It’s been said of the US and its allies that we are well-prepared for war. The problem is that it’s always the last war that we’re prepared to fight. While I have no opinion on the accuracy of that conclusion, one thing is clear: When it comes to COVID, Episcopal churches are fighting the last war. Context Before… Read More »
A hot topic in evangelical circles these days is deconstruction. Typically the term refers to the path people take once they discover they are in an abusive church. Or when they have experienced abuse of any form in church. Let’s be clear: Abuse occurs in every faith community. Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that hierarchical churches may be more… Read More »
As some know, there is a Title IV case publicly under way in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. Title IV is the church canon that establishes standards for clergy discipline. The case is noteworthy and curious for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it illustrates just how badly Title IV is implemented in… Read More »
It’s hardly news that the Episcopal Church is dying. But what is news is the numbers in the recently released results of the annual parochial report. Not because they confirm that the denomination is dying, but because they are so bad. Like Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, rivers of blood, plagues of locusts bad. Things begin with a… Read More »
The Blue Book, the three-volume mountain of paper that comes out in advance of every General Convention of the Episcopal Church, is here. And leaving aside the environment destruction it has wrought upon our forests, it’s a doozy, primarily for what it doesn’t say. Coming in at a whopping 1193 pages, the compendium has many sections that, despite… Read More »
The past 18 months have been rough, but for the Episcopal Church, things are about to get worse. Specifically, the results of the annual parochial reports are about to come out, and they won’t be pretty. And that’s not the worst of it—folks who left the church during the pandemic by and large won’t be back. Nor is… Read More »
Not long ago, the Episcopal church launched an audit of race and racial reconciliation in the church. The resulting report was damning, utterly expected, and something the church desperately needed to hear. And while the church, in true TEC fashion, lumbers along in sharing the remarkably unremarkable results, it misses the larger points. These include: The fact that… Read More »
Title IV is the canonical framework for clergy discipline in the Episcopal Church. And while it’s constantly being tweaked and re-tweaked, there is a fundamental problem with Title IV. Simply put, the problem is that it does not fully appreciate the importance of disclosure and truth-telling, and leaves victims of clergy abuse open to retaliation. That is the… Read More »
The following is reprinted with permission from my dear friend Dee Parsons’ blog, The Wartburg Watch. The piece was written by Wade Burleson and can be found here. As someone who experienced firsthand an effort by the Episcopal Church to get me to sign an NDA, the article is spot on. Any church that requests one is morally bankrupt, and… Read More »
One of the givens of change management is that conflict is inevitable in a declining organization. With the Episcopal church now in a state of precipitous decline in almost every aspect of its fortunes, it seems that there is a rapidly increasing level of infighting, bad behavior, bullying, and more within every level of the church. With that… Read More »
