A shot across the bow? / Foot'n Mouth Disease

One of the things I had planned to write about ++KJS was that her importance lay in whether she would make the Anglican realignment easier, or harder. I guess she's made her choice, fulfilling my guess.

Her letter to Bishop Schofield is so abrasive and threatening that, as we parse it, I wonder how much we should consider it as an address to her base? That she will attempt to take drastic action I have no doubt. The notion of ++KJS donning the mantle of the conserver of heritage is so remarkable that I'm suffering badly from cognitive dissonance right now. I feel like a feel like Robbie the Robot in Forbidden Planet when he's asked to do something against his programming; crawly blue sparks have paralyzed my brain!

Among the many, perhaps closely approaching infinite, things that she doesn't get is that many, many people have experienced "extreme spiritual violence" from remaining in TEC. And what does she mean by that? She going to parachute in Episcopal Special Tactical Teams from, say, the Dioceses of Newark and California?

Foot'n Mouth Disease

She's making things difficult, she really is. For ten days or so I've been kicking around an article arguing that it's time to stop following what TEC's Presiding Bish says and just get to work. ++KJS is not the cause, I'd argue, she's the result of decades of filters that reformers and zealots have snapped down. You've got to be - for Prayer Book reform, for WO, against Viet Nam, for civil rights, for abortion (ooo, ugly word, let's call it reproductive rights), for inclusiveness, and on and on. These positions are held as the New Revelation, beyond critique. She's the result of a result of a shift in theological education that avoids anything that might challenge the New Revelation, trivializes our connection with the past, and has nothing but ill-disguised contempt for the saints who have gone before us. So what if, in a battle of wits with the likes of estimable Dr. Witt, she'd be unarmed? She's a result, a product, not the cause of the problem. I was even going to offer a mild defense for the misanthropy she sometimes expresses - she was of the leading edge generation of women moving into the sciences. You would not believe some of the things that gatekeeping, senior men would say and do to the young women who were trying to make their way into fields where no woman had gone before. So, I was going to say, let's not pay too much attention to the product of 50 years of root-and-branch radical deformation. We've got work to do.

But Oh, no. Squiddy had to go off and swallow her leg up to her knee.

Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?

No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.

Say what you will about Frank's vaporings, he wouldn't have managed that combo shot in a million years. She managed to be arrogant and smug at once, the Piskie version of John Kerry. Later today I'll look at what Amy's commenters have to say: I'll wince, but I'll read 'em: think of it as a sort of Anglican cilice. As I write, Stand Firm is just starting to simmer; Christopher, as he would say, goes yard; T19 is getting cranked up.

So I give up. ++KJS is a free fire zone. What do they call it? A target rich environment? Weapons are free, but don't stop praying for her, and don't neglect the work of reconstruction.

BTW, who else has a hunch that when the Pope and the ABC meet, and after the public stuff is over, the two of them will spend most of their time talking theology? It'll be a nice change for both of them.

And another thing, for any Catholic visitors who might drop in: if you want to know what the other side of the Feud is saying, watch What Is God Doing (Bp. Duncan) and read Bp. Iker's convention address.

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