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Showing posts from August, 2010

How long, O Lord? How long? Reflections on the trials of a Bishop

Those words from Habakkuk* strike me as profoundly and deeply descriptive of the battle royal currently taking place in Christian churches across the globe as the faithful attempt to deal with abusive behaviors within their midst. In my denomination, The Episcopal Church, issues of sexual exploitation first came to this priest's attention in the late 1980s during a conversation with a newly elected bishop who also was a classmate from seminary. A number of us sat in his living room after the consecration and listened to him relate some of the then startling information he was being taught by our church during "baby bishop" gatherings. My jaw dropped at the amount of data concerning the broad category of sexual exploitation which the church was teaching newly elected bishops even while those of us in charge of congregations had not a clue. It would be another several years before the church, in her wisdom, finally began to hold seminars for rank and file clergy on issu