Saturday, March 13, 2010

Do You Believe?


This is too funny not to post.

This mock ad was originally posted on Michael Liccione's blog Sacramentum Vitae It is a response to an interview in 2006 found in the New York Times with the very liberal and tolerant Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori, where she explains why her church is small and shrinking compared with certain others. The bottom line of the ad offers free birth control products to Catholics and Mormons.

NYT: How many members of the Episcopal Church are there in this country?

"About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children."

NYT: Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?

"No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion."


NYT: You’re actually Catholic by birth; your parents joined the Episcopal Church when you were 9. What led them to convert?

"It was before Vatican II had any influence in local parishes, and I think my parents were looking for a place where wrestling with questions was encouraged rather than discouraged. So, you see, it's a sign of their ignorance and heedlessness that Catholics and Mormons wax as Episcopalians wane. It's only to be expected that people who really know and care what life is about will refuse to replace themselves, and that people who neither know nor care will more than replace themselves. It's only natural that, in the end, the barbarians will have the field. And those who will have abandoned it should be proud of why they did."

Hmmm ... Barbarian evangelism through reproduction. These comments by Bishop Schori remind me of what a previous Episcopal Bishop, John Shelby Spong, has said about the church that I happened to quote in my thesis.

“The only churches that grow today [Evangelical, Catholic, etc] are those that do not, in fact, understand the issues and can therefore traffic in certainty … The churches that do attempt to interact with the emerging world [like the Episcopalian, United Church, etc] are … almost by definition, fuzzy, imprecise and relatively unappealing. They might claim to be honest but for the most part they have no real message.”

The certainty that I traffic in is the reality of the living Christ. I guess I do not really understand the issues [which is true enough], and am poorly educated [I continue to realize how little I know] and because I have children who still go to church now even though they are out of high school, I must a barbarian.

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