I would only suggest that it might be more fruitful to look at it from the point of view of the letter of resignation itself: I had come to the realization long ago that that I have neither the personality nor the temperament for the position of Primate, a position I never sought nor desired. If we talk about this purely from the point of view of executive leadership, which I hate to do in a churchly context, running a national organization requires a lot of specific skills and a certain personality and temperament in addition to the virtues of a holy archpastor. Metropolitan Jonah had experience running a monastery, not running a diocese, and therefore had little chance to develop some of those skills. Holy archpastor, sure, he's got that down. He will be a valuable asset to the OCA for the next few decades, I'm sure. I don't know much about anything, but, from what little I've heard and what we've seen from the OCA, it seems plausible that we could take Metropolitan Jonah's statement here at face value rather than looking for hints of lavender or whatever.
Monday, July 09, 2012
Metropolitan Jonah Resigns.
Well, that is unfortunate. I can't pretend to know what's actually going on, nor will I speculate. Of course, the OCA Truth folks (Rod Dreher and Jesse Cone), who probably hurt more than helped Metropolitan Jonah when they wrote their slimy anonymous mud-slinging web-log, will bemoan this as a grave tragedy, evidence of the corruption of the OCA, and proof of the infiltration of a "lavender mafia" or something like that.
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6 comments:
Having made a name for himself investigating the Catholic Church scandal, Rod Dreher could not not attempt to reprise that personal glory as a convert in the OCA. You never want a serious crisis to go to waste, and Rod made sure Jonah's administrative shortcomings didn't.
I sincerely hope he doesn't. Dreher has already expressed regret that Metropolitan Jonah went out meekly rather than going out "like Samson". Hopefully the influence between Dreher and his ilk is unidirectional, because influence in the other way would not have done Metropolitan Jonah any favors. I don't think the OCA Truth web-log, for instance, made any situation any better. It might have made the people involved with the web-log and who sympathized with the web-log feel a little better, but that is not the basis we should use for judging something's worth.
You have given a balanced and intelligent thought on the matter, which is about as rare and elusive as the Tasmanian Tiger. Thank you, Mr. GZT.
Well, sure, it's a little balanced and intelligent, but it always is a little sad and pathetic if one has to talk about Church using "corporate" words and "management" crap like "leadership" and what-have-you. However, it's infinitely preferable to Dreher's rhetoric, as I'd rather believe the Synod is a bunch of guys trying to be good than they they are wicked conspirators dead set on railroading the last good man in the OCA because he dared offend, viz, the "lavender mafia" or whatever it is the OCATruthers say is going on.
As more comments roll in on the Dreher Jonah post with its picture of wolves and Mr. Dreher himself having struck through the Holy in Holy Synod, more and more references to a lavender or gay mafia are appearing.
What makes this even more odd, apart from most commenters being bewildered while a select focused few keep pushing the gay mafia line, is that Mr. Dreher's Wikipedia entry also zeroes in on his belief that a gay mafia was behind misdoings involved in his prior venture into church journalism in the Catholic priests scandal.
It almost seems that wherever Mr. Dreher opts to church himself, a mysterious, conspiratorial gay mafia he and only a select few others have inside information about somehow manages to precede him.
It would probably be too cynical to suggest that Mr. Dreher put up his post so far prior to Jonah's official announcement as an opportunity to remind us of his investigative journalism efforts in pursuit of the ubiquitous gay mafia, but there it is, it seems: wherever Dreher goes to church, the gay mafia can't be far ahead.
Sanely, against this background of ugly intrigue commenter JonF offers,
“Blame the gays” is the exact equivalent of the old “Blame the Jews” that once poisoned the ancestral cultures of the Orthodox. If I thought that I was in a Church that could only affirm itself by hating on others I would flee it this minute, and take up sacrificing chickens to Kybele and Lyg on Beltane and Samain.
Happily I still believe I am in God’s true church despite the sins and follies of its bishops. And this is because the sacraments bring me grace, which is what I seek from the Church– not a political correctedness of either a rightwing or leftwing bent.
I leave you with Christ’s words to his Apostles when they were fretting over some lesser matter or other: “What is it to you? Follow me!”
Amen.
Cool. do the exact same thing to Mr. Dreher that you accuse him of doing. Classic.
Meanwhile, bury your head in the sand while the OCA becomes the PCUSA, the ECUSA, or the ELCA.
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