New bishops in the Episcopal Church should be vetted for their political orthodoxy, a paper released by the House of Bishops’ Standing Committee on Pastoral Development has proposed. The call for conformity came in a 29 April 2013 letter released under the signature of the Rt. Rev. James Waggoner, Jr., Bishop of Spokane and was sent to the church’s bishops and standing committees.
However some of the questions were “so egregious” and so “thin in its substance as to be silly”. Dr. Ephraim Radner of the Anglican Communion Institute told Anglican Ink.
In his covering letter Bishop Waggoner wrote the committee had noticed “two extremes” in recent years of “intense scrutiny” and “uninformed consent” in the consent process for newly elected bishops. The ten questions offered by the committee were designed “to be an additional resource in your decision-making process.”
BRAVO to George Conger for calling attention to this latest outrage to emerge from within the leadership of TEC. And Kudos likewise to ACI’s Ephraim Radner and Philip Turner for bluntly calling a spade a spade. The ACI has often been more tactful and diplomatic in the past, so it’s nice to see them speaking out more frankly.
In particular, Dr. Turner’s pithy comment at the end reminded me of an unforgettable remark made to me by my esteemed mentor and dissertation supervisor, Jack Dean Kingsbury. His devastating critique of how illiberal hardcore liberal activists can be was this withering observation:
“[i]David, I’ve seen up close the Fundamentalism of the Right and the Fundamentalism of the Left. And believe me, the Fundamentalism of the Left is worse![/i]”
So true.
David Handy+
A few years ago, this post would have had many of us up in arms, now most of us yawn. Too predictable, but still sad.
Surprising to see political orthodoxy and pastoral development in the same sentence. Not a typical juxtaposition!
Excluding those whose views differ from theirs would be closer to the truth.