KJS Coverage
The Chicago Tribune's is here: it seems to be behind the dumb subscriber firewall, which is maybe a good thing because it's pretty giddy. Summary: she's a woman, she's a woman, she's a woman, sexist pigs burn in hell, she's a woman, she's a woman. I suspect the influence of a press kit. Does anyone know? In the Today interview, KJS (sorry, finger's tired) talked about the dissent being "internal," and the same theme is struck in this article by Margaret Rose. And then there's this quote, truly scary if accurate, from Ian Douglas: he "likens the start of her tenure to 'a new Pentecost,' referring to the moment described in the New Testament when the church opened to different languages and ethnicities." Later, he is quoted: "We are in this church on an irreversible trajectory where there are more voices and more differences trying to live together in a greater understanding of the body of Christ than we've ever witnessed in the history of the church." I wonder if we're seeing the outline of the spin for the next nine years: opposition to KJS is fatally marred with "genderism" (is that a word?), and full inclusion of everyone is a mandate of the Spirit on par with Pentecost. Dissent is over trivial "internal matters" that distract the church from its mission of looking at the needs of the world. This is a spin that will go over very well in mass media. In a culture where the accepted view of the Bible is Bart Ehrman's, not Tom Wright's, appeals to Biblical Authority or Church Tradition will appear fusty. A rhetoric that might well work would be to say, loudly, that charges of genderism are nothing but politically charged efforts to marginalize serious issues.
What next? My personal and based-on-guesswork opinion is, a series of increasingly harsh measures against the Rebel Alliance in which KJS does not directly appear, while she herself keeps talking about "accompanying," "living together," and "distracting internal issues." I don't think there is a long term goal to lull the Anglican Communion to sleep - that's a bonus, if it happens. I think the long term goal is to have complete control of the US church by hook or crook and no matter what it does to membership rosters, and then to use the financial resources (still considerable) to establish a New Model Inclusive Welcoming Church. We'll all have to watch actions, not words. KJS will be like her predecessor: words are for confusion and distraction.
