Some advice from my grandmother…

“People in you know where, want you know what”

Good luck with that.

Gloria

Can Love be the leader we need?  L

Locally, one lay leader in the Albany diocese has a much different worry: that there is no place for the substantial progressive voice.

Marya Dodd describes herself as probably the only progressive on the Diocesan Council, an oversight panel. She says many people won’t donate money to the Albany diocese because they feel disenfranchised. She praised Love for “making a real effort to communicate with us” in the new letter but said that wasn’t enough.

“He’s not publicly recognizing the fact that there are a lot of different segments of the Episcopal Church represented in Albany,” she said. “This is not a diocese that has one vision, or one approach to the faith.”

I find it interesting that Marya Dodd, whose comments form the final paragraphs and conclusions of the article cited, is a Board Member of Albany Via Media.  The Time Union reporter, Marc Parry, has a record of going after the Albany Diocese in a hostile and discrediting fashion.

It should be noted that The Albany Times Union’s approach to selling papers the past few years has been to whip up as much front page scandal as possible..

The “substantial progressive voice” is not the big factor Marya Dodd and the Times Union would like to make it out to be.  Albany “liberals” would be thought of as very conservative in most other dioceses.  In fact, we do have a mostly very unified vision.  Those who seriously dissent—and they are not only free to do so, Bp Bill really puts time and energy into genuinely including them—are really only about 20% to 23%.

This is not a guess on my part.  I base this percentage on the actual voting record on the 2003 special convention resolution which put us into the AC Network. 

We shouldn’t be so worried about unity in Albany.  We are crystal clear that Jesus is Lord—for real.  So let’s trust Him and be willing to move with Him.