Episcopalianism is merely a form of Congregationalism, to which the "historic episcopate" forms an anomalous adjunct. Congregationalism means ministerialism. Ministers are cast loose in society to establish or hold personal followings; each is concerned to proclaim his own views and put in practice his own schemes. This tends to develop ministerial egotism and resolves church work into prosecution of parochial activities under special personal leadership. The one vital question is "Do you like the minister?" To like him, to attend his ministrations, and to co-operate in his schemes is to exhibit a high degree of piety; not to like him, to disparage him in contrast with his predecessor, and to be alert to oust him for a man of a different type, is to exhibit a higher, since it is the virtue of Protestantism to protest.In this context, St Mary of the Angels was a Protestant enterprise from the outset, being in effect the personal scheme of Fr Dodd, who built a personal following among figures like Mary Pickford, and who, with his successors, ran the parish without much reference to a diocese until it suited them to cut loose entirely. In fact, this relation was baked into its founding documents. In recent events, we see Andy Bartus acting less like the Catholic he insisted he was to Protestant vestries than like the Protestant minister Kinsman describes, establishing a personal following, promoting his own schemes, and assisting the parish in its higher piety of ousting the rector.
Nothing in recent decades, it seems to me, would surprise Kinsman.
