuff. But they’re not. What up with that?
John Chilton thinks he’s found a “Gotcha!” moment. Frand Griswold preached at Southwark in 2006 and Frank got to wear his pointy hat. SEXISM!!
Ordinarily it would not be news that in 2006 the Most Rev. Frank Griswold, then presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church USA wore his mitre at Southwark Cathedral. But these are not ordinary times.
Two things. Frank’s better than Kate, everybody knows that. And at the time Frank wore his pointy hat, Kate had not even been elected and TEO had not yet flipped off the Anglican Communion a second time.
Here’s something the Episcopal left needs to remember. Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury. Katharine Jefferts Schori is not.
Spend the last seven to twelve years arrogantly acting as if the Anglican Communion wasn’t there and you have no right to be shocked or surprised if the Anglican Communion suddently reasserts itself. Should Rowan Williams have simply waved Kate through and said nothing at all about her chapeau?
I’ll listen to that argument. What I won’t listen to is the assertion that it should automatically have happened in this case. Because Katharine Jefferts Schori is the very last person in the entire Anglican world who should expect any kind of favor at all from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
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