Hear Bishop Martyn Minns interviewed at Inter-Faith Radio here. It's very "NPR" like. It's no puff piece. The interview is spirited and the interviewer does not hold anything back - everything is on the table. Whether you are progressive or orthodox, this is really good interview - the interviewer asks the tough questions, using a progressive point of view in asking the questions. This is Cafe conversation at it's best. Pull up a chair, order a sandwich and listen.Stay on the line and you'll hear Katharine Jefferts Schori as well. Take a break and listen!
LATER: Please listen to the Presiding Bishop Schori interview that follows ("a variety of understandings) - the contrast between the two of them is extraordinary and shows the real deep division. We're sending a round of chai on the house. We might even bake a pie.
bb
9 comments:
WOW! BB can bake pies to.
Art+
Much better than Bill Moyer interview, Maureen Fiedler did a much better job preparing for this interview and could do follow up questions.
I'm glad +Minns chose a very different path than he used in Dec. on the Nigerian law. Billy Graham set a high example when caught for antisemitism comments from long ago, no spin, but you really can't make much out of it either.
Nice on the growth by the unchurched. Hopefully he'll do better than at Truro, which turned one effort into a building program! +Murphy definitely has a heart for this and structurally AMiA is better set up for that but found great frustration getting the members to buy-in and go. (The unchurched are messy to deal with and American Connoisseur Christians just are not into the trouble or we want to sever them in off-site places).
Yogaville? Well, it's just an ad.
++KSJ is very slick! She handled the tough questions with spin-half-truth but hard to rebut as she frames things (GS 11, I guess handful are 7 who refused to sit at table and 38 total). Weak on theology, but Maureen Fiedler was weak at follow up here (didn't seem like Bill Moyer basis, maybe more a journalist than theologian {my dad might not do much better}).
++KSJ is very good at saying a lot without much recently. That's a shame, she has learned a lot from interview from interviews early on. I think Oct. thru Jan. were more her true beliefs.
Creation Museum was an interesting story as well.
++KJS 45 parishes is odd though, I wonder how she gets that number? Maybe a split don't count and mission is merely closed (I think that would be correct via cannon law?), so I guess Truro might count in the 45 count but TFC might not, for there is a 'continuing' TFC in Fall Church Presbyterian. There are more on ACN's website lists 81 in APO (not AMiA or CANA). AMiA would only be about five in the last year, CANA ~16(?) not counting the Nigerian parishes or mission startups or APO transfers. Maybe she cutting it to a year time slice. That's the most obvious spin that easier to spot with raw data.
Maureen Fiedler's tone was friendlier in the Schori interview...she was almost hostile in the Minns interview.
Yes, what I thought was really cool was that he would do the interview and he didn't back down from any the questions. It was clear she had her own viewpoint, but Fiedler was fair. It was as close to a real debate as I think we're going to get.
bb
Kevin:
I'm not sure where Schori gets her numbers. Since 2003 there have been two or three dozen (?) Episcopal churches that have left for the AMiA, but many did not take their buildings. Perhaps this subset do not count. In addition, there are two or three dozen church plants. Undoubtedly they don't count, either.
Technically, AMiA's existence did not cause any splits in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, but since 2001 it has opened three parishes with a signifcant number of traditional Episcopalians (though Episcopalians are not, I might add, a majority in any of the three, which may be a feature and not a bug...).
Meanwhile, since 2003 one Triangle parish left ECUSA for Uganda (and kept its heavily mortgaged building), another congregation for the Traditional Anglican Communion (and had to leave its building), and a large group from a downtown Raleigh parish started a new church under Michael Green (affiliation tba, I think).
So, using Schori-math, maybe one parish here has left ECUSA since 2003, but in addition to this one parish there are several hundred worshippers who have gone elsewhere.
She seems only to publicly care about the bricks and not the people (Chancellor's Talking Points?). Over and over we hear that the emphasis is on the stuff and not the people - an irony if I ever heard one.
Everything she seems to say now publicly is in the context of the lawsuits. That is what informs her speech these days.
I wonder why.
bb
Anon:
Yes, I think that what she must be doing or why I estimated 5 for AMiA, counting Christ Church Plano, Church or the Resurrection also in Dio Dallas, but not All Saints Anglican Church of Baton Rouge since they are a hive church plant with a minority staying with the building (they left three choir members but they rest went with the planting).
Then AMiA is old news, she's probably not counting those which left three years ago, maybe not even two.
Places like St. Austine in the Field or South Riding Church which were missions, probably were listed as merely closed like the failed St. Ivan's in Falls Church.
I'm sure it's all defensible. Regrettably, she is a smart cookie and has learned from her blunders for we're not seeing them as much as we did six months ago.
Kevin
PS. Thanks for the report of NC! The AMiA plant in DC is about to plant another and possibly even yet one more (if the latter group can ever get their act together). EMC is even has a mission plant in NoVA and that group seems to be growing again after some stagnation. ++KJS does not see that there are other threats of replication and growth.
Church of the Resurrection
(that might not be as embarrassing except it happens to be the name of the AMiA parish in DC ... Opps (guess the 'r' is just above 'f' on QWERTY but still ...)
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