Here is the slideshow of yesterday’s Sunday School class. We had a huge crowd at Holy Comforter with parishioners asking great questions.
If there is one thing I asked my parishioners to take away from the class, it was this lesson: today’s controversies concerning human sexuality should be read in the light of the greater crises the church has faced in the past three centuries.
We faced a crisis of identity after the War of Independence (because who wants to be English after we kicked them out?), we were torn into two churches during the Civil War (though reunited the same year the war ended), fought through the modernist and fundamentalist debate, and then clawed one another’s eyes out when it came to the ordination of women, Prayer Book revision, the Vietnam War, and Civil Rights. If we can make it through each one of those, then I pray that we can muddle our way through the present controversy.
Episcopal Church: Compromise & Cooperation
the rev. jimmy abbott 
Nice work Father.
Really nicely done, Jimmy!! Quick question about the book in the first frame… is it on a super-high intellectual level, or could a schlump like me benefit from reading it? I’ve always wanted a book that laid out the history of the church pretty clearly and without going way out in the stratosphere.
Hey Beth! The book is not crazy intellectual at all. I think it’s a really good history that covers everything at a basic level. There are some parts that are boring, so just skip over those! Plus, Dr. Prichard was my church history professor in seminary, so I trust him a lot.