Episcoptrivia

I’m way behind in my reporting on Goings-On in the Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church (for which tardiness I’m sure some of you have been thankful).  But here’s a quick recap of some recent, interesting posts.

1. True believers can be a wonderful thing.  They can also be something to be really scared about.  “The most dangerous people in the world are those who are absolutely convinced of their own moral virtue and innocence. It is not the scoundrel who is responsible for the darkest moral evil in the world, but the person who is assured of his or her own virtue.”
2. Fr Jake and a fine article on why it’s every Episcopalian’s right to leave the church, but nobody’s right to take church property with them.
3. Which leads to what’s going on down at Grace & St Stephens in the Springs?  Dueling lawyers, natch, arguing about how recent California rulings may affect the case down there — though claims of property independence by parish schismatics may be less than well-founded.  And there are signs the schismatics are aware the law isn’t on their side.  “The Episcopal congregation’s June 20 news release included a screen shot from the Grace Church and St. Stephen’s Parish website which was headed with a plea for people to ‘please make a donation to help us establish a new legal precedent and overturn the Colorado Mott [sic] decision that is used as the basis for differing [sic] to hierarchal [sic] structures.’ The website includes a link to PayPal, an online credit-card payment system.  On June 21 the same website contains this request: ‘please help us establish new legal precedent to preserve parish buildings for the purposes and faith for which they were intended. Our eyes are on you — 2 Chronicles 20:12.'”
4. And Rwanda won’t be attending Lambeth.  I don’t know — I’ve always found the “Well, if you invite that person then I won’t come, so choose one or the other of us” crowd to be, at best, rude, and unintentionally self-fulfilling of their intent to make people choose one way or the other.

Yeah, there’s more — in fact, I had a whole draft article written up before our vacation some weeks ago — but I’d rather leave with (gasp) an excerpt from this past Sunday’s Gospel:

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.
— Luke 9:51-56 (NIV)

Would that all of us (myself included) would show such tolerance of those who disagree with us.