Why are you doing what you have been doing and apparently intend to continue what seem to be pretty harsh commentary as your [sic] target the former Episcopalians mostly clergy it would seem. Can you explain to your audience what the purpose of your continuing (no pun intended) blogs is? What is it you hope to accomplish?The main thing I see about the Continuum is how dangerous it is, spiritually and even physically. I would not minimize the utter recklessness of Owen Rhys Williams and Frederick Rivers in hiring a man with an arrest for child pornography on his record as an interim priest. Any family that allows a minor child anywhere near this guy is derelict, but why on earth would an adult want to have anything to do with that parish? Let's face it, there's something really weird about a denomination where something like this could happen.
Next, the spiritual danger: these guys are charlatans. A great many priests, bishops, and prebendaries in the Continuum are not minimally qualified in the sense that mainstream denominations assure when they ordain ministers. As far as I'm aware, as I've said here already, Owen Rhys Williams does not have either a four-year undergraduate degree or an MDiv. Apparently Frederick Rivers doesn't have these, either. Stephen Strawn's MDiv is from an unaccredited seminary.
Even those with more conventional qualifications are still questionable. For reasons not disclosed, Brian Marsh, although he completed his seminary studies, was not deemed qualified for ordination in The Episcopal Church and apparently had to shop around for two years to find a denomination that would ordain him. John Vaughan left the Roman Catholic priesthood for vague reasons and then appears to have been eased out of The Episcopal Church as well. Louis Falk left The Episcopal Church following a scandal, concerning which a couple of stories are in circulation, one of which would be explosive if confirmed -- those details may have been behind Falk's apparently not entirely voluntary retirement as "Archbishop" of the TAC.
This is a disreputable bunch. Ordinary parishioners in the ACA appear to be, unfortunately, naïve and trusting people who deserve better. There is such a thing as spiritual laziness, however. The ACA's people should be moving on. But there are also enablers, Anglo-Catholic bloggers who should know better. They are giving the TAC-ACA and other continuers far more prestige than they deserve.
If I accomplish what I'd most like to, someone like Stephen Smuts will quit his blog and find something meaningful to do with his life, rather than pretending to be a priest. If he did that, it would be because dozens or hundreds of other "Continuers" would have woken up. That's what I'd like to accomplish.
