The John Bennison affair was thought by bloggers like David Virtue to be yet another circumstance besmirching the hated Episcopal Church, yet equivalent scandals in the "Continuum" get no notice. One factor that brought me to start this blog was that I submitted an opinion piece to David Virtue fully documenting the circumstances under which the late Anthony Morello left The Episcopal Church, and while he thanked me for it, he never published it. Yet any mention of a gay skeleton in the Episcopalian closet is quickly picked up.
A visit to Virtue Online just this morning produces this list of headlines, which is as representative as any:
- Virginia Episcopal Bishop Ordained Lesbian at Former Orthodox Falls Church
- WHEATON, IL: Anglican Realignment Draws Hundreds. Hear Call to Plant 1000 churches
- ARCHBISHOP WELBY'S STEEP LEARNING CURVE
- GREENSBORO, NC: AMIA Leader Notes Losses, Sees Hope in Formation of New Society
- The Scandal of the Cardinals. The Disgrace of Episcopal Bishops
- Archbishop of Canterbury will attempt Anglican Reconciliation at Enthronement
- The Lies and Spin of Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson
The fact of the matter is that the Continuum is losing members (Virtue once sent me an e-mail privately acknowledging that it was steadily graying and didn't have a future), despite all of Virtue's parroting of their PR releases. I think one theme in this blog is that there are very good reasons it's not succeeding, and despite the regular hopeful pronouncements from dead letters like the AMIA, isn't growing.
The Continuum is angry. It attracts an active, hard core of angry people. It isn't a coincidence that one of the organizations that made up the ACA was the AEC, founded in 1963 by an outright segregationist in specific reaction to the integration of Episcopal parishes. If the folks who were angry early in the "Continuing" movement about Civil Rights and integration have died off or been diluted, their ranks have simply been replaced by people who are angry about something else. My e-mail chats with clergy familiar with the Continuum keep coming back to this subject; one priest commended my characterization of the dissident core at St Mary's Hollywood as "the angries".
The Continuum is corrupt. The constant elevation of unqualified, inexperienced individuals to bishop and lesser ranks is an ongoing problem. I heard the other day that, prior to Anthony Morello's death, a priest in the ACA Diocese of the West had simply stopped returning Morello's calls to him as Vicar General. If the leadership is compromised and not credible, how can the movement survive?
The Continuum is fractious. Its various tiny sub-denominations rise, split, re-combine, and eventually disappear largely due to the egoism of its bishops, who, as one priest put it to me, "use the laity as an excuse to dress up and play church".
Even during Lent, "Continuing" bloggers ignore these essentially fatal problems in the movement. It's entirely possible, though, that if David Virtue were suddenly to see the light and begin some sort of realistic reporting on what's causing the Continuum's continuing problems, he'd lose his committed, angry readership. They give him money, after all.
I do note that for whatever reason, Stephen Smuts has been posting much less frequently. Perhaps he's decided to give up playing church and look for a real job, I don't know. Maybe David Virtue should consider the same course.
