This is a standard ABC waffle which he has covered with the maple syrup of endless qualification. BUt David Handy is still right: It is time to act, and the ABC needs to understand that push has come to shove.

    There are not two understandings of Anglicanism - if the second is TEC and its ilk, for TEC is not Anglican at all. Well, shall TEC be cast into the outer darkness, gnashing of teeth and the usual? Why of course. What could be more obvious? What could our objection be to dumping such trash into Gehenna? That’s what Gehenna is for. Let the pew sitters look into the valley,and then offer them a free ticket to go there or an opportunity to avoid a even a brief visit. I know what decision they will come to.

  The ABC has been Prufrock and we have been Prufrocked again and again. If you are a Christian, you have heard the mermaids singing each to each, and they sing to you as well. Nor more endless vision and revisions.  Nor more, “That is not what I meant at all….”
  Larry

Larry—While I am a fan of Eliot from my first reading in high school lit, you are above me with your allusion to Prufrock.  Please teach me.

Jim, read Eliot’s “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Is is in my judgment Eliot’s finest poem.  Prufrock is lost is a maze of vacillation, of indecisiveness; he had become TOO civilized, too thooughtful, and at last, too precious. It is his misfortune that he acutely aware of this and does not know what to do.This world of polite superficialities is summed in the couplet, “In the room, the women come and go,/Talkiing of Michangelo.” Anyway, read it for yourself. You will see my point. Besides, this is a poem you SHOULD memorize. I am working on it right now.  Larry

Larry—Thanks, I’ll read it again. But do you really think Rowan is Prufrock or something more like Machiavelli?

Jim, I cannot see him as Machiavellian if we mean by that manipulative in an subtle,unprincipled way for the sake of gaining a particular end. This is the common use rather than a reflection of M actually said. The ABC is too verbose, too intellectual, too diffuse. He sees too many views, too many sides, too many “visions and revisions.” Moreover, he lacks the vital breath of life, the simple vitality I should rather say; he lacks the strength and straightforwardness to live that much simpler, coarser fibered souls have. Unlike Prufrock, I am not sure he is aware of his lack of elan vital. I refer you to Wordsworth’s sonnet, “The world is too much with us soon and late,” for a rephrasing of this condition and what is to be preferred in its place.

    You have read the ABC’s prose. Have you not thought that there is something etiolated in it, like honey spread much too thin on a zweibach. There is too much leaf, too little root; cf. Yeat’s “Now may I wither into truth.” At last too much thought creates only indecision, an inability to take a stand against all comers.  Larry

Hi Larry,

Thank you.

Two lines from that poem haunt me:

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

I should have been a pair of ragged claws. Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. ...

The first line calls me to action in my life [with the need to make it count], while the second line is ever with me in my prayers of repentance.

For an accurate description of our post modern, post Christian times, may I also recommend The Hollow Men?