"Sadly, I have come to much the same conclusion though I will note that there are many of the faithful still in that church. Some are acutely aware of what is going on and fight on, some remain in the dark."
The one thing that continues to amaze me is the lack of interest in this whole issue on the part of many lifelong Episcopalian friends, people who are still attending church regularly. The pressure not to even discuss the problem is intense. As long as they are "happy in my own parish" many seem oblivious to this whole controversy. The idea of actually leaving is not on the radar screen. I've never been able to decide if all this is just "secularism" in disguise (in other words, a completely lack of interest in "religion" except as a "social" thing), or if the topic is so contentious that these normally polite foks just want to avoid discussing it altogether for fear of being perceived as loudmouths or "troublemakers." From reading these boards you'd think that all lay Episcopalians are caught up in this. Not so. Many appear to be quite apathetic. And the folks at the top know that, and are counting upon it to sustain the "new thing" until it is just a basic, unspoken reality.
ECUSA has been very parish-oriented for decades. If your own parish is in pretty good shape and you have a decent rector, you can ignore what's going on at 815 and the House of Bishops. And so long as your own bishop isn't a screaming lunatic, you can ignore the diocese as well.
The problem with this thinking is the inevitable "trickle down" from 815, the HOB, and the seminaries. The liberal leaders control the seminaries, they discourage and push out the orthodox, they control who is accepted for ordination, and to a large extent they control the process by which priests are made available and recommended to vestry search committees.
So what inevitably happens is, a happy orthodox parish has a long-time rector grow old and retire. They set out to search for a new rector, find somebody who talks a good game, but after he's installed they discover that he's a loony lib in the mold of Robinson and the other heretics at 815. And that's when the excrement hits the rotating ventilation device.
It's what happened to our former parish.