“Radical stability”, huh? ‘We haven’t gotten either any bigger or any smaller for the past ten years! Woo-hoo!’ You wild and crazy Missourians! How do you stand the excitement, Christopher? No wonder Archbishop Dolan headed off to New York - he probably wanted a bit of a rest somewhere more peaceful.

I, too, enjoyed the “radical stability” description. If nothing else, them Episcopos is euphemistic geniuses. I know what this clown is talking about because I once experienced “radical stability” myself when my car broke down on a lonely stretch of I-35 at 2 A.M. on a trip from Kansas City to Omaha. I didn’t move any closer to Omaha while stranded, but, Thanks be to the Lord, I didn’t move backward toward Kansas City either. By the way, GWS, if the total population of Missouri increased at all during your counting period then by attaining “radical stability,” you still went backwards, or toward Kansas City in my analogy. Must not have been enough “mission” on your part. Oh yeah, that’s right, had to pay them legal fees, didn’t ya? What a joker!

When the growig parishes finish leaving for greener pastures, “radical stability” will put him in line for some membership trophies.

By the way, he does have a point about the secularized culture; I just wonder what he’s done to counter that. If you’ve accepted the secular cultures beliefs that you have a right to bugger whomever you want, and that your religion doesn’t matter so long as you be excellent to each other, then why should someone choose you over secularism?

So why is everything that has to do with the Episcopal Church have to be “radical?”

Is it some sort of domesticated white-bread hippy thing that they have to convince themselves they’re still “hip” after abandoning Volkswagons and joints for Volvos and scotch and the urban for the suburban?

Just get over yourselves already.

If these self-styled “rebels” weren’t so insecure, we’d all be better off.

If the self-styled rebels had the spine, the intellect, the guts and the moral fiber to rebel against the worst elements in our culture, we’d all be much better off. Instead they promote only the worst elements of the culture and do everything they can to exterminate what little good is left in it. May their efforts fail utterly and may they be blessed with conscience so as to come to repentance.

‘So why is everything that has to do with the Episcopal Church have to be “radical?”’

They’re short a few electrons.

It’s not about Robbie, insists George.

It really isn’t, though: he’s a symptom more than a cause. In his own diocese, as in the larger organization, the decline has been going on for years and continues at about the same pace as before him. His antics certainly have a detrimental effect in their own right, but the larger causes are much deeper.

Interesting, though, to admit that the secularization of society is partly to blame for the decline. Isn’t that more or less an admission that his religious organization is nothing more than a department of the larger culture, with no transcendant life? Check out the first point under the following:

http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-modernist-christianity-will-die.html

In fact, Fr. Longenecker lays out pretty well the real reasons for TEC’s demise.

“… less to do with a gay bishop and more to do with the increasingly rapid secularization of American culture. More to do with the small number of babies Episcopalian parents tend to have.”

The good bishop doesn’t understand that the “gay” issue and “secularization” are two faces of the same problem: more and more people, both orthodox and liberal, realize that to be a Christian in such a church doesn’t make any difference at all in your life, you’re “affirmed” no matter what you believe or do. So, to be such a churchgoer or to stay in the world is more or less the same thing - a bad thing for the orthodox, a good but eventually boring thing for the liberal.

Sincerely, I’m not a Catholic because I dote on my priest dressed like Ben-Hur’s characters, or because it’s so evocative and picturesque to pray in an ancient Romanesque church with all its altars and
candles; above all, I’m not Christian because I feel affirmed in who I am, it isn’t the case and would be horrible.

I want to be drawn towards the measure of Christ, which is infinitely different and better than mine. I want the Church to challenge me, to show me God’s difference, because Christ atoned for me on the cross in order to change and transform me, not to congratulate on my splendid virtues.

“I want to be drawn towards the measure of Christ, which is infinitely different and better than mine. I want the Church to challenge me, to show me God’s difference, because Christ atoned for me on the cross in order to change and transform me, not to congratulate on my splendid virtues.”

Thank you for this, Paolo. It’s a powerful reminder that I needed to hear this afternoon.

Ed the Roman, I think the reference is to mathematics, not physics. “Radical” means something relating to a mathematical root. A root of a function is an x-value for which the function produces a result of zero. Episcopalian radical stability produces a result of zero, which is exactly what Jesus wants the Episcopalians to do.

Funny, I never thought of stability as radical. I always thought of it as, well, stable. And as to ECUSA, its problem is more the rapid secularization of ECUSA. In what way does it differ from the left/liberal public culture it emulates?

Paolo, I applaud your sentiments. However, speaking from the American point of view, we don’t have any ancient structures here. There are a scattering of (mostly restored) buildings from the seventeenth century on the East Coast, and in the Southwest and California, but otherwise, nothing Europeans would consider old at all. I wouldn’t attend church only because it was in an ancient Romanesque building, but it would be pretty nice. Probably that’s why so many American church buildings imitate ancient things.

And Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

Man! I wish I had gotten to that “radical stability” comment first. What a goofy buzz phrase. Let’s keep an eye out for its use in any other context as a gauge the intellectual influence of the Episcopal Church. I bet it next appears in some speech or note in either the UUA, the UCC or Sr. Joan Chittister’s column.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks!

Argh, Mike, you’re making me feel affirmed!

Just kidding, I’m very glad to meet you

When I was younger, some 25 years ago, I went to Confession and I was waiting my turn in queue - it was inside my town’s Basilica. I was very sad, oppressed by the meanness of my sins, still somewhat unwilling to expose all of them, and probably my outward aspect betrayed my inner state.

A priest passed by, looked at me, and said: “Remember that God’s love is greater than your sins”.
I was rather impressed by the words and their sound, so I went inside the confessional, put aside my qualms and experienced an incredible blessing at the Absolution.
When I came out, the priest passed again, looked at me and said: “You see, not by your efforts and calculations, but through this Sacrament’s grace, which Christ poured for you on the cross”.

Pray for me and my family,
Paolo

Katherine, of course I love our churches and, admittedly, I’m not so disturbed by Ben-Hur’s garments

I’ve been four times in the USA, according to my job duties: two times in NY, one in LA and the last one in Kentucky (very nice). I’m amazed by the landscapes, so wider than ours, but as far as the cities I saw… well, I prefer to stay here (with some exceptions for NY).

Perhaps it’s an evil thing (sometimes I’m really evil), anyway enjoy some pictures from my neighborhood:

- this is almost exactly what I see from my windows;
- and this one is in my town;
- but my real hometown is Milano.

Ciao, Paolo

So beautiful, Paolo! I saw that exact scene in Milano about this time last year. Il Duomo has been cleaned. It glistened like snow in the Christmas lights. I hope to visit northern Italy sometime this year; I’ve never seen the lakes.

Carrying the science analogies about “radical stability” a bit further, what comes to my mind is molecular motion reaching a point of absolute stasis at zero degrees Kelvin. Yeah, it’s stable, allright, but it’s also deader than dead.

And, while I would agree that the secularization of our culture does impact church membership, it’s kinda hard to maintain net neutrality, let alone grow when you’re driving away the ostensibly more procreative traditionalists, and are left with the elderly and those who by personal choice (liberal DINKS) or harsh biological reality (homosexual couples) won’t fill the Sunday School with new little Piskies.

But then, perhaps that’s part of Providence.

…gay bishop and…the increasingly rapid secularization of American culture

He talks like these are two different things.

shame on us for letting these guys own the mantra “the episcopal church” is for smart people…..what a doofus this guy is; radical stability? sounds like words a snowboarder dude would use..