Just before Holy Week, Bishop Chris Epting floated on Twitter the idea that the Episcopal Church should sell its headquarters at 815 Second Avenue in New York and move into the vacant College of Preachers complex at Washington National Cathedral. When I replied that I thought the idea was intriguing, he asked if I would float it on Episcopal Cafe.
So consider it floated.
I am not sure that the College of Preachers can be transformed into modern offices, and I don’t think it could accommodate a staff of the size currently housed at 815. But it got me wondering not only what people made of this particular suggestion, but whether they had other locations to recommend.
I can hear this systematic thinkers among us saying that this discussion puts the pony ahead of the hay wagon (as we used to say in my native Scranton, where we had neither ponys nor hay wagons, and so didn’t really know what we were talking about) and that we need to make sense of what sorts of tasks we want the general church to perform, and what sorts of functions are best left at the diocesan and parish levels before moving people all about the country.
Fair enough. But sometimes the existence of an attractive alternative to the status quo stimulates enthusiasm. And we could all use a shot of that.