Kinkade sold a great many of these feelings through some curious approaches to painting and a shrewd business distribution system. Critics easily dismissed his paintings as kitsch, poor art, or perhaps not even art at all. While I don’t really like Kinkade’s paintings, I believe it would be naïve to simply dismiss his work, to stop querying the deeper reasons for its mass appeal.
The Anglican crisis is not about Williams or even religion. It is about the drive for meaningful connection and community and a better, more just, and more peaceful world as institutions of church, state and economy seem increasingly unresponsive to these desires. It is about the gap between a new spirit and institutions that have lost their way. Only leaders who can bridge this gap and transform their institutions will succeed in this emerging cultural economy.
“The thing of it is, despite our wonderful slogans we still seem to have difficulty articulating what the Episcopal Church is and is for (though we seem to have no problem articulating what it is not).”
Someone who knows the Constitution of the Episcopal Church better than I do called my attention to an issue that has been hiding in plain sight in the church’s debate on structural reform.
I live tweeted the presentation that Kirk Hadaway, director of research for the Episcopal Church, made to the Episcopal Church Building Fund conference, Buildings for a New Tomorrow, this morning. You can find it at https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23bldgfund
It seems that he believes in us. That may be more important than our believing in him.
“The archbishop of Canterbury set up the Fritchie inquiry with alacrity when it was suspected that Colin Slee was the leaking member of the CNC. It would be good to know that steps are being taken to identify the real culprit and ensure that he will not be involved in nominating the new archbishop or in any further appointments.”
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