I like stained glass.
One panel looked like RE Lee kneeling in prayer after surrendering. Oh the horror!!!
Episcopalian churches tend to lean heavily liberal, so I’m not surprised. Per Impy’s description, it sounds like the “Confederate iconography” to Robert E. Lee is not so much a pro-Confederate memorial as it a simply a pane of historical events from U.S. history. No doubt the difference is lost on BLM thugs.
(Of course, you got people on “our side” who go nuts upon learning there is a statue of Muhammad at the U.S. Supreme Court building, not realizing that A) It’s not there is “honor” religious prophets but rather to depict a serious of famous “lawgivers” throughout history, and B) Muslims are AGAINST the statue of Muhammad and want it REMOVED, as it is strictly AGAINST the Islamic religion to have visual depictions of religious prophets)
Anyway, back on topic….
IMO, the “National Cathedral” shouldn’t even BE Episcopalian to begin with. It most likely ended up that way because it was grandfathered in... e.g., the dominant church at the time this nation was founded was Anglicianism, so they decided the best way to “honor” the Christian spirit of this new nation would be to build a “National Cathedral” and give it to whichever American church had the most adherents. Today, its pretty silly, since Episcopalism has been on the decline for decades and make up like 1.5% of the U.S. population in the 21st century or so. I supposed it could be worse; imagine if the “National Cathedral” of the United States was United Church of Christ. Rev. Wrighty would have a nice new position after 0bama got elected POTUS!
If it were up to me, I would say the best way to have a “National Cathedral” — and honor the United States character of a nation WITHOUT an official “state church” that was founded on religious liberty for ALL people — would be to have the building be officially “non-denominational”. I would designate that such a church building be SHARED by various religious denominations on a rotating basis, they would have to coordinate in advance and book the building so the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod could use the “National Cathedral” for Ash Wednesday services, the Roman Catholic diocese of D.C. would use the building on Good Friday, the Greek Orthodox community in the beltway area gets it for the Easter Sunday, the Southern Baptists get it on Christmas Day, etc., etc. Due to its spirit as the “national” church, there would be some kind of “tradition” that whatever religion the President is would get the church on inauguration day, and same thing for the Speaker of the House when they have some sort of prayer service for the opening of congress, and so on. Makes sense to me.
Apparently, such a system is known as “simultaneum”, and its very rare in the United States (the only example I found of a church building shared by multiple denominations the Church of the Holy Apostles in Virginia Beach, website is here: https://www.holyapostlesvb.org/), though its rather common in Germany (due to Catholics and Lutherans having about equal numbers and having to tolerate one another in the same cities), and is common in historic pilgrimage sites in the holy land, obviously out of necessity.
Washington National Cathedral IS already used for inaugurations and funerals of various political leaders regardless of their nomination, but it nevertheless remains the “official” headquarters of the Episcopalian Church U.S.A., which means this kooky SJW woman “bishop” has the USA’s “National Church” as HER seat of authority (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariann_Budde) . I find that bizarre, in effect that means we now have a “National Bishop” for ALL Americans despite having NO official “state church” in our country. We need to end the “National Bishop” loophole. ;-)
Anyhoo, I’m Catholic, we have our OWN “National Cathedral”, The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. (https://www.nationalshrine.org/) Ironically, is NOT actually a “Cathedral” (the Catholic bishop of Washington D.C. doesn’t run the church or conduct services there), but it certainly IS comparable to Washington National Cathedral in both size and scope (7,000 sq. ft, compared to WNC’s 7,700 sq ft., and seating capacity of 10,000, compared to only 4,000 for WNC). I attended services there when I was in D.C. in 2013 for the March for Life. If we’re not going to get my proposal of a non-denominational “Simultaneum” National Cathedral, the next best thing would be to simply make the Basilica into America’s NEW National Cathedral. It would be like when they moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. :-)
I don't know if there's anything similar in Washington National Cathedral. If there is, it sounds like its going to go the way of the Robert E. Lee stained glass window pane.