Give 'em the axe
The cover story fro the January/February issue of the Stanford alumni magazine featured the article on Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to be elected the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. Her election has been surrounded with a cloud of controversy, not primarily because she was a woman, but because she comes from the very liberal wing of the Episcopal Church, which has over the years essentially made a mockery of all the essential Christian beliefs, reinterpreted them to suit the changing times in a vain hope of becoming more "inclusive", while in fact it has seen the church membership plummet. The Stanford Magazine is a prototypical piece of journalism tailored for the alumni audience, glowing in its praise of yet another former student who made it big despite the odds, but entirely in the spirit of the sorts of graduates that Stanford has been known for. While at Stanford, Schori was a Biology major, and not very interested in religious life it seems. Her transformation came years later. For most people, religious and non-religious alike, it would have been the most interesting bit of information if the article told us about what exactly spurred her to become not only more religious, but a clergywoman nonetheless. And yet, those most personal and most interesting bits of information are missing. Instead, we are given a few platitudes and the whole issue is brushed aside. The whole article doesn't make even an allusion to one person that should have been the most relevant to someone's decision in becoming a leader of a Christian church: Jesus Christ. It would be too facile to dismiss such an omission with the writer's desire not to offend anyone's religious sensibilities (A sidenote: since when did we all become so wimpy and sensitive?), but Schori's own statements in other publications and throughout her career as a bishop give credence to the notion that a considerable amount of culpability can be assigned to her as well.
The Episcopal Church's gradual dismantling of first its teachings and now its outward trappings of a Christian church remind me of an old story about the axe whose handle has been replaced on one occasion, and the blade later. Somehow, we are still supposed to believe that it's the same axe.