Dr. Radner’s Diagnosis: How to Kill a Christian Church in Four Easy Steps

from Stand Firm by A. S. Haley 

The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner of the Anglican Communion Institute sums things up nicely for the forthcoming General Convention. “Keep it up,” he says, “and you will have ecclesiocide on your hands.” He offers them anamicus brief, at no charge, which begins with his Four Easy Steps:

1. Define the Gospel of Christ in terms of the smallest social unit and interest possible (e.g. homosexuals and their right to sexual affirmation)
2. Define the episcopacy according to the smallest unit possible (e.g. New Hampshire and its gay bishop)
3.Drive out anybody who has a larger vision – traditional Christians, evangelicals, Bible-readers, people who study Christian lives and thought earlier than 1968 and farther afield than NY and LA.
4. Spend as much money as you can doing this instead of anything else and say this is “mission”.
Crudely stereotyped? Well, let’s admit to facts: The Episcopal Church is dying ...

After running through all the unarguable evidence of those steps having been taken over the last twenty or so years, he comes to the picture ECUSA presents today:

And let’s not forget the present: General Convention convenes with a slew of more traditional bishops officially under misconduct investigations over arguing on behalf of an alternative interpretation of TEC’s Constitution; a massive exodus of traditional Episcopalians underway; a theological education system in shambles; and a budget and budgetary process marked by the mutual recriminations of the church’s leadership elite….

Keep it up, General Convention, keep it up. Adopt those rites for SSB’s in violation of your Constitution; make provision for transgendered candidates for ordination; and allocate $2 million to planting even more churches like the ones that are already doing so well for you.
Cynicism of course cannot help, but my—is it ever bracing. Read the whole thing (it’s very brief, even for anamicus).