Episcopalians appear not to value the theological tradition of the world church through the ages. Headstrong, believing themselves to be on the cutting edge of radically new Providential developments, they go their own "prophetic" way in First-World isolation, unilaterally and infallably, assuming that the backward, less enlightened peoples of the world will eventually see the light and fall in line behind them.

"Wait without hope," wrote TS Eliot, "for hope would be hope for the wrong thing." If you frame Easter in the terms of the perceived problem, you belittle it. Whether you think in terms of pie in the sky (at best a thoroughly subChristian concept) or a better society, all you get is a happy ending after a sad or sinful story.

The financial outlook of the ELCA is not much better. They learned from ECUSA’s mistake just a few weeks earlier, though. The one thing that large corporations know how to do is make the books look good. Finances are mostly what you present for public consumption. Enron knew how to do this well. You shift some things around, and voila! your books are looking pretty good.

It is clear, as I work through what are now formal accusations against Me and about which you have been informed in a letter from the diocese, That there is nothing about these allegations that cannot be reasonably understood when all, not just some, of the facts are available. It is my own and the vestry's intention to share with the congregation all the facts, and we are confident that the operation of our church and my participation in parish decisions will be fully exonerated.