Fr. Larry

A number of people have asked what I think about the Episcopal Church “getting kicked out of the World Wide Anglican Communion;” that is, those churches throughout the world in fellowship with the see of Canterbury. I am no great expert on the subject, although I haven’t read anyone else who sounds like an expert either, but by simply being honest, and as someone who continues to love the Episcopal Church, I may be able to offer some clarification, and perhaps a somewhat larger perspective on what has happened and its significance for the future church, which includes, but is not limited to the Episcopal Church.

First, it should be noted that the Episcopal Church has not been expelled, ejected, or kicked out of the World Wide Anglican Communion. What has happened is that the Episcopal Church’s participation in those councils and events by which the Anglican Communion determines policy and doctrine has been suspended. There is obviously a big difference between suspension and expulsion. Continue reading

Lawrence Hart

What as a younger man I could be flattered into believing was the eccentricity of creativity or avant-garde thinking, I now, as an old man, recognize to have been early signs of an insidious disorder. As a “left-handed Okie” boy growing up in the farmlands and oil fields just west of Bakersfield, I knew nothing of the lunatic Kierkegaard or his wild scribbling before a class in Christian philosophy where the passion of his lunacy was reduced to harmless academic categories and analyzed as sterile intellectual propositions – but no one talked about the enormous weight of suffering freighted by such madness. Continue reading