Linda Watt, who retired as chief operating officer of the Episcopal Church earlier this year commented on our earlier item examining various way to cut the “overhead” of the Episcopal Church. We thought her remarks were substantial enough to merit their own entry.
At one time or another, we all experience insincere apologies, and it doesn’t make anyone feel better to receive one. Since an apology is critical to the repentance process, an insincere apology does not bode well for true repentance.
But is Constantinianism entirely wrongheaded? Don’t Christians want people in power to embrace Christianity and Christian values? Is it a bad thing if they do? Is it impossible or meaningless for them to try?
“She volunteered mentally and physically to save God’s creation through her conservation efforts. She gave many trees to our church to plant. When [we] see these trees growing well, we remember her”
The only oxen gored–by name–in Bishop Sauls’ proposal are the General Convention and interim bodies as currently configured. I think it is worth expanding the conversation for two reasons: 1) to arrive at the best solution, and 2) to make sure that everyone likely to be making decisions on this matter demonstrates their good intentions by putting their self-interest at risk.
How do we know what is the will of God? How can we give priority to God’s will rather than to our self-centered motivation?
In 2005 about 43% of congregations reported high spiritual vitality and 5 years later this has dropped to 28%.
If someone were to ask me to sum up the entire theme of the Bible in a single sentence, my answer would be, “The Bible is a story of humanity constantly searching for a place with God that they can call home.”