The Fork in the Road
During all this growing struggle, a clergy friend of mine expressed that one way to approach these concerns is to remind myself that adulthood is rife with continual negotiation. There are no easy answers or infallibly clear alliances. Everyday we are faced with various compromises through which we negotiate our faith. So while this moral and theological fragmentation which is occurring in the Episcopal Church is regrettable, it is nonetheless part of the realities of adult life: we pick and choose our battles and our allies, hopefully and prayerfully with the guidance of and in obedience to the Holy Spirit. Conformity to an ideal might not be so much a sign of orthodoxy as it is a sign of immaturity.
But the actions of the Episcopal Church’s national leadership and other laity and clergy were deeply troubling to me nonetheless. Furthermore, it could be responded that a sign of adult maturity is to recognize one’s limitations and obligations. This willful disregard for catholicity and tradition in which the Episcopal Church is engaged may not be so much a sign of relevance and sophistication as a sign of regression to adolescent rebellion and lack of a formed identity. An “adult” church would then be one which realized that one had an obligation to be faithful to the Tradition, and that limits are not always signs of oppression but signs of protection and of responsibility.
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