Kate:

You’ve got a point. I went to a different TEC church after the one I mentioned. It had some conservative members, who assured me that their church was not a leftist monoculture and sponsored me as a member.

At an Easter Day picnic I did an informal poll on whether congregants believed in the Resurrection. I mostly got hemming and hawing about the rebirth of spring and it’s a beautiful STORY, but the only two out of seven I spoke with who did believe were ex-evangelicals who migrated to TEC for personal reasons.

Later, as the Iraq War was revved up, that church went fully left. Conservatives got the message that we were basically on par with Nazis, the leadership did nothing, so we left.

https://accordingtohoyt.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/img-6.png

And money lenders — the money lenders could set up shop in the empty properties. History repeats. . .

Kate:

Sadly true. At least for me.

I returned to Christianity via the American branch, The Episcopal Church. (Which really calls itself that in those capitals, TEC.)

It was a friendly little church in those halcyon pre-9-11 days, nestled in the Diamond Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, just above the hidden, gem-like valley known as Glen Canyon.

Sure, it was liberal, but I could tell these people were having a good time and doing their level best to be real Christians, so far as I could tell. In those days I was pre-9-11 too.

Then 9-11 happened and I wound up on the wrong side of that line. Members would offer prayers about the terrible darkness which had descended upon America, a nation apparently alone in its evil.

And I became alone.

Thank you for the WSJ link– it worked just fine.

I think the best option is to have municipal and county governments to be assigned ownership of Church of England properties, the municipalities taking the parishes, rectories, and churchyards, the counties taking the cathedrals and other lumpy pieces. Each would have a segmented endowment. Most segments would be for purposes specified in deeds and these would be financed by private donations and bequests. There would be a final segment for general upkeep. This could be financed by private donations or by bond issues approved by referendum. The referenda would be held in the bloc of municipalities associated with a particular parishes. It could be placed on the ballot by a petition initiative or by a vote of the municipal councils in question (or the county council in question). If approved, the value to be issued would be apportioned among the municipalities in question. The bonds would be issued directly to the endowment and the trustees of the endowment could then rebalance the endowment’s portfolio with market transactions. The income from the endowment could pay for the services of a sexton and for mundane equipment. Discrete capital projects could also be financed by bond issues of this sort.

Time for services could be distributed to local Christian associations and to private families by the municipal clerk through a mix of procedures – auction, lottery, and first-come-first-served. The rectory could be rented out via public auction.

There could be a continuing Anglican association among the locals, with p/t or volunteer clergy and supervision by African bishops via local deans. There are continuing Anglican bodies in North America, some of which are in apostolic succession as Anglicans understand it, some not. The fragmentation of the continuing Anglican strand into tiny sectlets is an unedifying feature of that dispensation. They really should be able to cover the waterfront with two or three denominations.

Whew, for a minute there I thought you were talking about Lori Lightfoot.

Global warming. Global warming, and Trump.

I even saw deep purple crocus buds then.

I shall watch the progress.