Posted on 01/24/2005 7:12:58 AM PST by sionnsar
“The real danger for her ministry is that there is already an ‘Our Savior Nedi Rivera’ complex in the diocese: I’ve already heard folk say that the answer to some problems is ‘Nedi will be here soon,’ ” one prominent Episcopal pastor privately mused.
The Diocese of Olympia covers Western Washington from Canada to the Columbia.
As the region gained 2 million new residents in the past 25 years, its population of Episcopalians – now about 33,000 – has stagnated and even slightly declined.
More than 30 congregations are behind in diocesan assessments. Two parishes left the Episcopal Church altogether after elevation of a non-celibate gay, V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. Even the bishop’s annual golf tournament was canceled for want of players.
The ebullient Rivera is well aware of her church’s problems.
“We have not taken seriously what we have to offer the world,” she said in an interview. “It doesn’t just happen that 2 million people move into a state, buy a house and then ask, ‘Where do I go to church?’
[There may not be much in this story for those on the list not in Western Washington, but it really highlights the state of ECUSA's Diocese of Olympia here. When I moved here from the Diocese of El Camino Real (named in the story) over twenty years ago, it was already in bad shape. --sionnsar]
< . . ./tinfoil hat (only joking) . . . >
St. Mark's Cathedral -- ugh. An ugly structure. (Though great acoustics for a solo piper -- I piped a friend's memorial there once.)
"“It doesn’t just happen that 2 million people move into a state, buy a house and then ask, ‘Where do I go to church?’"
Sure it does!
It always helps to be ebullient in the face of difficulty. //sarcasm off//
First description for this word in Merriam-Webster is boiling, agitated.
The paternal Episcopalian side of my family knows her father, Bishop Rivera, very well. Nedi's aunt was the best language (Spanish) teacher I ever had. I believe they are of Puerto Rican descent.
Is there some way would could get an addition to the Windsor Report stating that using terms like "wholearchy" is a grave affront to Anglican unity?
Um, if I could I'd petition for an addendum that declared that terms such as "wholearchy" are not merely an affront, they're a grave threat to Anglican unity!
But then again, I'd be asking for everything to be said in plain and simple English (either modern or Elizabethan*), and that seems to run counter to, um, my observations of Anglicanism -- or at least some corners of same.
[*Latter preferred of course, but with modern sentence structures. *\;-) It's sometimes a major effort to grasp and chart some of the paragraph-long sentences in the Epistles, but necessary to inflecting them when reading aloud so the congregation will readily follow what's being said, just by listening. If I lose them, they lose the lesson. I'm thoroughly dead set against the School of Monotone Recitational Epistolators (readers), one of the banes of my growing up in the Episcopal church.]
Looks to me like they've created a "HOLEarchy", a deep, black, bottomless HOLEarchy!
When the whole farce about the selection of a new Bishop Assisting began, I predicted that Mizz Nedi was the slam-dunk favorite. Warner is so predictable. In no particular order, he prefers his clergy to be: female or homosexual or Hispanic. Nothing else really matters. These traits trump any shortcomings in theology, church doctrine, or moral fiber. In Nedi he hit the Daily Double & although she's straight, she hails from the homosexual Mecca - San Francisco - & is likely "sympathetic" to the homosexual agenda that is presently gutting ECUSA.
In a Skagit County ordination two years ago Warner hit the Trifecta...the Rev. Jo Beecher is a lesbian living in a "committed relationship" with a Hispanic woman & their 2 adopted children. Although Mizz Beecher is not racially Hispanic, she lived in Central America as a child & is fluent in Spanish. She gets bonus points for having a Hispanic same-sex "partner," of course. Mizz Beecher has been charged with building a new Hispanic Ministry in Skagit County & was given a fat Diocesan grant to do just that. This, in spite of the fact that Barna Research claims that less than 1% of the Hispanic population in the U.S. attends a Baptist or mainline Protestant Church (which includes the Episcopal Church). The vast majority (if they attend church at all) are Roman Catholic, according to Barna. Consquently, Mizz Beecher's ministry is focused on the migrant farmworkers who, like the bums & vagrants at the Union Gospel Mission in downtown Seattle, will endure a bit of preaching from a different church group every day of the week - so long as it comes along with a charitable handout. Don't get me wrong. I'm totally in favor of the Church engaging in purely charitable forms of outreach. But let's be honest about it & not refer to it as church planting or saving souls. I am not aware of a single Baptism having been performed by the Vicar of La Eglesia de la Ressurection over the past two years.
As a side note: Mizz Nedi replaces the retiring Bishop Assisting, Bp. Sanford "Sandy" Hampton, who is quite willing to sacrifice the plain meaning of scripture & the historical doctrine of the Anglican faith for the comfort of his lesbian grand-daughter. It should come as no surprise that he voted in favor of Vicky Gene's consecration as Bishop.
Ouch. I had left ECUSA before Warner became bishop (at least I vaguely recall reading something about his installation years ago -- in the late 80s, was it?), but I did not know it had become this bad.
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