Anglicanism According to... George Will

We all do know George Will, right? In case you're too young or have just crawled out from under a rock, he's a conservative columnist with brains and the driest of humor.

Papa Rooster's favorite George Will quote: "Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings."

(On the other hand, he has famously said: "Baseball is Heaven's gift to mortals," and "Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.)


George Will comments on the sad state of the Episcopal Church.


Interesting bits:

The shrinking Episcopal Church (2.4 million members, down from 3.5 million at its peak in 1965) is a small sliver of the worldwide Anglican communion (at least 77 million and expanding rapidly). ... Today, the typical Anglican is a middle-age African woman. The burgeoning Nigerian church says it has 20 million Anglicans; Duncan believes it may have 25 million but perhaps chooses to underreport so as not to exacerbate tensions with Nigerian Muslims.

The Episcopal Church once was America's upper crust at prayer.

Today it is "progressive" politics cloaked – very thinly – in piety. Episcopalians' discontents tell a cautionary tale for political as well as religious associations. As the church's doctrines have become more elastic, the church has contracted. It celebrates an "inclusiveness" that includes fewer and fewer members.

Duncan and other protesters agree with the late Flannery O'Connor, the Catholic novelist: "You have to push as hard as the age that pushes against you."