One of the things that I see when talking with slightly-left-of-center and even-more-left-of-center Episcopalians is that they do not yet understand how traditional Episcopalians make their decisions to stay or go. Traditional Episcopalians have, I think we can all grant, taken some huge blows. Every three years, the General Convention makes sure to grind the point home further that on a national level the church has no interest in the values and theology of traditionalists. And every six months or so, we have some national news item that further drives that point home — just last week, for instance, the election of a non-celibate lesbian bishop. The effects of that news are now rippling through TEC, and some traditional Episcopalians will throw up their hands and decide to leave their parish, their diocese, and TEC as a whole. They’ll give up — it was one last blow that did them in.
“One of the things that I see when talking with slightly-left-of-center and even-more-left-of-center Episcopalians is that they do not yet understand how traditional Episcopalians make their decisions to stay or go.”
“…some traditional Episcopalians will throw up their hands and decide to leave their parish, their diocese, and TEC as a whole…”
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But the “slightly-left-of-center and even-more-left-of-center Episcopalians” seem to have a firm perception of “their” property rights and a ‘vindictive and unforgiving and non-compromising” attitude toward the property rights of “traditional Episcopalians” who “…throw up their hands and decide to leave their parish, their diocese, and TEC as a whole….”
I think this is an important observation that holds true in other churches as well.
Then again, I don’t think the slightly- or even-more-left-of-center folk really give a whit about keeping contrary people or their money. In the end it’s the organization and its credibility that they want.