The NYT author and I have somewhat different views. He sees declining membership as an indicator that liberal Christianity needs "saving". On the contrary, our declining numbers are a byproduct of what salvation looks like. "You will lose your life to find it". Doing what's right - in this scenario working for the poor, advancing women's rights, advocating for marriage equality, and a host of other issues - is not always popular. But, it's always right. If the price of being faithful to the gospel message is a decline in the almighty membership numbers (and dollars), so be it.

Mr. Douthat offers no evidence that bishops today share John Spong's premises nor does he prove a harm if that were the case. He bases his opinions on no facts.

This is the sort of thing I would have expected from The Wall Street Journal. The New York Times must have a slot for rightwing opinion writers.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Yeah, well Douthat could comfortably write for the WSJ (like the previously-covered hit-piece).

I don't care nothin' for numbers: there were only a few at the foot of the Cross.

As long as TEC is faithful---God correct our errors, I think we're getting better---then I leave all the bean-counting up to God.

JC Fisher

I think there is a real point to this, though it may have been buried.

There are times when Episcopalians speak in public as though our only legitimate purpose here on earth as a church is to help "the poor" ("the poor" always being named as a "them" rather than an "us," which is in itself a problem). This is not what our prayers or Anglican theology says, but it is what a lot of Episcopalians seem to think...or at least, what we are comfortable articulating out loud to others.

There follows an implicit assumption that if we serve the poor as best we can, then nothing else is really important. Similarly, if it comes down to any other priority vs. helping the needy, helping the needy should clearly win out, even if it means we starve our own development. I believe this is a confusion between causes and effects.

In order to have a flourishing garden of outward-directed ministries, there is need for a powerful root system that will allow for those plants to grow and be fruitful. Our Lord was harsh in condemning trees that bear no fruit. We are quick to forget however that he was talking to an agrarian people. They already understood, to their very depths, that without good roots and strong green growth, no tree is able to bear fruit. We cannot focus on the fruits without attending to the roots and the growth that are necessary to make fruit possible.

Yes, as the parable of the fig tree points out, it is possible to have fruitless growth. Starving the trees however will not solve the problem.

There is a certain hubris in setting ourselves up as entirely out to do good for others (bearing fruit), without regard for our own needs as individuals and communities (roots, foliage). We have, regardless of economic privilege or lack thereof, profound needs for reconciliation, for repentance, for care, for personal and community development as disciples of Christ. We are all in need of prayer, discipline, community, worship, spiritual education, spiritual practice. These activities and practices foster our roots and our growth. It is only after we invest heavily in our growth that we are then called to account for it with fruit, not before.

Sometimes there are tradeoffs between what we do to get more fruit right now vs. what we do to get more fruit over the next 10-50 years. I believe the Episcopal Church has been effectively eating its seed corn for the last 30 years or thereabouts. We are in desperate need of reinvestment. Failing to make this investment means less and less fruit over time, which is what the worries over falling membership and financial contributions are really about (or at least, what they should be about).

It should go without saying that this reinvestment can be done as liberally and broadly and flexibly as we like...so long as we do it. I don't think the problem is that we are too liberal. I think the problem is that conservatives invest in themselves while liberals don't. We then accuse them of failing to bear fruit. They then point out that our trees are slowly dying. I think both sides have a point.

I only ever read Ross Douthat to mock him. How he ever got to the editorial page of "The Newspaper of Record" only shows how far the mighty have fallen. When an article about the Episcopal Church begins with Bishop Spong, you know where the writer is going, and you can stop right there. TEC is not above criticism, but - please! - pay no attention to Douthat.

June Butler

Anyone who talks about the Episcopal Church and mentions Spong - breaks a newly added subsection of Godwin's law

Why wouldn't someone writing about the Episcopal Church mention Bishop Spong? He has been a huge force in the church over the past few decades.

Spong has been more of a huge thorn in TEC's foot. People should be more realistic about the state of the church.

Notwithstanding Spong's admirers (many more who have never been inside an Episcopal church, than have ever been TEC members), Spong has been "a huge force in the [Episcopal] church" *only* in the mind's of TEC's critics.

JC Fisher

It's a joke - but now days the only people who mention Bp Spong are TEC detractors - of course he had a strong voice, but he did not lead us to where we are. He spoke what many already thought. I think you need to look up Godwin's law.

and this was really in regard to the Douhat piece.

JC and Ann, I respectfully disagree about Bp Spong's influence. I know many people who found their way (back) to the church because of his writings. Also, even if you disagree with him about theology, he was definitely a major advocate for LGBT inclusion. I think too many in the church try to prove their orthodoxy by throwing Bp Spong and his legacy under the bus.

Let me see if I have this straight. The Episcopal Church did nothing whatsoever about Newark's megalomaniacal old gasbag while he was still a bishop and let him retire with a full pension. But anybody who brings him up as a criticism of the Episcopal Church(here, say):

http://themcj.com/?p=33537

is guilty of some kind of infraction of Godwin's Law. How does that work, exactly?

It doesn't logically follow that declining numbers mean a precarious TEC.

If, for example, I am the owner of a small shop, and someone comes in the count the merchandise of my shelves, the fact that I have fewer items on the shelves could mean several things. It could mean that I have found that I do better when the shop is less cluttered. It may mean that I have an issue with shrinkage. It may mean that my supplier is late in shipping. Or it may mean that I have more items in my stockroom. Or that I am focusing on items with higer margins.

The point is that fewer items on the shelves mean only that I should ask intelligent questions. It doesn't mean that I should panic, nor does it mean I should leap to a conclusion without additional information.

Eric Bonetti

I have a deacon friend who recently returned from a diocesan-sponsored trip to the So. Sudan. We, a deanery in the UK and a diocese in Sweden all engage in diocesan-building programs in Africa. We’ve been there since the so-called “end of their civil war”. TEC and our sister churches stood in the gap between the people of So. Sudan and starvation for years. And the people of So. Sudan remember it: we were there for the love of God and God’s people.

Many secular liberal NGO’s left them. We didn’t. I don’t remember the WSJ or the NYT writing articles about that.

What we get is mockery from the WSJ and a reprimand from the NYT to straighten-up our theology or die.

Precisely what kind of weak theology is it that impels comfortable Yanks and Europeans to travel to the Sudan and spend a month there please?

Perhaps it is not so much our "liberal" theology that turns people off, but rather the character assasination chronically perpetrated on TEC by either the malicious or the lazy in the MSM.
Kevin McGrane