More Musings for Sore Crusty Eyes

I'm having a hard time getting worked up over the Archbishop's latest move to marginalize the Episcopal Church. It's not like we didn't see it coming for the last 30 years. I'm not particularly inclined to read the Archbishop's mind and motivations. To me it is clear that institutional integrity trumps all in his mind. He sees holding together the Church of England and the Anglican Communion as his primary duty above all else, and so he sends the problem child who dares challenge him and defy him openly to her room. We saw his priorities when he sold out Jeffrey John. The end of the Anglican Communion was a fait accompli when the primates of other churches snubbed our Presiding Bishop at the altar at Dromantine and at Dar es Salaam. I think Mark Harris at Preludium has a point when he says that the Episcopal Church's real unforgivable sin was to elect a woman as Primate, compelling other female hostile primates to accept her as an equal, and disrupting any number of unspoken agreements among several gentlemen's clubs. In the end, the controversies over the elections of Gene Robinson and Mary Glasspool to the episcopate are the icing on a cake that has been baking since the 1970s and in preparation for decades before that (perhaps since the 1920s).

I suggest we stop tearing our hair out trying to figure out the Archbishop of Canterbury. I frankly don't care if the Archbishop wants to demote us or throw us out or whatever. If anything, we should see this as an opportunity to strengthen our ties abroad on our own initiative, and to cultivate new ties (with the Lutherans, and the Methodists, for example). Perhaps our response to the Archbishop should not be a boycott of funds, but opening an Episcopal church down the street from Lambeth Palace. Perhaps we should be out there selling our vision of church as something other than a gentleman's club and a billy club to the rest of the world. I think the rest of the world would be very receptive to the idea of the Church as something other than an exclusive club of the saved for members only. The Bible would probably be better served if someone somewhere presented it as something other than a contract and a cudgel. Why not us?
The Episcopal Church was around long before the Anglican Communion, and it will still be around long after the Anglican Communion. Archbishops come and go, and we have none in the Episcopal Church, and there are none to whom we answer.


My infected eyes are recovering slowly. I'm having a devil of a time trying to contact this eye and ear hospital on Manhattan. The antibiotic seems to be working, but slowly. I'm able to function now, but sometimes the pain turns to almost intolerable itching. I hope to be fully recovered by the end of the week.

UPDATE:

Colin Coward and Inclusive Church urges the Episcopal Church not to go gently into that good night. They urge us not to accept dismissals of our delegates, disinvitations to important Communion councils, and not to agree to any demotion in our status in the Communion. He urges us to actively resist rather than to politely accept.