Re: [HoB/D] Who is the "head" of TEC?

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

> None of the answers I read from all of the responders will help bring
> the questioner into the church from the non-denomination church she  now
> attends. Theory is nice and it is good that you discuss it. What  do YOU
> tell people about our organization that will bring them into  our
> church?

Of the many people who have told me that I prompted them to join the Episcopal
Church, not one has ever suggested she or he joined because I gave a
simplistic answer to "Who is the head of the Episcopal Church?"

I don't recall that question ever being asked with someone's decision to
be baptized or confirmed at stake upon my giving the "right" answer.

Persons have provided 542 "Reasons for being Episcopalian" on my site
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/365plus.html, and not one of them
suggests we should be Episcopalians because of who is temporally head of
TEC.

When Jesus talked with my ancestor at the well, she tested him with a
question about the proper place to worship.   He took the conversation to
a much more significant level:  "God is a spirit, and the time is coming,
yes, now is, when those who worship God do so in spirit and in truth." He
did not add, "Now let me tell you about Caiaphas, Herod, the
Sanhedrin......"

Would more than half of the people in our pews on any given Sunday even
know the name of the Presiding Bishop?   Would more than sixty percent of
the people in our pews on a given Sunday know the name of their own bishop
if more than six months has passed since the bishop's most recent visit?

I am a big fan of our nation's president, but I would not call him the
head of our government.   All three branches have checks and balances:
that's not just an add-on or secondary matter:  that arrangement is
fundamental to who our country is, regardless of how well informed persons
on the street are about the arrangement.

I am a big fan or our Presiding Bishop, but I would not call her the head
of the Episcopal Church temporal.   Her powers are more limited than the
powers of the 37 other primates of the Anglican Communion.   The powers of
the House of Deputies are stronger than the powers of those not bishops in
any of the 37 other provinces of the Anglican Communion.     Failure to
understand that is at the heart of much of the misunderstanding of TEC in
the Communion.

Louie, L1 Newark


Louie Crew, 377 S. Harrison St., 12D, East Orange, NJ 07018 973-395-1068
http://queereye4lectionary.blogspot.com/  Queer Eye for the Lectionary