Episcopal Church

Ephemera, 07/27/23

This starts out interesting and ends in complete and total absurdity. Yes: stop whining on your Discord server, go to your local parish, and say, “If everyone is welcome, then welcome me and people like me.” Uh, no: don’t chase people out of the parish and onto the sidewalk while screaming, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Seriously, people. The return of orthodoxy to the Episcopal Church will depend upon the young gay priests who are right now demanding it, and who know what it actually means to be credally orthodox. (Hint: Leviticus 18 and its admonition against having sex with women while they are menstruating didn’t make the final cut on any of the creeds.)

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“When I go to a great bookstore, which, to me, is like a cathedral, I feel the need to tithe.” Sigh, me too. (Chris Vognar)

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“We eggheads used to understand that art is the best hope we have in this low world for a truly autonomous sphere, and that this autonomy is nowhere pushed further than in the productions of the avant-garde. Accordingly, avant-garde artists rejected mass entertainments, or at least did not engage with them as if they were the best thing on offer … In fact the sorry truth is that they may well be the best thing on offer, simply because the forces that produced them have absolutely bulldozed the last surviving hopes for art as a sphere of autonomous creation.” (Justin Smith-Ruiu; used to be Justin E. H. Smith, not exactly sure what happened there) 

Ephemera, 06/27/23

At Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok makes some valid and interesting points as to why the modern “leisure class” feels so “harried.” But I think it’s okay to acknowledge that something has produced both good and bad effects, and to seek to find ways to mitigate the bad. This post sounds like the only response is to “make different choices” (eg, read books instead of multitasking!) without acknowledging that the culture makes this more difficult than it should be. Not that I have any solutions to offer other than, well, make different choices.

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The split over same-sex marriage in the Episcopal Church was sad and tragic. I wasn’t part of the church at the time and have only read about it. Personally I am glad that I am able to worship in a parish that both supports me in my marriage and remains committed to orthodox faith in the Creeds, but I would have no issue sharing the pews with those who disagree (about my marriage; less so the Creeds). I think that Bishop Daniel Martins, in his ruminating memoir of the 2003 General Convention, is correct to grieve what happened, but his graciousness toward his ideological allies does not seem to extend toward those with whom he disagrees. There was no right “side” in this fight, no victors, no spoils.

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“It’s time to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.  It’s time to seek the good of the city in which we live as pilgrims. It’s time to preach the Gospel in season and out of season. All these metaphors of disaster are just distractions from our undramatic daily calling. ‘The rest is not our business.’” – Alan Jacobs