Summer Ends, But Not the Doldrums

Things have gotten slack in the Anglican blogging world, so that the best I can observe about actual events is that the Diocese of New York coadjutor slate is made up of what seems to be the standard set of candidates for a liberal diocese these days:

• one white guy shaved bald (bonus points for the goatee)
• one white woman with an upper-crusty big hairdo
• one black guy (also covering the foreign-born slot)
• one lesbian
• one guy who actually looks like a traditional bishop candidate and happens to be a bishop now

It's hard to get excited about it: everyone except the last makes the ritual obeisance to the Spirit of Inclusion, so I would guess that the bishop will remain bishop of where he is now instead of being enthroned in Harlem. I assume if they elect the lesbian that the Stand Firm people will be briefly distracted from the string of neo-con/Libertarian political posts and will make their ritual denunciations, and that the diocese will move on to uncanonically marrying homosexuals out in the open instead of behind church doors (if indeed they are bothering to be so circumspect now). I cannot imagine in any case that much will change, no matter who is elected: numbers in the diocese will continue to decline as before, in a smog of upper-middle self-congratulation.

Meanwhile the ordinariate is receiving a second ECUSA parish. It is simply pitiful to hear the goings-on about this from the traddy Roman side, as though the influx of a small number of Continuing parishes is going to have any effect in the great sea of American liturgical indifference. It is at least encouraging to see new churches and renovations which pay any attention to artistic merit, but the level of churchmanship still seems stuck at "wham/bam/thank you--" well, not "ma'am" but you get the idea. About the only thing I can hope for is that the infection of RC liturgical notions can be halted.

Speaking of which: so here it is Sunday morning, and guitar and hymnal services have been combined for the summer, and the organist can't be there this week. So we sing one of the listed hymns and the doxology, unaccompanied, and then nerve is lost on the final hymn and it gets replaced with a Cursillo thing which most people don't know. And you know what? The congregation sings far more enthusiastically on the unaccompanied hymns than it does on the guitar songs. Now this was trending to an older crowd, but I'm going to guess that if the kids aren't singing the hymns, they aren't singing the guitar songs either.

And thus ends a rather rambling blog post.

On the Other Hand

If I came upon a service in which the "creed" which Bryan Owen quotes here was recited, I'd get up and walk out. Conspicuously.