Tsunami!

Old news, I know, but I have been reading "The Light That Failed: Reflections on Anglo-Catholicism in the Episcopal Church." The author lists "seven major causes of the tragedy." Once they have been enumerated, it becomes clear that the problem was simple: Kulturkampf. A house without foundations is swiftly wiped away in such a tsunami. It all was so relatively quick and neat, historically viewed: 1947 to 1984.

  1. Postwar exhaustion, passivity, and superficiality;
  2. Vatican II;
  3. The Sixties (1965-1975);
  4. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer;
  5. No episcopal leadership (= no schism);
  6. No intellectual leadership (= no scholarship and no teaching);
  7. No moral leadership (= nothing but laxity and a lack of personal holiness).

All in all, that's a pretty tall order. Again: Zeitgeist (1-3), mediocrity (4), and total lack of the requisite formation (5-7). In a word, Bildung.

Mein Kampf

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