Portrayed historically as the spiritual home of the well-to-do, it has produced 21 presidents and a batch of Supreme Court justices.
Yet, Bishop Jefferts Schori said, the Hispanic mother and father from California who were recently featured in an advertisement broadcast on a digital billboard in Manhattan’s Times Square are more representative of today’s church.
She said the American church is like a large spiritual umbrella and she wants to open it up further to welcome more.
“Our strength is diversity and that drives some crazy,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said. “We might struggle with the boundaries that define us as a church but we have to be welcoming of new groups. We cannot be monochromatic.”
“’Our strength is diversity and that drives some crazy,’ Bishop Jefferts Schori said.”
I suspect that what turns off many of us is not the welcoming principle embedded in the first part of this sentence but the condescending, self-righteous, and manifestly defensive tone of the second part.
I can think of ways of wording this statement which would have been more becoming of a true leader, one who is deeply grounded and authentically inclusive.
21 Presidents? My count is 11.
“Our strength is diversity and that drives some crazy,†Bishop Jefferts Schori said. “We might struggle with the boundaries that define us as a church but we have to be welcoming of new groups. We cannot be monochromatic.â€
Yeah, Buddhists and Muslims are also welcome to make membership, as a Christian church is too “monochromatic”…and those Biblical texts are so culturally-conditioned that they should be tossed out or ignored. Heck, based on this reasoning, we can even welcome Satanists. They’re just people with a different perspective on the “same stuff”.
Her definition of diversity–“All welcome, except traditional Christians”. This was demonstrated by her engineering of +Duncan’s ouster.
John Adams had it right, whether it’s government or Church–“Great statesmen will not always be at the helm”.
Phil, are you counting Theodore Roosevelt? I understand that his biographers are divided on whether he was Dutch Reformed or Episcopal.
If you count TR, you get 13, which makes TEC the “leading denomination” of the Presidents.
Episcopal presidents:
Washington
Jefferson
Madison
Monroe
Harrison
Taylor
Tyler
Pierce
Arthur
T.Roosevelt
F. Roosevelt
Ford
HW Bush
Living the Gospel, huh?
Well, I will if you will.
#1–That’s how she thinks. The problem isn’t bad theology and poor leadership, the problem is all those conservative racists.
[blockquote] “Our strength is diversity and that drives some crazy,†Bishop Jefferts Schori said.[/blockquote] Diversity does not drive true believers crazy, but I have to admit that Bishop Jefferts Schori does have a unique way of misrepresenting Christianity and the Episcopal Church that seems to be calculated to drive true believers crazy.
Don’t you just love the quotes about how church buildings?
[/i “The idea is to live out the mission of Jesus in the workplace, in the family, and with friendships,†said Bishop Jefferts Schori during an interview with the Telegram & Gazette. “The church building helps out, but it’s not the mission.†]
or here:
But she said congregants should be more concerned about what Episcopalians are all about spiritually rather than worrying about the capital needs of their parishes. “(Church) buildings are gifts that are to be used,†she said. “We have to remember that Jesus didn’t come to earth to build institutions. He came to help others.â€
So, why all the lawsuits about the property that TEC couldn’t possibly fill even if TEC won the cases? I’m so confused. I thought TEC’s mission WAS all about the property, since there is no room in the budget for frivolity like evangelism, etc.?
This speech continues to confuse the difference between cultural pluralism (different languages, ethnic groups and cuisines) and what some have called “spiritual pluralism” (different worldviews, religions, ideologies, or philosophies). While embracing the former is a good thing, embracing the latter (except in the sense of mere tolerance of disagreement) is incoherent. No one, including KJS, believes that “spiritual pluralism” is a good thing in itself. No one believes that the world would be a better place if everyone else disagreed with one’s most firmly held beliefs. KJS herself does not believe that the world would be a better place if everyone else believed that same-sex blessings should be prohibited. Rather, KJS believes that same-sex blessings are a good thing, should be embraced by the church, and that those who disagree with her on this are wrong, and she, and those who agree with her, have acted accordingly.
Honesty, at least, would demand that one admit that there is real and substantive disagreement, rather than obscuring the real issue by pretending that the disagreement has to do with whether or not the church has room for people with different accents, skin pigmentation, clothing styles, economic levels, or cuisine preferences.
Kevin, I wasn’t counting either Jefferson or TR. Even 13 is significantly less then the 21 mentioned in the article. As an interesting demographic side note, what are the chances that there will ever be another Episcopal POTUS?
RE: “Our strength is diversity and that drives some crazy . . . ”
Mmmm.
Not really.
Unless you’re defining “drives crazy” as “people who resist my Glorious Leadership.” If *that’s* the case then yes, “diversity” will “drive some crazy.”
But look at what this reveals [as if we didn’t know it already] about KJS — look at the anger behind the statement of “Our strength is diversity and that drives some crazy . . . ”
She just can’t *stand* the fact that there are people out there in TEC who don’t support her particular gospel.
I think the anger that fuels many of her public comments is one of the little-noted aspects of KJS. It’s why I’ve always understood that “negotiations” would be fruitless with her. Any cries of “but this makes no sense — why is she spending so much money to win Pyrrhic victories” don’t take into account the emotion fueling the decisions.
[blockquote]She also said today’s American Episcopal Church is radically different from what it once was. [/blockquote]
Says it all.
Phil Swain: Well, the historical record does not present a favorable trajectory:
1789-1800 1 (but, you have to admit…also 100%!)
1800-1850: 7
1851-1900: 1
1901-1950: 2
1951-2000: 2
2000- 0
When Schori says that our focus should be on action rather than dogma I think she’s expressing the Marxist idea of praxis preceding belief. We don’t argue about it, we just make the world into our own image. She’s anti-essentialist. Schori has drunk deeply from the liberation theologies. She could use a Pope Witt to set her straight.
No. 11: “RE: ‘Our strength is diversity and that drives some crazy . . . ‘
Mmmm. Not really. Unless you’re defining ‘drives crazy’….”
Yes. And–another irony–unless you’re defining “diversity,” also, in a highly stipulative manner. In reality, the more “diverse” TEC has insisted on being, the less and less truly diverse it becomes.
At what point does the lead statistician for TECUSA make a comment regarding her claim for denominational diversity? Her claim, if consistent with her illustration of WASP elite changed in representation to hispanic middle class or lower socio-economically, just doesn’t jive.
On the other contention, maybe she was counting 21 to include both presidents and justices. How many Episcopalian justices were/are there?
The dangerous thing about KJS is that she actually [i]believes[/i] her own ‘theology,’ and she’s actively trying to sell it to others.
Father Eaton (16)–that number would be much greater than 21. I once looked up the figures. From the institution of the Court until Sandra Day O’Connor retired, there had been at least one Episcopalian on the Court for all but fifteen months, in the aggregate.
I’m not counting Clarence Thomas, since he became Roman at the time of his second marriage, although he was Episcopal when he went on the bench. He replaced another Episcopalian, Thurgood Marshall.
Associate Justice Robert Jackson, the chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg, was also a Churchman.
As a point of trivia, Associate Justice Owen Roberts, who was put on the bench by Hoover, and retired in 1945, was the first lay President of the House of Deputies (elected, I believe, at a GC in 1946)
As clueless as ever…
I once belonged to the Dio of W Mass, which was somewhat an island of sanity in the midst of New England’s madness. No longer, I am afraid.
I do just want to ask if it is true that the Episcopal Church’s strength is ethnic diversity. The latino population of the USA is growing. Is the latino proportion of TEC growing at the same rate as the total population or more or less? Can anyone point me to statistics on the ethnic makeup of TEC?
Is ethnic diversity all that matters? What about political, ideological, and theological diversity within a denomination? A case could be made that TEC had more of all that back in about 1965.
“Our strength is diversity and that drives some crazy,â€
I know we should laud psychological insight but don’t most doctors still advise against self diagnosis?
The term “Living the Gospel” is classic confusion of Law and Gospel. Anything to do with how we live is Law. What God does for us is Gospel.
I know the Dio of Western Mass, Bishop Gordon Scruton began his service 12+ years (?) ago well enough, but has had a few too many glasses of the cool aid. He would now have much to discuss with Kathy. Very, very sad. I am no longer TEC, jumped ship, found a good reform church. They even read the Bible.
Good point, trimom. My thoughts exactly when I read the article. Hmmm. someone is telling a “story”!!
From looking at decreased revenue and membership it would look like the umbrella is getting smaller!
Welcoming groups is a liberal agenda. We are called to love people regardless of their group.
#25- I’m so used to looking for nuance, that I couldn’t help but notice the switch from building to mission…and this sermon coming on the heels of the latest verdict re: Dio of SQ. Could she be signaling a willingness to let go of the property without a fight? The emphasis on “Mission Doesn’t Need A Building” would be the graceful cover to the previous “Take No Prisoners” approach currently employed. Or…. maybe I’m reading too much into it……….
We can’t be monochromatic? Ever looked at pictures of the majority of Episcopalians in their enclaves, I mean, churches’ buildings of a a Sunday AM? Diversity in her view is represented by miniscule numbers of non-Caucasians in relation to the whole in these 50 states. Major diversity is best kept in other parts of TEC, in their proper places. That’s the practice however she may promote the hypothesis of non-monochromatism and its attendant heresies promulgated as New Thang Gozpell.
So Statman didn’t help out, and Kirk didn’t jump in with my request for him to do so in comment #16. The following is posted with a pie chart at dfms.org . I believe Kendall posted the graphic, or a link to it previously. The stats that I have bolded are a blatant indication that the PB must be trying to say something else that what she really said about representative ethnic people.
Racial/Ethnic Makeup of Episcopal Congregations
[b]Hispanic/Latino, 1.4%[/b]
Asian/Pacific Islander, 0.6% Multi-Racial, 4.5%
Black or African American, 5.0%
[b]Non-Hispanic White, 87.0%[/b]
Native American, 1.5%
􀂾 The membership of the median Episcopal congregation
was 60% female.