Episcopalians from around the country gathered here this week for their church's 77th triennial General Convention, which ended Thursday. Although other Protestant denominations have national governing councils, the Episcopal Church's triennial gathering stands apart. For starters, it's one of the world's largest such legislative entities, with more than 1,000 members.Read the rest here.
General Convention is also notable for its sheer ostentation and carnival atmosphere. For seven straight nights, lavish cocktail parties spilled into pricey steakhouses, where bishops could use their diocesan funds to order bottles of the finest wines.
During the day, legislators in the lower chamber, the House of Deputies, and the upper chamber, the House of Bishops, discussed such weighty topics as whether to develop funeral rites for dogs and cats, and whether to ratify resolutions condemning genetically modified foods. Both were approved by a vote, along with a resolution to "dismantle the effects of the doctrine of discovery," in effect an apology to Native Americans for exposing them to Christianity.
But the party may be over for the Episcopal Church, and so, probably, its experiment with democratic governance. Among the pieces of legislation that came before their convention was a resolution calling for a task force to study transforming the event into a unicameral—that is, a one-house—body. On Wednesday, a resolution to "re-imagine" the church's governing body passed unanimously.
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And this is why I have submitted a portfolio to the Ordinariate...
ReplyDeleteGod bless you on your journey, Father!
ReplyDeleteI found the resolution about "re-imagining" the Church to be particularly laughable because everyone is complaining about the out of touch hierarchy and bureaucracy at the 815 headquarters in New York and all that. And what do they do to remedy that? They pass a resolution to recommend a taskforce to create yet another bureaucracy. You can't make this stuff up.
ReplyDeleteDear Archer, I shall be praying for you. Although I think this is the wisest path I shall ask you what many others may wonder; have you considered Orthodoxy more especially Western Rite Orthodoxy? I will now place your blog in the ORDINARIATE FOLDER.
ReplyDeleteChris Johnson's caricature of the Episcofailian Church isn't a caricature....
ReplyDeleteThere is perhaps some small kernel of truth in the article, but there is so much exaggeration and flat-out untruth that in the end the effect is just to make the author's side look stupid.
ReplyDeleteThere is much to bewail within Episcopalinanism without some of the wild inaccruacies of this article. Might there be a Latin scolar here who can translate this for me? "Within the Anglican (or Episcopal) Church there is no salvation."
ReplyDeleteNikolaus