November 14, 2006
Sam
We should have known. Remembering our first bishop Sam Seabury’s day in the sun today reminds me how we got started so kaddywampus over here when we had to send him back in 1784 to get a kosher ordination from Scotland of all places.
Before that, the not-so-young American endeavor was being run by Standing Committees and doing rather well in spite. But we simply had to have (we thought) the apostolic succession even if we soon started treating it more like apostolic success. Ever since then, it’s been one lapse in the apse after another.
We’ve got a veritable zoo of primates out there all over the place now. Somebodies can’t even decide which one’s on first, and Sam’s probably rolling in his grave. It seems like a “my dad can whip your dad” sort of thing all over again. When Jesus said the kingdom’s like children, he meant childlike, not childish, but then it’s never been all that clear to some what he meant at all. Its taken the Jesus Seminar folk to straighten us out on that, and when the Dark Side gets around to them, the naves will get paved with anathemas, and it’ll look like the Vatican Two-step.
But be that as it may. Primatron Katharine could probably whup the lot of them with one crosier tied behind her back. After all, what did she say when asked how she’d respond when (not if) old Peter Akinola walked out of the room when she walked in? She said, Why, I’ll follow him and ask him how come he treats Christians so bad.
Sam Seabury might have liked that. I sure do.