So they go on in a strange paradox

"So they go on in a strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent."

Winston Churchill, 1936

I went to the first hearing of the "Special Committee" that the majority of the Windsor Report-related resolutions are being vetted through. The Churchill quote above illustrates better than I ever could of what I witnessed. After about 45 minutes of testimony, the committee spent the next hour discussing amendments to the substitutions of amendments to the resolution (and it's still not clear to me what the purpose of the resolution is, except perhaps to be a strange paradox).

At the heart of it though was something that I found so frustrating. Today the committee spent over an hour discussing ways of "helping" facilitate "conversation" by "inviting" members of the Global Anglican Communion to be so honored as to join our bureaucracy so they all can see how it's really done and be enlightened.

The premise of their discussions appears to be that ECUSA is a superior institution over the churches in the Anglican Communion (and the ones that are actually growing!) and that it's assumed that the Anglican Communion would want to come over and watch how ECUSA does it right. It never even occurs to them that perhaps the better way is for ECUSA to realize that "it's broken" and go over to the churches that are actually growing and find out from them how it's done. But no, they spent all afternoon figuring out how to get the members of the Anglican leadership into ECUSA committees and how much of the bureaucracy should be consulted to figure out who would be so blessed as to be included on ECUSA committees (and they called this Windsor!). Not to vote of course, but to witness how it's really done. I just don't think they can see how the premise is self-centered and arrogant. The only way such a process could be encouraged is at the heart of everything you've never done anything wrong.

You've only been misunderstood.

bb

PS And if this doesn't work, then ECUSA will just morph into "TEC" with it's "sixteen nations" and become an American-Centered Anglican Communion. A sort of "mini-me."