The Episcopal Church and the Protestant mainline in America today may be going through a normal “paschal pattern” — a dying and a rising — that all churches go through, said Bishop Frank T. Griswold. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.
“There’s an arrogance and a self-confidence that is shattered by things falling apart,” said Griswold, former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. But beneath the church’s many challenges is an invitation to deeper wisdom, a hidden grace that leads to new insight, wisdom and resurrection.
“To use an image from the Old Testament, maybe this is the desert time,” Griswold said. “The desert was a period of purification and self-knowledge in order that they were prepared to enter the promised land.”
Or, perhaps it’s an Exile until such time as there is a repentance and turning again unto the Lord.
I think I can see what Frank Griswold was trying to say when he stated the following in the interview but I still find it more than a little disturbing. [blockquote] When you’re a parish pastor, you’re the star and the focal point. When you’re a bishop, your role is to help the parish clergy be the stars. Your greatest joy is the local priest who is really a great parish priest. No one may thank you for helping that person become the most effective priest they can be, but that’s your role. [/blockquote]. As a parish priest I am thankful for bishops who see it as part of their role to help priests become more effective. But if that means that the parish priest becomes ‘the star and focal point’ then we have seriously missed the point of what being a parish priest is all about. First and foremost, it’s not about us. I must decrease and he (ie Jesus) must increase.
Well we have been wandering around lost for forty years.
I believe Naughton of The Lead called this theologizing a problem rather than addressing it. A rare moment of agreement. Griswold always gave some platonizing gloss on reality as though it would be profound. Instead, it just seemed avoiding reality. The kind the thing the prophets railed against.